NBRT Fails to Boot Laptop

I created NBRT on a USB flash drive attached to my Windows 8 laptop. The hard drive is partition with GPT and uses UEFI firmware.

 

NBRT will not boot my computer. How can I fix this?

 

Do you have your BIOS , or the UEFI equivilent set to boot from USB?

 

The download page for NBRT does not show support for Win 8. I'll see if I can find any updates on this.

 

 

 

Thanks for your reply.

 

USB drives are listed as the first boot device.

 

I have Windows 8 (Pro x64) installed on a desktop and a laptop. The NBRT USB drive boots fine on the desktop, but not on the laptop. I think the key difference is that the desktop uses MBR/BIOS while the laptop uses GPT/UEFI.

 

I don't use the same USB drive for both the desktop and the laptop. I created each MBRT USB drive on the respective computer.

 

Secure Boot is disabled on the laptop. Moreover, the NBRT USB drive created on the laptop has an EFI folder, so it's definitely built to boot from EFI boot mode. Yet, it doesn't boot the laptop.

I do not know anything about UEFI, so i'll have to leave that for others who do know.

 

Have you tried burning a CD/DVD to try to boot from that?

 

 

 

Hi Bulldoggy

There is a NBRT on the Norton product disc.

 

 

ATB

 

intesec

Try Peters suggestion first and see if you can boot it as a CD and access the GPT drives.  Booting between an optical disk and a flash drive is completly different with USB being more difficult, especially on a UEFI system.

 

But what exacly happens when you tried the flash drive, did it give you an error or simply skip it?

 

I have not used the NBRT in a long time but to the best of my knowledge it still uses windows pe based on windows 7 32bit.

You are not going to get a UEFI boot with 32bit windows.  I know the "EFI" folder is present on 32bit windows 7 installation disks but it simply does not work.

 

Dave


Bulldoggy wrote:

I created NBRT on a USB flash drive attached to my Windows 8 laptop. The hard drive is partition with GPT and uses UEFI firmware.

 

NBRT will not boot my computer. How can I fix this?

 


I did a Google on  [ GPT/UEFI boot to thumbdrive ] and certainly you are not alone ....

This long article on the Lenovo website might help  [What make and model is your laptop BTW?}

 

 

Prepare an usb thumb drive, to boot windows 7 or 8 in UEFI mode

 

although it is directed towards reinstalling WIndows and therefore it would not matter if data was lost but I think you may find the key to a solution is there ....

 

9.    Now restart your laptop, and enter your bios settings. Go to the boot settings, and set the computer to boot in UEFI only. Not both, not UEFI first, or legacy, BUT UEFI only. Save and restart.

 

 

 I don't know enough about the NBRT or the UEFI mode to know whether this is helpful or not but if all else fails ....

Wow - thanks for everyone's replies. I really appreciate it! I'll try to address everyone's thoughts here.

 

My desktop is the Dell Studio XPS 8100 dating way back to 2010. This computer shipped with the 64-bit version of Windows. Just last month (in September, 2013) I did a clean install of Windows 8 Pro. Windows 8 works perfectly. The desktop is partitioned with a MBR and uses the BIOS firmware.

 

The laptop is a Toshiba Satellite L955-S5370 that was purchased in December, 2012. This computer shipped with Windows 8. The laptop is partitioned with GPT and uses the UEFI firmware.

 

The key point of distinction, as we all surmise, is BIOS vs. UEFI. Booting a UEFI computer is no easy task, and that's the case whether you're booting a UFD (USB flash drive) or a CD/DVD. I've had plenty of trouble booting the laptop from a disc as well.

 

If NBRT is still based on WinPE 3.0, it's not going to boot a UEFI computer - as DaveH correctly stated - even if there's an EFI folder on the drive or disc. I know this from my experience trying to boot the laptop from other WinPE 3.0-based UFDs and disks. Recovery tools need to be based on WinPE 4.0 to boot in EFI mode. For example, the developers of my disk image software (Macrium Reflect) have a WinPE 4.0 recovery tool that boots the laptop with no trouble at all.

 

When I try to boot the laptop with NBRT (as well as other WinPE 3.0-based drives and disks), there are no error messages. The laptop reads the drive (I can see the activity light flashing) or disk (I can hear it spinning up) but then ignores it and goes on to boot from the hard disk.

 

I also know from experience that if I go into the laptop's UEFI and disable Secure Boot and then change the boot mode from EFI Boot to CSM I will be able to boot a WinPE 3.0-based boot drive or disc.

 

Which reminds me of a question I asked on a similar topic in this same forum almost 10 months ago: UEFI Recovery Disc Coming? If only I remembered that I would have saved us all a lot of time and trouble!

 

I appreciate everyone's help. Let's hope that Symantec comes up with a WinPE 4.0 version of NBRT soon. Windows 8 has been installed in new computers for almost a year, so what do you say, Symantec? It's time.

Thanks for coming back with the workaround.

 

I guess this is another example of the challenges for developers to try to be compatible with the millions of combinations of hardware and software available to computer users.

