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Recently I downloaded tails os, and want to boot it from usb stick. My pc is running in uefi mode, and I heard that it's possible that windows 8.1 won't work after changing to legacy. How can I determine what's going to happen in my case, and if it won't work in legacy, will switching bios settings to uefi back make it work?

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Windows 8 and 8.1 will work regardless of if you're running in Legacy or UEFI mode. If you're interested, you can check which BIOS mode your computer is running in by following these instructions. You can learn about the differences between UEFI and Legacy BIOS modes by going to this superuser thread.

I think what you probably want to research, based on your question, is Secure Boot, which uses a UEFI to "...make sure that your PC boots using only firmware that is trusted by the manufacturer." If you're interested in disabling Secure Boot on your HP laptop, follow Option Three of these instructions.

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cody.codes
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Once Windows is installed in EFI mode, booting it in BIOS mode requires significant reconfiguration, and vice-versa; however, doing a one-time boot from an external medium should not cause disruption to your Windows installation, no matter what the external medium's boot mode. Note that in this context, you can repeat a "one-time boot" as often as you like; it's not as if the second or third boot will suddenly mess everything up.

That said, if you need to boot something in BIOS/CSM/legacy mode, you may need to adjust your firmware's settings. In particular, you may need to disable Secure Boot and/or enable your BIOS/CSM/legacy support. Unfortunately, the details of how to do these things vary from one machine to another. On some computers, enabling BIOS/CSM/legacy support may interfere with EFI-mode booting, but the change should be easily reversible.

I'm not all that familiar with Tails, but I seem to recall hearing of people booting it in EFI mode. This might entail adding an EFI-mode boot loader to the medium, but it can probably be done if you want to -- even with Secure Boot active, if you jump through the right hoops. Such a customization might be worth investigating, particularly if you find you need to adjust firmware options each time you switch what you want to boot.

Rod Smith
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