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I see there are some workarounds on the internet that allow old PCs with BIOS to boot an UEFI image from USB flash to boot from NVMe SSD then.

Could the BIOS EEPROM on a motherboard be overwritten with UEFI so there is no need to use an additional USB flash?

Are there some traps?

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    No; You cannot replace BIOS with UEFI.
    – Ramhound
    Commented May 5, 2022 at 12:30
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    In theory maybe, depending on how inventive the manufacturer is. In practice though it requires intimate knowledge only easily available to a manufacturer who will have pretty much abandoned the platform (outside of software bugfixes) the moment it left the door for manufacturing. Others might be able to reverse engineer it with work, but is only easy on platforms where the manufacturer does not deviate much from reference designs.
    – Mokubai
    Commented May 5, 2022 at 13:45

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Theoretically? Sure, I don’t see why not.

Practically? No, because both BIOS and UEFI firmware is specific to your mainboard model and revision. The maker could do it. You cannot.

There’s also practical problems, especially concerning the flash ROM size. UEFI firmware is much larger and even modern mainboards sometimes have to drop their fancy UEFI setup because suddenly the updated CPU compatibility module requires that space.


The easiest solution is probably to use an internal USB flash drive, possibly a so-called Disk on Module.


See coreboot for a similar project; it aims to replace BIOS/UEFI firmware with the open source coreboot firmware. It is relatively well-documented and offers insight into the challenges encountered.

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