What Is UEFI and Legacy Standards? Differences Between UEFI, Legacy, BIOS

This guide explains UEFI and Legacy Standards? Differences Between UEFI, Legacy, BIOS, why it matters, how it works, and how to evaluate or use it in practical situations.

The following article will cover the concept of UEFI, Legacy, the difference between UEFI, Legacy BIOS and ways to test your computer using UEFI or Legacy BIOS.

1. Definition of UEFI and Legacy standards

Legacy BIOS and UEFI are both software interfaces that check the device's access and output, keep the computer functioning normally, and act as an interpreter between the Supported operating systems and the computer software when it is on. boots.

When booting the computer, the BIOS or UEFI will initialize the hardware components and initialize the Supported operating systems stored on the hard drive then the computer will be booted.

Legacy BIOS is often called the traditional BIOS (Basic Input Output system), was born in 1975 is a software stored on a chip on the motherboard of a computer and basically it is a set of instructions. run devices to boot the computer Supported operating systems.

When turning on the computer, the operation of Legacy is started, it helps to check the RAM and processor on your computer. Then check the devices attached to your computer such as printer, keyboard, mouse. and then check the boot options (booting CD-ROM, hard disk, LAN, etc.).

UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Inter) is an expansion software used to connect computer software to its Supported operating systems, UEFI was developed to address the weaknesses of Legacy BIOS, operate strongly and gradually replace. Legacy BIOS standard. Support for 64-bit versions of Windows and from Windows 8 and above has UEFI support with 32-bit versions.

Like Legacy BIOS, UEFI is also installed and the first program to run when the computer is turned on, it also checks the components, hardware devices, activate components and put them into operation with the Supported operating systems. onions.

2. Compare the differences between UEFI and Legacy BIOS

Legacy BIOS

UEFI

Born in 1975

New born since 2005

Slow booting speed

Fast booting speed

Does not support GPT standard hard drive

Supports both MBR and GPT hard drives

Only 16-bit processing and memory addressing is 1MB

Has 32-bit and 64-bit processing functions and lets users use more RAM to address more complex processing tasks. Moreover UEFI is designed with a separate structure and uses driver level for the components independently.

The MBR is limited to 4 primary partitions per drive and the bootable disk size is only at 2.2TB

UEFI uses the GUID partition table and uses Globally Unique ID to address partitions and allows booting hard drives up to 9.4 Zb.

Looking at the comparison table, you will clearly see the different characteristics of the two standards, Legacy BIOS and UEFI.

3. How to test your computer using UEFI or Legacy standards

Method 1: Use the msinfo32 command to open the System Information window.

Step 1 : Press Windows + R to open the Run dialog box, enter msinfo32 and click OK to open the System Information window .

Step 2 : In this window, go to the BIOS Mode section, if it is UEFI, then your computer is using UEFI standard, if it is Legacy, your computer will use Legacy standard.

Method 2: Use the cmd window of diskpart. exe

Step 1: Press the Windows + R combination to open the Run dialog box, enter diskpart and click OK to open the cmd window.

Step 2: Enter the list disk command and press Enter , a table containing a list of computer hard drives will appear.

Have you noticed the column 'Gpt', if the name of the hard drive in the Gpt column has an *, it means that the hard drive is running according to GPT standard, if there is no *, then the MBR standard. If using UEFI standard, the hard drive format is GPT and if using the Legacy standard, the hard drive format is MBR.

Hopefully, the article presented will help you answer questions about UEFI and Legacy BIOS so that you can make the right choice for your computer. Good luck!