UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) is pre-installed on many ASUS laptops and may prevent you from booting from CD/DVD in Windows 7 or 8. Here’s a guide how you can make sure your DVD drive is listed again.
| Step | |
|---|---|
| 0 | Pre-Requisites: Know How To Access UEFI Bios |
| 1 | Disable Secure Boot & Reboot |
| 2 | Enable CSM Compatibility Module |
Why Do I Have To Enable CSM (Compatibility Support Module) To Boot From CD?
The questions begs to be asked: Why do you have to enable CSM in order boot from CD properly? CSM is basically a compatibility module that will treat your drives like a regular BIOS (non-UEFI) would and enforces backwards compatibility.
However, some manufacturers that use UEFI firmware disable CSM by default and enforce “Secure Boot” to protect you from malicious drives and 3rd-parties. The idea behind it is valid, but during everyday use this behaviour is tedious and is costing millions of users valuable time that could be spend more productively.
To fix the issue you have to perform multiple steps that would take beginners a long time:
1. Step Go into your BIOS
2. Step Disable Secure Boot, Save, Reboot
3. Step Enable CSM, Save, Reboot
4. Step Now boot from DVD
In a nutshell, Microsoft, ASUS and the other companies working on or with UEFI firmware may want to reconsider their stance on various UEFI features and should find common ground.
Pre-Requisites: How To Get Into Your UEFO BIOS
UEFI makes accessing the BIOS really tedious. If you’re lucky and you keep repeatedly hitting DEL during boot-up, you may get lucky and access it, but if that doesn’t work out because you’re too slow, you have to do it like this:
1. Step Hit CTRL and F and enter startup:
2. Step Open it and use the button at the very top below Advanced Startup that reads Restart Now
3. Step Doing so will boot straight into the advanced boot options that you also get when you restart while holding the SHIFT key.
4. Step Select The Options Troubleshoot:
5. Step Then use the button UEFI Firmware Settings to enter the UEFI BIOS-equivalent to manage boot options and boot security.
Step 1: Disable Secure Boot & Reboot
Ok, we’re now inside the UEFI BIOS.
6. Step Go to the tab Security. In some cases the labels will be called Authentication or similar.
7. Step Select Secure Boot, hit Enter and change to Disabled
8. Step Reboot and keep hitting DEL to enter BIOS. Yes, this step is mandatory, no way around it. If you boot into Windows accidentally, repeat the steps above to get into BIOS again
Step 2: Enable “Launch CSM” Boot Option
NOTE: If the option Launch CSM is greyed out, you need to repeat the steps 6-8 more carefully and don’t forget to leave the BIOS using the Save & Exit button or you are dismissing your settings.
9. Step Go to the tab Boot
10. Step Select the option Launch CSM and change it to Enabled
11. Use the option Save & Exit to reboot
12. You can now finally select a hard drive in your BIOS and boot from DVD
Conclusion
It’s a tedious process and UEFI is annoying millions of users world-wide. I’m all for security, but some UEFI features are overly protective and annoying.
After enabling CSM you will usually have a lot less problems with UEFI, so it should be enabled by default.
Only system administrators for larger networks may find Secure Boot beneficial, but home users rarely do, so it should be disabled by ASUS or whoever is responsible for UEFI firmware settings by default