Computers that still boot off the HD when told *NOT*  to. - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: IanMacdonald
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 27, 2018, 07:04:55 pm
content: A growing problem with new computers is that if you need to reinstall the OS, the damn thing won'treliablyboot from DVD or USB memory. The major problem here is that when it fails to boot off the selected media.. it then boots from the hard disk. Why, oh why, are thedamnthings designed like this?If an unintended HD boot happens when you're trying to wipe a possibly infected HD, then that means any media connected to the computer has to be regarded as suspect. I can't count the number of workshop DVD+Rs I've thrown away or USB keys I've had to format after this happening. Plus, there's the constant risk of overlooking one which did an uncommanded HD boot, and having our systems infected as a result.Somebody needs to get the designers of these systems sat down in front of a copy of 'Malware For Dummies' and make the read the thing from cover to cover. Then, give them a mighty kick in the pants.I keep an old Maxdata computer for wiping HDs precisely because it will boot reliably from DVD, and not 'fall through' to booting off the HD if the DVD fails to read or is a bit slow starting. Unfortunately to cap it all you now are faced with tablets where taking the HD out is a major pain, so that route is not always available.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 27, 2018, 07:10:02 pm
content: In some machines I have worked with the BIOS settings include both a boot device list and a boot priority order. If you remove devices from the list then I would expect the machine wouldn't try to boot from them. Apparently this is not a general feature.

author: IanMacdonald
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 27, 2018, 07:36:54 pm
content: Sometimes this doesn't stop booting off the HD anyway.

author: Kaziq
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 28, 2018, 07:29:56 pm
content: One of my old MBs had a very irritating manner of happily booting from any USB drive that was plugged in (and showing an error if it didn't contain any system), andnot even tryingto from the HDD that it was set to in BIOS in such case. There was no option to disable boot from USB.

author: Jeroen3
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2018, 08:05:43 pm
content: Quote from: blueskull on May 27, 2018, 07:48:56 pmYou need to turn on Legacy boot, or something along those lines.You're also out of luck with secure boot.

author: Circlotron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2018, 12:00:04 pm
content: Quote from: Kaziq on May 28, 2018, 07:29:56 pmI had a system like that.Left a USB drive plugged in at the back and forgot about it, didn't I?On bootup got the error message "NTLDR missing."Reinstalling Windows didn't fix it either.

author: Kleinstein
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2018, 12:38:36 pm
content: For large companies there are sometimes modified bios versions, that have a fixed boot priority. My brother got a few such used computers that did only boot from HD or a special network card - even if the bios setting showed boot from CD or USB. That was quite annoying on installation but a good security feature later.

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2018, 08:51:28 pm
content: If it's windows 10 that automatically sets itself to what Microsoft claims to be fast start up, which is a form of hibernation, as the computer is not really shut down it will never boot from a USB you need to untick the fast start up. A hell of a lot of problems people have with Win 10 is down to the fast start up as Microsoft even after all these years has not got hibernation right, one of my computers WiFi will never work after coming out of hibernation or fast start up but as I disable that as it actually slows down the start up it is not much of a worry to me.