BIOS vs UEFI? What's the difference?

Question

What is the difference? Is UEFI the "new" kind of BIOS for newer computers?
Or are they two different things? Also, is the MBR or GUID partition table related to these in any way?

Basic Input Output System

Unified Extensible Firmware Interface

Answer 1

UEFI helps a characteristic called Secure Boot that is planned, as the name recommends, to enhance security. It does this by obliging a computerized "signature" of boot loaders, which thus might as well oblige marking of parts, et cetera up the chain. This might as well make it harder for malware creators to embed their code into the preboot process, accordingly enhancing security. This sounds great, however it likewise confounds double boot setups, since code like GRUB and the Linux part must be agreed upon. The significant Linux circulation merchants are taking a shot at approaches to make these prerequisites to a lesser degree a trouble for normal Linux clients, and they've got some preparatory stuff primed. At the minute, however, incapacitating Secure Boot is the most effortless approach to manage it. This is a useful concern chiefly for brand-new workstations that ship with Windows 8, since Microsoft is obliging Secure Boot be empowered to get Windows 8 certificate. Some individuals befuddle UEFI and Secure Boot (the last is only one characteristic of the previous), however it merits say as a distinction between BIOS and UEFI since its bringing on a few issues for new Windows 8 machines. Assuming that you've got a more senior framework or are agreeable enough with firmware setup utilities to debilitate Secure Boot, this requirement not be a genuine issue.



Microsoft ties the boot circle's segment table sort to the firmware sort (MBR to BIOS; GPT to UEFI). Since MBR tops out at 2tib (expecting standard part sizes), this implies that UEFI is a pragmatic need to boot Windows on over-2tib circles. You can even now utilize such huge circles as information plates under Windows, however, and you can boot some non-Microsoft Oses, (for example, Linux and Freebsd) on enormous plates utilizing GPT under BIOS.

Answer 2

GUID Partition Table is only supported by UEFI on Windows and Mac systems. It's a more secure way of booting than the traditional MBR, you are far less likely to deal with rootkits in the MBR, for example, with a GPT setup.



UEFI allows the pre-boot environment to be far more extensive than the traditional BIOS environment given it contains drivers for components on the motherboard that BIOS can't handle. It is also CPU independent.

Answer 3

BIOS boots by reading the first sector on a hard disk and executing it; this boot sector in turn locates and runs additional code. The BIOS system is very limiting because of space constraints and because BIOS runs 16-bit code, whereas modern computers use 32-bit or 64-bit CPUs. By contrast, EFI (or UEFI, which is just EFI 2.x) boots by loading EFI program files (with .efi filename extensions) from a partition on the hard disk, known as the EFI System Partition (ESP). These EFI boot loader programs can take advantage of EFI boot services for things like reading files from the hard disk.

Answer 4

Uefi What Is