Welcome to the future. Ever since 2000, EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface) has struggled to replace the decades-old BIOS, and now, some 13 years later, it’s finally really here. More than ever before, new computers, laptops, notebooks, and other computing devices are being shipped that use an entirely new and very much different technology as the foundation that powers the actual hardware, sitting between your motherboard/CPU and the operating system.
EFI is pretty nifty and very powerful, and opens a lot of new and exciting possibilities for your computer. It lets Windows theoretically boot faster than ever before, and can protect your computer against malware and viruses thanks to enhanced security features like signed bootloaders. And for Windows users, EFI means GPT (GUID Partition Table) instead of MBR (Master Boot Record). Abbreviations got you confused? Don’t worry – it just means that your computer now supports hard disks that are bigger than ever before (more than 2TiB in size!).
But all this comes at a very heavy cost. Like we said, (U)EFI and GPT are radically different from what we had before. Naturally, this means that there are also fewer resources, tools, and utilities for dealing with this new technology; but today, all that changes.
We’re proud to introduce the latest version of our Windows Recovery Discs; as of version 4.1, Easy Recovery Essentials for Windows now has full and 100% complete support for the latest EFI machines running on GPT disks. To our knowledge, EasyRE is actually the first EFI repair product of its kind! It does what even Microsoft’s official setup and repair CDs can’t: when your EFI machine won’t boot to Windows, our recovery CDs will automatically search for defects in the EFI boot chain, reconfigure your GPT-based partitions as needed, and get you back into Windows!!
We’re excited to be at the forefront of this new technology, and hope to be there for PC users when their brand new PCs suddenly stop booting due to viruses, failed Windows Updates, buggy software, or sheer bad luck. Easy Recovery Essentials for Windows supports Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, as well as Server 2003, 2008, and 2012! EFI support is fully functional for Windows Vista/Server 2008 and above.
Download EFI Repair CDs for Windows
Is this relevant to EasyBCD 2.2? If so, what is the cost?
Hi Hollis,
The bootable recovery CDs are a standalone product, meant for use when you can’t even boot into Windows to run EasyBCD.
I am a bit confused by your terminology. “Repair CDs” imply a physical CD. I don’t know how to download a physical CD.
Moving on, my computer has 3 Vista systems on it’ on C, F and Z (an SSD). The boot disk was C. I tried to create an MBR and boot menu on Z. Easy BCD said it wrote it successfully, but I was never able to boot through it. I then updated the names and positions on the table and tried to write it back to the current system MBR. It warned me once that I was about to zero out the MBR, so I reload the system MBR, re-edited the entries saved/backed them up, and then clicked the red button to write the MBR. It said it did its task. However, it would not boot after that.
I have now had the local computer shop re-write the MBR on Z, and reset the links to the three operating system installations. Can you give me any idea where I went wrong and where in the user guide I should study?
Hollis, my strong guess is that what Mahmoud is offering and selling are ISO files, images of CDs or DVDs. You buy them from NeoSmart Technologies, download them and then “burn” (write) them onto blank CDs or DVDs. They should be bootable, and you should be saved!
To burn/write ISO files to CDs or DVDs, you can use either excellent Free ISO Burner (cf. http://www.freeisoburner.com/) or any commercial program, like Nero, having this capability. If you have Windows 7, this functionality/capability is built into the operating system itself, you will find an excellent review of all this options at http://www.wikihow.com/Burn-ISO-Files-to-DVD.
Yes, that is correct. We have a guide on burning the CDs at http://j.mp/ActiveIso or http://j.mp/ImgBurn with picture-by-picture steps/instructions.
EasyBCD don’t support GPT/UEFI.
It is MBR only 😀
Thanks, Phil. This is important to know.
Not exactly. EasyBCD supports Windows on (U)EFI (GPT) or BIOS (MBR) platforms just fine. However, advanced EasyBCD features that take place at the bootloader level (support for non-Windows operating systems, BIOS extender, etc) are blocked by Microsoft on EFI platforms. So EasyBCD works fine to manage Windows on UEFI, but limited past that.
Another very important piece of information! Thank you for it, Mahmoud!
hi friends
my laptop just run at UEFI and GPT
BUT “Easy Recovery Essentials” that i have downloaded it is run just at Legacy boot and in legasy boot my ssd not run
is there “Easy Recovery Essentials” image for uefi and gpt boot????
usb booting must be ntfs or fat32 , gpt or ntfs???
thnk u best regards
@ecsi EasyRE will boot in legacy mode but will repair both EFI/GPT and Legacy/MBR modes.
thank u @Mahmoud Al-Qudsi
in my case
my ssd m.2 plextor just run at efi/gpt and in legacy mode it hang and not boot anymore!!!! it must be on EFI/GPT ,JUST!!!! my ssd not shown on bios boot menu but in windows 10 enviroment it works and boot windows!!!!!
i am searching a way to create a efi boot support from your iso image, do u know the way?!
best regard MAN
Thanks for your blog with good explanation. I purchased Easy recovery Essentials yesterday and accordingly created a Boot USB.
My windows 10 is on Mac OS and I’m using Bootcamp for windows on Mac. Unfortunately, I can’t boot Windows from EasyRE Boot disk USB). It show Windows and when I select the disk it says it’s not a bootable disk. But I have another Windows 10 ISO disk on USB and using that USB I can boot up Windows 10. This USB show two disks: one as ‘Windows’ and the other as ‘EFI’. I can boot up from EFI. EasyRE doesn’t have EFI disk.
I’m really stuck. Can you help me resolving the issue.
Kind regards,
Mohammad Hasan