[Inspiron SE 7720] UEFI boot from USB drive does not work

Try going into Advanced Start-up Options.   Hold Shift key down while doing a RESTART while in Win 8.  This will get you to a page that will have an option called "Other Devices" (going by memory).    Choose it and you will have all the device options like USB. Give it a try first and I am sure there is a simpler way to boot Linus directly later.

I will describe whole process, it should answer all your questions :)

I have downloaded Arch hybrid(x86 & x86_64) ISO and made bootable USB of it.. Then I entered BIOS and turned on AHCI mode on SATA, turned on UEFI, turned on Legacy option ROM and turned off Secure boot. After save all settings, hit F12 and picked USB booting(had troubles with particular Kingston flash disk, I have created another one and that worked)..

After Arch x86_64 booted I have procceded with standar install Begginers guide and formated both disks with GPT partition table.On SSD(/dev/sdb) one 20GB ext4 partition and on HDD(/dev/sda) 512MB EFI partition, 90GB ntfs, 860GB ext4 for home, 200MB ext2 for logs and rest for Mac OS X.

fstab:

/dev/sdb1  /               noatime

/dev/sda1  /boot/efi

/dev/sda2  /windows

/dev/sda3  /home

/dev/sda4  /var/log

skip grub setup, all bootloaders stuff

so after general setup from begginers guide DONT REBOOT ARCH, STAY IN CHROOT MODE.

mkdir /boot/efi/EFI

mkdir /boot/efi/EFI/arch

cp /boot/vmlinuz-linux /boot/efi/EFI/arch/vmlinuz-arch.efi

cp /boot/initramfs-linux.img /boot/efi/EFI/arch/initramfs-arch.img

cp /boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img /boot/efi/EFI/arch/initramfs-arch-fallback.img

to make kernel copying automated after updates run next commands, create systemd service which watch for kernel and intitramfs update

echo "[Unit]

Description=Copy EFISTUB Kernel to UEFISYS Partition

[Path]

PathChanged=/boot/vmlinuz-linux

PathChanged=/boot/initramfs-linux.img

PathChanged=/boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img

[Install]

WantedBy=multi-user.target" > /usr/lib/systemd/system/efistub-update.path

echo "[Unit]

Description=Copy EFISTUB Kernel to UEFISYS Partition

[Service]

Type=oneshot

ExecStart=/bin/cp -f /boot/vmlinuz-linux /boot/efi/EFI/arch/vmlinuz-arch.efi

ExecStart=/bin/cp -f /boot/initramfs-linux.img /boot/efi/EFI/arch/initramfs-arch.img

ExecStart=/bin/cp -f /boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img /boot/efi/EFI/arch/initramfs-arch-fallback.img" > /usr/lib/systemd/system/efistub-update.service

systemctl enable efistub-update.path

Now, to be able to load efivars module, you have to boot in UEFI mode first, so now its time to temporary install refind and prepare first boot...

pacman -S refind-efi efibootmgr

mkdir -p /boot/efi/EFI/refind

cp /usr/lib/refind/refind_x64.efi /boot/efi/EFI/refind/

cp /usr/lib/refind/config/refind.conf /boot/efi/EFI/refind/

cp -r /usr/share/refind/icons /boot/efi/EFI/refind/icons

echo '"Boot to X"     "root=/dev/sdb1 ro rootfstype=ext4 add_efi_memmap"

"Boot to console"       "root=/dev/sdb1 ro rootfstype=ext4 systemd.unit=multi-user.target"' > /boot/efi/EFI/arch/refind_linux.conf

I have experienced issues when I have had UUID instead of /dev/sdb ... but it is up to you

Now you are ready to reboot system, open BIOS and Add UEFI entry, name it e.g. rEFInd, and path is /EFI/refind/refind_x64.efi, save it and boot it.

You shoul be able to boot arch fine now, but refind boot is slowing whole thing down :) So lets make our kernel bootable directly..

modprobe efivars

echo "root=/dev/sdb1 ro rootfstype=ext4 add_efi_memmap initrd=\\EFI\\arch\\initramfs-arch.img" | iconv -f ascii -t ucs2 | efibootmgr -c -g -d /dev/sda -p 1 -L "Arch Linux" -l '\EFI\arch\vmlinuz-arch.efi' -@ -

reboot and try F12 and pick "Arch Linux" ... should boot fine :) .. refind can be removed or kept, up to you...

Now you can safely install Windows on top of it, it will add new UEFI entry automatically and change boot priority, so after install Win you can change priority in BIOS to boot kernel directly or rEFInd ..

:) Is that enough?? :P

Than you can install Bumblebee and other stuff.. I was tweaking also other stuff and I hope I have picked backwards all related stuff you would need..

Alternatively there is option to build arch kernel with default config and setup env variable which compiles kernel startup parameters into the kernel and you could simply add Arch kernel from bios as UEFI entry, because it would not need parameters anymore.. I have tryed to build kernel on 7720 and it took 58 seconds :) If you do this, than there is no need to install refind and efibootmgr initialy and after first reboot boot into UEFI ready system... but I think that it does not worth it

I have also added to /boot/efi/EFI/shell UEFI Shell v2.0 :) it is handy when you have troubles ;) I have added it to UEFI via BIOS. it is more convenient than from efibootmgr, but possible only when you dont need to pass any extra arguments.

BTW I have this setup 2 weeks, several kernel updates, bublebee updates, windows updates, mac os x :D ... still everything fine, I didnt have to do anything special to fix stuff... only when you disable Legacy option ROM in BIOS your Windows might not boot...