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I have an Acer Aspire M laptop, which comes preinstalled with Windows 8, so it has this new UEFI stuff.

To get the Ubuntu LiveDVD running, I had to disable the UEFI completely and switch to legacy BIOS mode. But after that I couldn't boot Win8 anymore.

In many questions here I read that ubuntu 12.04.2 works with EFI but not with Secure Boot. But since I can't disable just one, I'm pretty much in a dead end.

Also it seems that UEFI boots faster than legacy BIOS, so it would be nice if I could keep all this for both Windows and Ubuntu :\

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7 Answers 7

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Yes I found one answer that worked for me on my ACER. You have to set a bios password in you bios menus then you can disable the secure boot and keep uefi... Then you have to run boot repair and follow the instructions....

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  • This is the correct answer. Just set the password and you'll be able to disable secureboot immediately
    – phuclv
    Jan 10, 2017 at 13:58
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Set the "Supervisor Password" in the BIOS to remove the greying out (there is a total of five different kinds of password in some of the BIOSes):

  1. Hold down F2 during startup of the laptop to enter the BIOS.
  2. Select menu "Security" using the arrow keys.
  3. Select "Supervisor Password" using the arrow keys.
  4. Press Enter to get the dialog for setting the password.
  5. Type in a password and Enter.
  6. Retype in a password and Enter.
  7. Remember the password somehow! You will be prompted for it the next time you try to enter the BIOS.
  8. Press Enter to dismiss the dialog.
  9. Select "Boot" using the right arrow key.
  10. "Enabled" for "Secure Boot" is no longer greyed out (and can be changed to "Disabled")!
  11. Optional: Set the "Supervisor Password" back to empty.
  12. Select menu "Exit" and menu item "Exit Saving Changes" using the arrow keys. Press Enter for "Yes" in the prompt.
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Dual Boot Windows 8 and Ubuntu 13.04 on Acer TravelMate

I was at the same dead end: I could not disable secure boot in the UEFI-mode in the BIOS of an Acer Travelmate P253-E with pre-installed Windows 8. The Secure Boot option was just gray and could not be reached with up/down keys. With secure boot enabled, the attempt to install Ubuntu 13.04 from LiveCD ended with the message: "DVDRAM has been blocked by the current security policy"and I could not boot the LiveCD.

I tried a lot (set supervisor password in BIOS...) but in the end I guess the Windows 8 factory reset did it (described here: http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/windows/3443121/how-refresh-reset-windows-8/?pn=2). I did the "Clean drive fully" option, it took a whole night to run! After that I could change the Security Boot to "Disable" in the Boot Section of the UEFI-BIOS.

I installed Ubuntu 13.04 64bit with a LiveCD and chose the windows boot partition "fat32 EFI system partition boot" as "device for boot loader installation".

After installation, the Notebook booted directly to Windows 8. No chance to boot Ubuntu...

I booted Ubuntu 13.04 via my Ubuntu13.04 LiveCD and installed and run the Boot-Repair ("recommended repair") as described here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair

And this it is: Now booting the Notebook, gives me a screen on which I can choose to boot Ubuntu 13.04 or Win 8. With Ubuntu as default system, of course! :)

Hope I could help someone... Cheers!!

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  • Windows 8 factory reset... crazy! I gave up and installed win8 and ubuntu13.04 in legacy BIOS mode.
    – K..
    Jul 5, 2013 at 14:02
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It's usually possible to disable Secure Boot without disabling EFI support; however, the user interfaces in EFIs vary greatly from one system to another, so I can't provide step-by-step instructions for doing this. I recommend you peruse your firmware settings to find the relevant options and play with them.

Also, it was my understanding that 12.04.2 did support Secure Boot. 12.10 definitely does, and I assume that the new 13.04 does. Thus, you should be able to get Ubuntu installed with Secure Boot active. Even if 12.04.2 doesn't actually include Secure Boot support, trying 13.04 might be worthwhile. Admittedly it's not an LTS version, but given how new Secure Boot is and how quickly things are changing in this arena, giving up LTS may be the price you have to pay -- at least, to do it relatively easily.

If all else fails, you should be able to get it to work by creating your own Secure Boot medium. This is not an easy task, though. My Web page on Secure Boot covers the topic in moderate detail. In brief, you'd need to prepare a medium (a modified Ubuntu installer or a separate boot medium) that includes a pre-signed version of shim.efi or PreBootloader.efi and that launches a boot loader (ELILO, GRUB, or rEFInd) that in turn launches the Ubuntu installer's kernel and initrd file. You'd probably need to enroll keys or hashes for the boot loader and perhaps the kernel and initrd file to get this all working, too. This is not a task for a newbie, though; to get this to work, you'll need to be comfortable with boot loader/manager configuration files, kernel options, and so on.

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  • Thank you! Ok I got a new win8 installation going and left 30GB for Ubuntu. I will try to install 13.04 and call back :)
    – K..
    Apr 26, 2013 at 18:52
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  • yeah, probably its because of the fast boot of win8... wich also works with legacy. I switched to legacy and installed win8 like this.
    – K..
    Apr 27, 2013 at 12:44
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it says on a few websites to delete efi folder and then the cms mode will work but you need to re-install from either flash drive or windows disk

while windows is booting up press 0 key to go into recovery manager type these commands

diskpart
list disk
select disk 0
clean
exit
exit

This will wipe your hard drive clean no go back into the bios and you should see uefi and secure boot enabled, disable secure boot. now select cms and it will ask you to boot from disk, follow the on screen instructions to install windows.

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  • Could you maybe add the links to the websites you're referring to in order to improve your answer? So that OP is able to look at the source info
    – Daniel W.
    Mar 10, 2014 at 2:13
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Setting the password in BIOS/uefi worked for me also. After I could disable secure boot. The instructions are here: http://acer--uk.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/27071/~/how-to-enable-or-disable-secure-boot Also I noticed that afterwards it would skip straight to windows. I didn't need to use boot repair though. Just go back into bios/uefi and reorder the boot sequence. Mine was set to windows first and then 'Ubuntu' next, right below it. I just reversed this order. Finally on my Acer netbook I could not get to BIOS/uefi at all when starting up if I had shut down windows properly. The F2 button wouldn't work during start up unless I had manually shut down the computer by holding down the power key. Not sure why. Now everything is running smoothly and I have a dual boot Ubuntu windows 8 Acer netbook.

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