I have two identical machine configurations. Somehow one of the two is so badly fucked up by EFI boot that it still won't boot from anything other than the SSD or EFI. Even a bios reset won't fix it.

How do I even go about resetting EFI? I just need the thing to boot from the damn disk. (it's workstation grade mobo, has vPro and that other nonsense, I think it's a Q87 chipset)

*it recognizes the disk drive, it just won't list it as a boot option in any menu... Instead I see the SSD and two EFI boots that look identical. The other machine (identical setup entirely) had a clean OS wipe unlike this one and boots just fine from any media. It doesn't make sense. (this one just so happened to have the original HDD yanked because it was bad)

Broken gpt?

@stop bios level, even a CMOS reset won't reset UEFI. I'll try a bios update tomorrow, hopefully it'll wipe it, but it might not. If all else fails I'll just have to install the OS to disk using the either machine. Unfortunately that also means this machine won't ever be able to UEFI boot (on Windows, that's how you get under 4s boot times, it's also more secure).

Clear cmos by shorting jumper on the mobo

@provector "even a CMOS reset won't reset UEFI", or in the original rant "even a bios reset won't fix it". Please...

There is nothing online suggesting a fix for this. The closest is someone in some forums talking about a NVRAM reset inside a UEFI shell, but there's two issues with that — 1) I can't seem to get into a UEFI shell and 2) The guy seems to have bricked his mobo by doing this, he never responded with a solution.

@runfrodorun really!? I would have never thought to do this in the slightest chance.

All sarcasm aside, if UEFI and NVRAM sound like gibberish to you, please refrain on further instructions. I don't like being a record on repeat.

@Jop- it can only be done when the OS is installed with EFI boot and the mobo has UEFI enabled. Most OS installs treat it like a last resort and will even give nasty looking warnings against it. I have to use it because of my hardware - legacy boot won't recognize my PCIe SSD as a bootable device. And to top it all off, you have to disable legacy boot routines and enable some other features to make it boot that fast.

Think replacing the disks bootloader and mobo bios boot routine with firmware that already knows your hardwares boot configuration, complete with firmware layers that tell your mobo how to interface natively with hardware the bios may not support. While not entirely accurate, that's essentially the concept.

K i have a potential solution for you. Some bioses allow low level recovery. Yoi need to put rom on usb root stick it to powered off pc/laptop and turn it on while pressing some magic combination. Google it for your model. Id suggest flashing with th earliest version this way as well as with the latest. Of course if ur mobo even in laptop allows that. Most of the business models do. Gluck