[u-u] How to brick your laptop

[Doug Lee]

Many commentors to this article claim that it is bad firmware design and 
that the EFI spec, if followed correctly, does not allow this to happen.
It is also pointed out that you may recover by re-programming the EEPROMS 
with an external programmer if the firmware files are available.
Another comment suggests that dual bios motherboards are not a cure as the 
variables may be stored in  a separate EEPROM. Someone suggests that MSI 
motherboards are particularly bad.

https://phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=UEFI-rm-root-directory

On Tue, 2 Feb 2016, Dan Astoorian wrote:

> On Tue, 02 Feb 2016 12:46:51 EST, "D'Arcy J.M. Cain" writes:
>> On Tue, 2 Feb 2016 10:51:32 -0500
>> arocker at Vex.Net wrote:
>>> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/02/delete_efivars_linux/
>>>
>>> A somewhat implausible scenario, but it's clearly happened.
>>
>> I'm having a hard time believing this one.  Linux may have some silly
>> designs but if you boot up a CD then what's on the disk can't matter
>> can it?  A brand new drive also does not have those files but you can
>> still install an OS on it.
>
> The problem appears to be that Linux exposes UEFI variables in the
> firmware using a pseudo-filesystem interface, and some BIOSes respond
> less gracefully than others to having all of their UEFI variables
> deleted.
>
> -- 
> Dan Astoorian, Systems Administrator
> Engineering Computing Facility
> University of Toronto
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