Windows Tablets

[help1]

Hi

I try to disable the "Secure Boot Mode Disable" on a W4 but its blanked out(e.g nothing to select) also I have set the supervisor password but still the same.

I am trying to install an encryption SW called Drivecrypt (e.g DCPP) and this SW says Boot must be from the DCPP partition, If I go to the bios "boot" options you can not select this e.g you can select "Windows Boot manager" USB HDD" and so on.

I guess by disabling secure boot, dcpp partition would apear. Anyway how do you disable "Secure Boot Mode Disable" on a W4 ?

/BR

Also in under Security, the options "Secure boot mode","Erase all secure bootsettings" and so on are blanked out

[help1]

Hi

I try to disable the "Secure Boot Mode Disable" on a W4 but its blanked out(e.g nothing to select) also I have set the supervisor password but still the same.

I am trying to install an encryption SW called Drivecrypt (e.g DCPP) and this SW says Boot must be from the DCPP partition, If I go to the bios "boot" options you can not select this e.g you can select "Windows Boot manager" USB HDD" and so on.

I guess by disabling secure boot, dcpp partition would apear. Anyway how do you disable "Secure Boot Mode Disable" on a W4 ?

/BR

Also in under Security, the options "Secure boot mode","Erase all secure bootsettings" and so on are blanked out

[Alan-London]

After setting the supervisor password you will be able to select 'Erase all Secure BootSettings'.
I suspect that this would disable secure boot however, I have no intention of trying this!

I am not familiar with DCPP but I would think once the 'erase' is complete, your software installation will be able to 'do its thing' with your primary partition.

Standard disclaimer here - you do this entirely at your own risk of course!

[help1]

Thanks for the reply

I have set the password and set "Secure boot" to enabled! (this gives me access to "Erase all boot settings"

Did that but "nothings happens",

I still have no option to select DCPP partition, still see same the bios "boot" options "Windows Boot manager" USB HDD" and so on.

On a stationary PC(win7) and UEFI i do not have this problems, e.g DCPP just works(and they state its compatible with win8)

[padgett]

Is the DCPP partition set to "Active/Boot". You should be able to see it from DiskMgmt.msc

[billsey]

I assume you havce their latest version... Have you asked them about UEFI support specifically? 'Supports Windows 8' could easily be 'as long as it's not using UEFI for booting'.

[padgett]

a) UEFI is a BIOS replacement, is OS agnostic.

b) UEFI only reports boot sectors with signatures that are in its library. At one point I was told that Acer only had two: Acer's and Microsoft's. Anything else would be ignored.

c) "Legacy mode" is part of the spec. Few bother to comply. Even fewer could tell if they did.

If motiviated I could just pull and disassemble the BIOS/UEFI code. All you need is the right software but frankly am more interested in rebuilding the seat in my car.

[billsey]

What I was assuming is the encryption software wants to encrypt the whole drive, replacing the existing boot loaders with a decryption loader and the boot loader encrypted. That would break UEFI pretty darn quickly... That's why I asked the question... If they're only supporting Windows 8 and 8.1 on older machines then there will be problem similar to what the original question asked.

[padgett]

Not necessarily and depends on the boot sequence but generally POST just checks for an active partition and loads the boot sector then checks for a recognised signature before proceeding. It may do this for any number of devices & present a choice It could perform some other checks but the intent in Clover Trail and Bay Trail is not to be secure but to make sure that only a OS capable of power management is loaded.

[help1]

Do I understand b) correct in that, that Acer only support boot from "Acer" & "Microsoft" certified boot sectors e.g. if other sw like DCPP adds a boot partition it will always be ignored. In that case DCPP will never work, because it will not be started from?

Support at Securestar (that makes DCPP) claims I need a keyboard to be able to select the DCPP boot partition, and since Tablet do not have physical keyboards I will never be able to select the DCPP partition. I do no really follow their explanation(sometimes their support can be "strange")? If this is true then DCPP will not work on any Tablet

I also tried to install Truecrypt but the sw said its not compatible

What I would like is to is to encrypt the whole disc

[billsey]

From what I understand you are correct, a custom boot partition will not work. Have you looked into BitLocker Drive Encryption? It doesn't require a custom boot block and comes free with Windows. Here is a page that explains it reasonably well...