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It's easy to Google Windows 8 password recovery tools. However, the PC I'm working on right now doesn't support legacy boot and can only boot from GPT partitioned USB sticks. I'm using Rufus for creating my bootable stick, but to boot in UEFI mode I have to burn a UEFI bootable ISO onto the stick. I can't find a UEFI bootable ISO around. Is there a sort of converter from normal ISO to a UEFI bootable one?

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  • I know of at least two UEFI-capable tools: SystemRescueCd (two guides, is a bit technical), and ophcrack (non-technical but may not work if your password is too complicated) (guide).
    – user10008
    Commented Sep 5, 2014 at 0:32
  • There is no open source off the shelf tool for doing what you want to do. If you have sufficient skills, you can add UEFI support to an existing ISO but it is not for the faint-hearted.
    – fpmurphy
    Commented Sep 5, 2014 at 1:06
  • Do you really mean USB flash disk in GPT style ? This means at least 3 partitions for a Windows system to be bootable (ESP + MS Reserved + Basic partition). Normally you format the USB with FAT32 and just copy over the contents of the ISO to make a bootable USB for UEFI.
    – snayob
    Commented Sep 5, 2014 at 14:58
  • If the ISO is UEFI bootable then it is normally prepared like so. Windows 8 isntaller is UEFI bootable. If a live system ISO is NOT UEFI bootable you will have to do a 'legacy boot'.
    – WikiWitz
    Commented Sep 6, 2014 at 14:52
  • If you select UEFI mode with GPT partition in Rufus it will automatically install EFI files in bootable media.
    – Biswapriyo
    Commented Jul 6, 2017 at 8:41

1 Answer 1

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Which ISO are you trying to boot in UEFI? Check if it has a file /boot/bootx64.efi or the like. If it does, then just follow @Snayob's comment.

A non-UEFI bootable ISO CAN be made into a UEFI bootable USB stick if it has the UEFI bootloader as a file. The presence of a file like this cannot however boot the CD/DVD itself because CD/DVD booting requires more than just a file. Not so for USB sticks.

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  • adding this file to the ISO indeed boots the USB stick however one would need to manually boot the kernel in the stick (which i find inconvenient)
    – WikiWitz
    Commented Sep 10, 2014 at 22:48
  • Not necessarily. The presence of a fallback boot loader at the path i specified should be enough. if it's not, your board has a bug.
    – Milind R
    Commented Sep 11, 2014 at 2:24

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