Windows Unable to boot into BIOS (Win 10)

[Emrebel]

I haven’t accessed the BIOS in a while. I wanted to install Linux on a spare drive. I already have flashed the os installer on a USB drive (using Rufus).
However, I am unable to see the usb drive in boot menu and the system directly boots to Windows 10. To fix this I wanted access bios to check boot priority.
I see a prompt to press F2 to enter Bios but even after repeatedly pressing the key nothing happens.
This is the most confusing aspect for me that how come I cannot access bios.
I have tested the usb drive on other system and it boots into linux installer.

Any help/suggestions would be really helpful.

PS I have also tried disabling fast boot.

 

[Titokhan]

@Emrebel

Which motherboard is it? Regardless of the OEM UEFI implementation, you should be able to access the firmware interface via the "UEFI Firmware Settings" option after opting for an "Advanced startup" reboot.

Since you're eyeing for dual-booting anyway, I also suggest you to take a look at the rEFInd Boot Manager project. That way, you can get your hands on a highly advanced firmware-agnostic boot picker.

 

[Emrebel]

@Emrebel

Which motherboard is it? Regardless of the OEM UEFI implementation, you should be able to access the firmware interface via the "UEFI Firmware Settings" option after opting for an "Advanced startup" reboot.

Since you're eyeing for dual-booting anyway, I also suggest you to take a look at the rEFInd Boot Manager project. That way, you can get your hands on a highly advanced firmware-agnostic boot picker.

I have to check the board but I believe it’s

Intel DH67BL H67​

I have tried but the UEFI Firmware Settings is not there under advanced startup.

 

[Titokhan]

@Emrebel

Are you running the final 0163 BIOS revision for this motherboard? Intel's custom UEFI implementation was pretty wonky on 6 series chipsets, especially on older firmware builds.

Also, just to be sure, the Windows instance was installed in UEFI mode, right?

 

[retrophiliac]

Try F10/F12 instead of F2, which directly shows the boot menu and lets you choose the storage device you want to boot from. If it still doesn't work, then it must be a defective keyboard. You can also try resetting the CMOS if the issue persists with another keyboard.

 

[6pack]

Most new bios have secure boot and fast boot enabled on them so they directly boot into the operating system in seconds. So even if you kept the Function keys pressed during boot the pc would still boot into windows.

One shortcut method is to remove the boot drive or just remove the boot drive power+data cable. If it's a laptop remove the ssd. Without the os drive, the system will boot into the bios directly.

 

[vishalrao]

Did you create the USB with the right options in Rufus? Like it should be gpt uefi instead of bios mode I guess.

 

[gourav]

In Windows, Inside start, click power button, then hold shift and click on restart. It will give you the option to reboot into UEFI.

 

[Emrebel]

Did you create the USB with the right options in Rufus? Like it should be gpt uefi instead of bios mode I guess.

Yes I have tried Uefi (non-csm) mode.

In Windows, Inside start, click power button, then hold shift and click on restart. It will give you the option to reboot into UEFI.

I tried but it still doesn’t show UEFI settings
I have to try the other suggestions.

Yes I have tried Uefi (non-csm) mode.

I tried but it still doesn’t show UEFI settings
I have to try the other suggestions.

Just checked the motherboard is DZ68AF.
And Bios mode is UEFI.

 

[Mr.J]

Have you tried without any hard drive attached?

 

[tearphones]

you should be able to access the firmware interface via the "UEFI Firmware Settings" option after opting for an "Advanced startup" reboot.

I have tried but the UEFI Firmware Settings is not there under advanced startup.

Do you mean that you were able to enter the advanced startup menu of windows, but that did not show you an option to enter UEFI settings? (Even under Troubleshoot > Advanced Settings > UEFI)

 

[Emrebel]

Do you mean that you were able to enter the advanced startup menu of windows, but that did not show you an option to enter UEFI settings? (Even under Troubleshoot > Advanced Settings > UEFI)

yes

Have you tried without any hard drive attached?

I am yet to try that and resetting cmos

 

[calvin1719]

On the off chance, you're not using a keyboard with secondary functions on the fn keys right? If you locked these to the secondary function instead of f1, f2, etc. It may not be recognised as an f2 press when you're trying to enter bios.

 

[Titokhan]

@Emrebel

Thanks for the screenshot. The DZ68AF (and its sibling, the DZ68PL) only got the PLZ6810H.86A.0002 BIOS update, so you're indeed on the latest firmware.

As mentioned earlier, Intel's UEFI implementation was rather weird at that time, as they used a hybrid between Class 1 (UEFI with a CSM interface and no external UEFI interface) and Class 2 (UEFI with CSM and external UEFI interfaces). As a result, there's no way to switch to pure UEFI by turning off the CSM module altogether. Also, Secure Boot is completely absent from that generation of Intel firmware packages, IIRC.

In such scenarios, Windows RE won't give you the "UEFI Firmware Settings" option under "Advanced startup," as the bootloader can't properly understand the boot path. You can easily verify that by dumping the underlying raw boot entries from NVRAM using a program like Hasleo EasyUEFI.

Nonetheless, not registering the keyboard override is a weird behavior. I believe it has something to do with a faulty USB initialization routine, but there is no easy way to bypass it because of the lack of PS/2 ports. If you don't want to disconnect the existing boot drive just for the sake of accessing BIOS (the UEFI interface, to be precise), you can still give rEFInd a try (refer to my original post) as you should be able to install it directly from your Windows instance.

 

[Emrebel]

@Emrebel

Thanks for the screenshot. The DZ68AF (and its sibling, the DZ68PL) only got the PLZ6810H.86A.0002 BIOS update, so you're indeed on the latest firmware.

As mentioned earlier, Intel's UEFI implementation was rather weird at that time, as they used a hybrid between Class 1 (UEFI with a CSM interface and no external UEFI interface) and Class 2 (UEFI with CSM and external UEFI interfaces). As a result, there's no way to switch to pure UEFI by turning off the CSM module altogether. Also, Secure Boot is completely absent from that generation of Intel firmware packages, IIRC.

In such scenarios, Windows RE won't give you the "UEFI Firmware Settings" option under "Advanced startup," as the bootloader can't properly understand the boot path. You can easily verify that by dumping the underlying raw boot entries from NVRAM using a program like Hasleo EasyUEFI.

Nonetheless, not registering the keyboard override is a weird behavior. I believe it has something to do with a faulty USB initialization routine, but there is no easy way to bypass it because of the lack of PS/2 ports. If you don't want to disconnect the existing boot drive just for the sake of accessing BIOS (the UEFI interface, to be precise), you can still give rEFInd a try (refer to my original post) as you should be able to install it directly from your Windows instance.

Thank you for the detailed insights. For some reason I have missed the updates on this thread in my notifications.
I will take a look again at the settings. However, for now I don’t need to access bios and I am using the ssd as secondary drive on my pc.

On the off chance, you're not using a keyboard with secondary functions on the fn keys right? If you locked these to the secondary function instead of f1, f2, etc. It may not be recognised as an f2 press when you're trying to enter bios.

I have checked the key bindings default to f1,f2 since I am using it once booted into windows