But even when your system is capable of secure boot, you may still encounter the ‘unsupported secure boot’ state of the PC. Starting from the UEFI boot mode, there are some other check boxes you need to tick to make your computer enable the secure boot.
What Causes Unsupported Secure Boot On a PC?
With the launch of Windows 11, Microsoft made it mandatory for PCs to support secure boot before upgrading. It is to protect the integrity of software and processes, as the secure boot won’t allow a bogus copy of Windows to boot up.
How to Solve Unsupported Secure Boot Mode?
Most of the latest motherboards support UEFI boot mode. However, you can check if your PC supports UEFI or not. Make sure your does and continue with the fixes mentioned below to enable secure boot:
Change to UEFI Boot Mode
The first requirement to ensure a secure boot is to have a UEFI boot mode. If you still have legacy boot mode enabled on your PC, you will encounter an unsupported secure boot error. Let’s first check whether you have UEFI boot mode or the Legacy one. If Legacy is shown there, you will have to change your boot mode to UEFI from your system BIOS settings. To change your boot mode from legacy to UEFI, follow the:
Turn on Secure Boot from BIOS/UEFI
While changing the Boot Mode, you might have probably noticed the Secure Boot option around it. The BIOS/UEFI has control over Secure Boot mode. If it’s disabled in BIOS/UEFI, that’s equivalent to the unsupported error on Windows. Thus, you will have to enable Secure Boot mode in BIOS. Continue by entering BIOS and navigating to Boot Mode as in the above section. Or if it’s UEFI, the secure boot setting is generally located within the Security tab. Then, change the status to enabled for Secure Boot Mode and exit after saving. Now, check if the secured boot mode is supported or not after booting.
Convert MBR to GPT
Another must-required thing to enable secure boot mode is to have a GPT-styled boot sector on the boot drive, which is also a requirement for UEFI mode. Legacy BIOS uses an MBR partition style for the boot drivers. First, let’s check if you have an MBR or GPT-styled boot record by following: If it’s not as GUID Partition Table(GPT), then perform the following steps to convert it: These steps will allow you to convert MBR to GPT without reformatting if everything is in a sound state for the validation. Sometimes, this process might show errors that are mentioned in Microsoft’s MBR2GPT.EXE documentation. But, for other structural issues in the disk, you may have to reinstall Windows to convert MBR to GPT.
How to Bypass Secure Boot Requirement?
In case nothing above resolves the issue, or your hardware isn’t secure boot compatible, there’s still a way to install Windows 11 on your machine by bypassing the requirements. The process involves using free software called Rufus, which will help to create Windows 11 bypass installation media on a bootable USB drive. Note: We strongly don’t recommend the method because any official support and system stability aren’t guaranteed. But, if you are okay with it, we have a detailed article on bypassing secure boot.
title: “How To Fix Unsupported Secure Boot For Windows 11” ShowToc: true date: “2022-11-20” author: “Jason Heard”
But even when your system is capable of secure boot, you may still encounter the ‘unsupported secure boot’ state of the PC. Starting from the UEFI boot mode, there are some other check boxes you need to tick to make your computer enable the secure boot.
What Causes Unsupported Secure Boot On a PC?
With the launch of Windows 11, Microsoft made it mandatory for PCs to support secure boot before upgrading. It is to protect the integrity of software and processes, as the secure boot won’t allow a bogus copy of Windows to boot up.
How to Solve Unsupported Secure Boot Mode?
Most of the latest motherboards support UEFI boot mode. However, you can check if your PC supports UEFI or not. Make sure your does and continue with the fixes mentioned below to enable secure boot:
Change to UEFI Boot Mode
The first requirement to ensure a secure boot is to have a UEFI boot mode. If you still have legacy boot mode enabled on your PC, you will encounter an unsupported secure boot error. Let’s first check whether you have UEFI boot mode or the Legacy one. If Legacy is shown there, you will have to change your boot mode to UEFI from your system BIOS settings. To change your boot mode from legacy to UEFI, follow the:
Turn on Secure Boot from BIOS/UEFI
While changing the Boot Mode, you might have probably noticed the Secure Boot option around it. The BIOS/UEFI has control over Secure Boot mode. If it’s disabled in BIOS/UEFI, that’s equivalent to the unsupported error on Windows. Thus, you will have to enable Secure Boot mode in BIOS. Continue by entering BIOS and navigating to Boot Mode as in the above section. Or if it’s UEFI, the secure boot setting is generally located within the Security tab. Then, change the status to enabled for Secure Boot Mode and exit after saving. Now, check if the secured boot mode is supported or not after booting.
Convert MBR to GPT
Another must-required thing to enable secure boot mode is to have a GPT-styled boot sector on the boot drive, which is also a requirement for UEFI mode. Legacy BIOS uses an MBR partition style for the boot drivers. First, let’s check if you have an MBR or GPT-styled boot record by following: If it’s not as GUID Partition Table(GPT), then perform the following steps to convert it: These steps will allow you to convert MBR to GPT without reformatting if everything is in a sound state for the validation. Sometimes, this process might show errors that are mentioned in Microsoft’s MBR2GPT.EXE documentation. But, for other structural issues in the disk, you may have to reinstall Windows to convert MBR to GPT.
How to Bypass Secure Boot Requirement?
In case nothing above resolves the issue, or your hardware isn’t secure boot compatible, there’s still a way to install Windows 11 on your machine by bypassing the requirements. The process involves using free software called Rufus, which will help to create Windows 11 bypass installation media on a bootable USB drive. Note: We strongly don’t recommend the method because any official support and system stability aren’t guaranteed. But, if you are okay with it, we have a detailed article on bypassing secure boot.