 

 

 

So what happens when you disable secure boot and enable CSM?

The NBRT boots, does it "see" the GPT partitions?

 

I never actually tried that and don't have a system setup that way right now.  I always booted a PE disk UEFI and never tired it the other way.

 

A Windows 7 64bit installation disk can be booted UEFI and installed UEFI so I'm not sure if it's correct to say a PE disk has to be 4.0, although I also have never seen one yet built on PE3.

 

A lot of that may be because it wasn't until Windows 8 and PE4.0 that people could easily build and licence one because the Windows OPK and AIK kits before that did not give options to build a 64bit PE image (I may be wrong on that one).

 

But regardless, a 64bit PE 4.0 disk that can boot UEFI has no 32bit emulation, it is unable to run anything but pure 64bit programs because there is no such thing as WOW 64 for a PE disk.

 

Symantec System Recovery 2013 was able to achive this by completly re-writing the program and all the tools on the recovery disk to be strict 64bits.  NIS, NAV, and 360, although they support 64bit operating systems are not entirely strict 64bit programs.  So until it gets to a point that at least the entire scanning engine is 64bits it's not going to be able to run on a 64bit PE disk.

 

So I guess I'm asking, is it really necessary?

Windows 7 32bit can use GPT partitions as data drives.  Although you have Windows 8 installed on GPT when booted to a PE 3.0 disk your operating system partition basically becomes a "data drive" because it has not booted as an operating system.

 

Dave

 

I was so curious I had to try it.

 

I installed windows 7 64 bit as UEFI because windows 8 annoys me.

I can verify it is installed as UEFI because diskpart shows the hidden MSR partition that is not visible in disk management.

 

The NBRT is now based on 32bit Windows 8.  (I did say it was quite a while since I used it last).

 

It does not support a UEFI boot, trying to do so shows a screen quickly before it skips and boots the hard drive.

However booting it in non UEFI mode works fine and I have no problems scanning the operating system partition.

 

It also does not seem to have anything to due with being PE 4.0,  I can access the drive just fine with a PE 2.0 disk.  (Vista based 32bit).

 

However the GPT drive I am using is less than 2.5TB, I'm unable to test it on a drive that large and know that larger drives can cause problems with older versions of PE.

 

Dave

 

 

Thank you for the continued interest in my question.

 

NBRT boots the computer in CSM mode.

 

I'm not blaming Symantec for not developing a version of NBRT based on WinPE 4.0. Their web site doesn't claim that NBRT is compatible with Windows 8. And Symantec is hardly the only organization that doesn't have a WinPE 4.0-based recovery disk. I  was just wondering out loud what is taking Symantec and so many other developers so long to do this.

 

I understand that Microsoft changed the licensing requirements for WinPE 4.0, so developers can no longer offer pre-made WinPE 4.0 recovery media. In fact, I had to build the recovery UFD myself for my disk image software (Macrium Reflect) by following instructions from the developer. I had to download the WADK, check for drivers, etc. Symantec sells its consumer software to people who know nothing about computers, so perhaps they are unwilling to try to teach these people how to build a NBRT.

 

Another thing: As someone mentioned, booting from a UFD is not a sure thing, because the firmware (BIOS or EFI) can't tell whether it's looking at a bootable drive or a data drive. With my Windows 8 desktop I can press F12 during boot and tell the BIOS to boot from a particular UFD. My Windows 8 laptop has no similar control, so I usually have to unplug all other USB devices before restarting the computer if I want it to boot from a UFD. Perhaps Symantec doesn't want to try to explain this to a helpless user base.

 

If anyone is deserving of blame, perhaps it's the people who decided to foist UEFI on an unsuspecting public.


Bulldoggy wrote:

If anyone is deserving of blame, perhaps it's the people who decided to foist UEFI on an unsuspecting public.


And Microsoft for pushing the big OEM's to install windows 8 that way.   I see no big advantage for smaller laptops that will never be using 4TB drives and multiple partitions.  They also overlooked the need for people that may want to dual boot or use bootable CD's.

 

Over at the Symantec forum there is a notice about MS not allowing them to license a prebuilt PE disk anymore and they are working on a "build it yourself" strategy for the next release.  I have not heard of the plans for NBRT but I assume they will also have to stop distributing the prebuilt PE as well and I agree that it's going to be very difficult for the Norton user base to do this unless it is made very easy to do for people that don't even know what a PE disk is.

 

I also remeber having to download the entire WAIK (1.7GB) just to get a couple imagex files to use.

They sure don't make things easy for us.

 

Personally, on my new desktop system I have secure boot turned off and compatibility mode set and use MBR drives for everything,

I like to dual boot and have no need for GPT drives.   My primary drives are small SSD's and I'm fine using 2TB data drives since I could install a total of 8 drives without an addon SATA card.

 

I like the OS to be in one partition and get rid of all the system reserved, microsoft reserved and that junk.

 

I know it would be a pain to change the BIOS settings each time you need to boot to a non UEFI CD but hopefully you don't need to do it often and hopefully soon laptop manufactures will provide a more robust boot menu like on desktops.

 

Dave