BIOS Mode: UEFI or Legacy

[ThoCoin]

Per your quote: " 

The first thing I need to know is how Windows 10 is installed on your PC.

BIOS Mode:  UEFI or Legacy.

Run the system information app and it will show you that info.

Whether or not Secure boot is enabled is not important."

My bios is set to Legacy. I have read instruction on how to change it.  It will requires me to re-instll windown 10 once the

changes are made.  My question is, where can I get a Window 10 to re-install once I make the changes. 

Do I need to have windown 10 setup on a USB drive in order to do this?  Can you show me how to do this?

Thanks in advance for your help.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

You are correct.

Before doing anything, back up any files you don't want to lose on to a portable hard drive for safekeeping.

You will need to reinstall W10 in UEFI mode so you can enable secure boot.

First use the Microsoft media creation tool from the link below to create a W10 64-bit USB installation flash drive.

Download Windows 10 (microsoft.com)

You will not need a product key to reinstall W10, as the key is encrypted in your PC's BIOS.

With Legacy mode enabled, you should see two sets of bootable device options when you boot from the W10 installation flash drive you made--(U)EFI and Legacy.

Boot from the (UEFI) USB flash drive and W10 will install in UEFI mode.

Then you should be able to turn the secure boot setting on in the BIOS.

To boot from the USB flash drive, have it in the USB port.

Turn on or restart the PC.

Immediately press/tap the ESC key to get the menu of options.

Select the F9 boot options menu and from that select the (U)EFI USB flash drive and press the Enter key.

After W10 has completed installing, you can install the drivers and available software from your notebook's support page.

HP Pavilion All-in-One - 24-b010 (Touch) Software and Driver Downloads | HP® Customer Support

There are many YouTube videos out there if you need more help with clean installing W10, such as this one.

Clean Install/ Reinstall Windows 10 - All Steps Included - Using a USB or DVD Installation Media - Y...

[ThoCoin]

Hi Paul,

Thank you for your reply. So does it means I will not be able to run any programs from the original BIOS (Legacy) from window 10 that I was using prior to the upgrade to window 11? Cloning the orginal window 10 (Legacy Bios) is useless, right? 

I surpose after upgrading to windown 11 (UEFI BIOS), every programs from window 10 (Legacy) will need to be re-install?

Thanks again for your reply.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

Yes, cloning the disk will just give you the same results.

Yes, you will have to do a complete clean install of W10 and reinstall all of your programs and files.

This is almost exactly the same procedure from switching from a 32-bit operating system to a 64-bit operating system.

Windows, programs and files must be reinstalled.

Everything will work the same afterward.

The only advantages of UEFI mode are:

You can install a drive larger than 2 TB and use it as a boot drive.

You can enable secure boot.

If neither of those things are important to you, there is no need to change anything.

You can even install W11 in Legacy mode, but you need to use a hardware check bypass method to do that.

See this discussion for how I upgraded PC's that did not meet the W11 hardware requirements to W11:

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Hardware-and-Upgrade-Questions/Issues-upgrading-to-windows-11...