var q WindowsVistaEspX86RecoveryDiscA BIOS to UEFI Transformation. Originally written 62. Im a technical writer and consultant specializing in Linux. This Web page is provided free of charge and with no annoying. I did take time to prepare it, and Web hosting does. If you find this Web page useful, please consider making a. Thanks Donate 1. Donate 2. 5. 0Donate 5. Donate 1. 0. 0. 0Donate another amount. Youve heard of the Extensible Firmware Interface EFI and the Unified. EFI UEFI, and youre curious. Perhaps youre even desperate You know. UEFI is the key to booting Windows on a disk larger than 2 Ti. B, but. your computer uses the old style Basic InputOutput System BIOS. Perhaps. youre in between Youre fed up with the Master Boot Record MBR. Windows to boot from a new GUID. Partition Table GPT disk on your BIOS based computer. In any of these. cases, you may be interested in exploring a way to turn a BIOS based. UEFI. This. article outlines how to do this, beginning with some background. Be aware that the tools and techniques I describe on this Web page are. The software might not work at all in fact, it. JavaScriptDHTMLXMLCSSAjaxJavaFlash JazzWorldMusic. The software works more reliably on Intel CPUs. AMD models. If you do get it working, its likely to be at the cost. It wont work as well as a real. UEFI based computer, so if youve got the cash, youre better off upgrading. UEFI. If it sounds like Im trying to. Following the advice on. Windows 10 Forums the biggest Windows 10 help and support forum, friendly help and many tutorials that will help you get the most out of Microsofts latest Operating. UpdateStar is compatible with Windows platforms. UpdateStar has been tested to meet all of the technical requirements to be compatible with Windows 10, 8. 1, Windows 8. If youre technically inclined. One final caveat Im a Linux person, and some of the preparatory tools. Linux. If you dont know Linux, you can. Linux. on an optical disc or USB flash drive I offer some specific. Bridging the Gap. UEFI is the next generation of firmware for PCs. Macs already use the. EFI, and most motherboards and computers. UEFIeven many that arent. UEFI, although they often use a BIOS compatibility. Some are even built with a BIOS core and use UEFI as an. If your computer is based on a true BIOS, though, how can you make it. UEFI based systemThe answer is to use a disk loaded UEFI. Developers UEFI Environment. DUET or sometimes UEFI DUET. This software is a real. UEFI implementation that can be booted like an OS from a. Once its in control, DUET provides typical UEFI. UEFI based boot loaders and OSes. This sounds straightforward. DUET has historically been used by UEFI developers its not. Most importantly, its available in source. Sourceforge Web page, but easy to install binary packages have been. In fact, even today, easy to. Download links for the. Preparing to Use DUET. DUET currently lacks support for common optical disc filesystems. ISO 9. 66. 0 and UDF. This doesnt prevent you from installing an OS. El Torito boot files to boot with DUET, and some may fail to boot. This is true of the Windows 7 installation disc. On some systems, DUET fails to detect optical discs, even if they. El Torito boot files or if youve loaded an. ISO 9. 66. 0 driver. This happens with the laptop computer on which I did. If you run into this problem. OS boot files to a USB flash. OS installation. DUET requires a series of boot loaders to boot. The software has. USB flash drives, but. Existing OS installations may not work if you try to boot them using. DUET or if you switch boot modes on a UEFI motherboard, for that. Some, such as Linux, can be fairly easily set up to boot. Others, such as Windows, have awkward conversion. Some computers dont work with DUET. Most importantly, its really. In fact, it doesnt start up properly even on some x. In tests on five x. I managed to get one. It may just be coincidence, but the two computers. Intel CPUs, whereas the two that worked. AMD CPUs. Many OSes have limited or no UEFI support. Windows can install pretty. UEFI, but support in Linux is spotty but improving. I. havent tried Free. BSD yet, but I understand its got pretty weak UEFI. Really, your best reason for running DUET is to use. Windows or a WindowsLinux dual boot. Hackintosh configurations are. I dont cover them here. Because of these limitations, I recommend proceeding slowly with DUET. Installing the software to a USB flash drive or a spare hard disk will. If it doesnt, you can. If DUET boots, you should do a test installation or. That way. if you run into problems, youll know what they are and can either learn. OS. installations. There are several ways to configure a computer to use DUET. You can. use it for some or all of your computers OSes. For instance, you might use. DUET to boot Windows from a GPT disk, but leave Linux booting in BIOS. GPT disk even on a BIOS based computer. You can boot DUET from a hard disk or from a USB flash drive. If you. use it to boot Windows, you should be aware that Windows must be installed. GPT disk when you use UEFI including DUETbut that may be. DUET If you have more than one disk, you can mix. GPT and MBR disks. So, are you ready to proceed Youll have to download several items. All. of them are open source software, with the exception of Windows if you. The list is SYSLINUXThis. DUET. You must. follow a few links from the main page to get to the download. The download package includes both source code and binaries. SYSLINUX resides in the MBR, meaning that its the first boot loader to. In fact, several other boot loaders can be substituted for. SYSLINUX, and if you want DUET to be just one method you use for. GRUB. The Managing the Boot Process section briefly. Boot. DuetThis is the second of two boot loaders youll. DUET. Boot. Duet installs in a partition boot record. PBRthat is, at the start of a disk partition. This link is a source code. The DUET package described next includes compiled. Boot. Duet binaries in its Boot. Sector subdirectory, so you dont really. Boot. Duet separately. That link is to a page with a binary build of the. Click the Download master as tar. This link also includes the Boot. Duet code and various. A working Linux installationThe instructions I provide. Linux. If you dont know much about Linux, youll. You can use a Linux emergency disc, such as Parted Magic,System Rescue CD, or RIP. Linux, to do the Linux specific tasks. I used version Parted Magic. Since then, the Parted. Magic maintainers have changed to a date based numbering scheme. Version 2. 01. 20. I write this revision is virtually. Web. page. Its also possible to install DUET without using Linux at. Linux only script. Without. duet install, youll need to read the documentation for. SYSLINUX, Boot. Duet, and DUET and install each package manually. At least one UEFI capable OSTheres not much point in. DUET unless youve got an OS to install on it. Among the. numerous Linux distributions Ive tried on DUET and real UEFI. Fedora has given me. Windows, as noted. UEFI system. Be sure to get a. OS, though. One of the limitations of UEFI is. OS. on a 6. 4 bit CPU and because there are few 3. UEFI implementations. OS vendors support UEFI installation in their. OSes. Certainly Microsoft doesnt. In addition to the software, youll need some hardware items A 6. Specifically, something that uses an. AMD6. 4 or EM6. 4T CPU. Most desktop and laptop PCs. OS disk spaceAt a minimum, youll need your computers main. Experimenting in this way is risky, though, so I recommend. A USB flash drive or similar external. DUET, which consumes only about. Mi. B, but if a preliminary test with DUET alone is successful. OS, and youll need more space for. USB flash drivesAlthough you can sometimes get by without. USB flash drives are very handy for holding your initial. DUET installations and perhaps for holding copies of your OS.