Change to 'Bios' will make for PCs that boot in seconds

[yowanvista]

The upgrade will spell the end for the 25-year-old PC start-up software known as Bios that initializes a machine so its operating system can get going.
The code was not intended to live nearly this long, and adapting it to modern PCs is one reason they take as long as they do to warm up.
Bios' replacement, known as UEFI, will predominate in new PCs by 2011.
The acronym stands for Unified Extensible Firmware Interface and is designed to be more flexible than its venerable predecessor.

BBC News - Change to 'Bios' will make for PCs that boot in seconds

 

[Gornot]

Amazing!
Thanks for the read, it sounds awesome to me

 

[24c]

Sounds like a great improvent.

 

[madtownidiot]

Unless I'm sorely misinformed, EFI is a HDD partition. In my experience with MACs, which have been using EFI and the GUID partition table for years, UEFI makes it much more difficult to replace a HDD, as the EFI image for the target system has to written the the HDD prior to installation. When the EFI partition is lost or corrupted, the entire system is rendered unusable. In other words once this happens, people who only have one computer will be no longer be able to reinstall an operating system on their own if they don't have a cloned HDD, in the case of total HDD failure. On the other hand, it does make for a more efficient boot time, and a much more visually appealing BIOS menu.

 

[alphanumeric]

"Short" and sweet, sounds like its "long" overdue.

 

[brianzion]

wicked read thanks for posting

 

[Joan Archer]

Just saw this in my RSS Feeds but was beaten to the post here.

 

[marsmimar]

Unless I'm sorely misinformed, EFI is a HDD partition. In my experience with MACs, which have been using EFI and the GUID partition table for years, UEFI makes it much more difficult to replace a HDD, as the EFI image for the target system has to written the the HDD prior to installation. When the EFI partition is lost or corrupted, the entire system is rendered unusable. In other words once this happens, people who only have one computer will be no longer be able to reinstall an operating system on their own if they don't have a cloned HDD, in the case of total HDD failure. On the other hand, it does make for a more efficient boot time, and a much more visually appealing BIOS menu.

Sorry for my ignorance/confusion, Dan. Are you saying a system image won't work and I'd need to keep an additional cloned HDD around the house in case the original crashes?

 

[Win7User512]

Unless I'm sorely misinformed, EFI is a HDD partition. In my experience with MACs, which have been using EFI and the GUID partition table for years, UEFI makes it much more difficult to replace a HDD, as the EFI image for the target system has to written the the HDD prior to installation. When the EFI partition is lost or corrupted, the entire system is rendered unusable. In other words once this happens, people who only have one computer will be no longer be able to reinstall an operating system on their own if they don't have a cloned HDD, in the case of total HDD failure. On the other hand, it does make for a more efficient boot time, and a much more visually appealing BIOS menu.

If that is the case, I'll keep my BIOS.

Edit: Here is an article from 2007 about Intel going to it and Apple's adoption of it.

http://apcmag.com/intel_to_make_major_uefi_announcement.htm

 

[madtownidiot]

Sorry for my ignorance/confusion, Dan. Are you saying a system image won't work and I'd need to keep an additional cloned HDD around the house in case the original crashes?

You would at the very least have to clone the EFI partition & use gParted or something similar to move it to the new HDD if you needed to replace a HDD. EFI will include a partition editor for setting up the HDD for the operating system, but my experience with EFI and MACs is that if the EFI partition becomes corrupted or accidentally erased, an OS (but not OS-X) can sometimes be installed using the DVD drive, but at the very least, none of the the hardware that isn't registered in CMOS will work, nor can it be enabled simply by and downloading and installing drivers. The other problem with EFI systems is that they can't be booted from USB unless it's a USB port that's integrated with the motherboard. It could be that MACs are deliberately designed that way, as Steve Jobs once said MACs will never be bootable from USB, but I think it's likely that he said that because there is no way to make it possible.

 

[FliGi7]

Unless I'm sorely misinformed, EFI is a HDD partition. In my experience with MACs, which have been using EFI and the GUID partition table for years, UEFI makes it much more difficult to replace a HDD, as the EFI image for the target system has to written the the HDD prior to installation. When the EFI partition is lost or corrupted, the entire system is rendered unusable. In other words once this happens, people who only have one computer will be no longer be able to reinstall an operating system on their own if they don't have a cloned HDD, in the case of total HDD failure. On the other hand, it does make for a more efficient boot time, and a much more visually appealing BIOS menu.

I don't see how a system would be rendered unusable simply because a hard drive was not bootable. I would imagine you would at least still be able to boot from a cd which could format and re-image the drive.

 

[madtownidiot]

The way EFI works is as an extension of BIOS. In EFI systems, there is still a BIOS that contains firmware for a bare minimum set of components like the HDD, integrated video & sound, LAN, and sometimes the optical drive & wireless, but all of the firmware for the rest of the motherboard, USB, and any PCI cards are stored in the EFI partition and loaded into memory before the OS can boot. If you lose the EFI partition and can't get a replacement from the manufacturer, there is no way to get the system working again

 

[FliGi7]

If there is still a BIOS that contains firmware for a bare minimum set of components needed to boot, then why wouldn't it be able to boot?

 

[marsmimar]

Sorry for my ignorance/confusion, Dan. Are you saying a system image won't work and I'd need to keep an additional cloned HDD around the house in case the original crashes?

You would at the very least have to clone the EFI partition & use gParted or something similar to move it to the new HDD if you needed to replace a HDD. EFI will include a partition editor for setting up the HDD for the operating system, but my experience with EFI and MACs is that if the EFI partition becomes corrupted or accidentally erased, an OS (but not OS-X) can sometimes be installed using the DVD drive, but at the very least, none of the the hardware that isn't registered in CMOS will work, nor can it be enabled simply by and downloading and installing drivers. The other problem with EFI systems is that they can't be booted from USB unless it's a USB port that's integrated with the motherboard. It could be that MACs are deliberately designed that way, as Steve Jobs once said MACs will never be bootable from USB, but I think it's likely that he said that because there is no way to make it possible.

Really appreciate the added info. Thank you!

 

[Tepid]

With my limited experience of fixing Macbooks and others. I am not sure that madtownidiot entirely right. I have not messed with Mac's in a long time, but we always could take a PC laptop drive and drop it in a Mac and reload the system by popping in the disk and booting it, and installing it.

I am not as familiar with it as I would like, but, if the BIOS changes,
they will create a way to recover without issue. Weather it be part of the OS Install or whatnot.

however, this could change things. But let's face it. With PC's if there is a will, there will be a way.

Right now in development is a BartPE style Win7 project, that is not a part of Winbuilder.
It works, and is getting better. You will know it when you find it, if you go looking.

 

[madtownidiot]

You might be able to get it to boot, if the optical drive controller was included, but without the EFI, none of the components that aren't managed by the original BIOS can be made to work. It might be that it's only true with macs, but what I foresee is computer manufacturers using EFI as a means to lock down computers to their original configuration, preventing users from being able to upgrade their system on their own or install a different operating system, and give them no choice but to use only a manufacturer approved service center for any maintenance or upgrades.

 

[FliGi7]

Interesting. Thanks for the input. I'd like to see how this all pans out, if this is the case or not.

 

[Tepid]

Well I fully agree, that would suck, I would avoid buying one and recommend no else do so either.

 

[madtownidiot]

I've seen a few macs recently, Every one of them required a system specific OS install disk that wouldn't work on any other model.

 

[Colonel Travis]

In other words once this happens, people who only have one computer will be no longer be able to reinstall an operating system on their own if they don't have a cloned HDD, in the case of total HDD failure.

Not true.