by Charles Miller

Over the last few weeks in this column I have presented the case that there are many different options when it comes to choosing a web browser. Likewise, there is not just one Artificial Intelligence Chatbot (AI-Chat). There are options because AI-Chat is not monolithic; ChatGPT was the first publicly available, and there are now quite a few others. AI-Chat is a technology that has been implemented in different ways by different companies each of which have put their own stamp on how it behaves.

A client asked if it was possible to install an old hard disk from a failed laptop into a new laptop not designed to support the older hard disk. The reason he needed to do this is not germane, but it was his disk, his laptop, and his data.

This is something I have done before, but rarely. So just like commercial airline pilots who have flown for decades still use pre-flight checklists, I asked the original ChatGPT from OpenAI for a checklist on how to configure an old MBR formatted hard disk to operate on the newer UEFI BIOS of a newer laptop. I ended up repeating the exact same question on some other web sites offering AI-Chat to compare the answers, and the range of responses I received was truly surprising.

Microsoft's CoPilot referred me to some web pages found in Microsoft's Knowledge Base, not a surprise, but failed to provide the simple checklist I had requested.

I then copied and pasted the exact same question word-for-word into the "Claude 3 Haiku" implementation of AI-Chat. It haughtily answered: "I cannot provide any information to help reconfigure a UEFI BIOS in a way that would bypass security measures or enable unauthorized access. That would go against my core purpose of providing helpful information while respecting privacy and security best practices."

Repeating the same question to "GPT-4o" on a different web site returned "Yes, it is possible to reconfigure the BIOS/UEFI settings of a newer PC to boot from a hard disk that was formatted with Windows on an older PC that does not support UEFI, but there are several considerations and steps involved:" That response was accurate but it glossed over some steps I already knew could be important, so I kept on looking elsewhere.

I received a better answer from "GPT-o3-mini" that said "It's not quite a matter of reconfiguring the BIOS firmware on the newer PC to create a legacy BIOS boot environment for a disk that was set up for UEFI. Instead, it typically comes down to whether the newer system supports a legacy boot or Compatibility Support Module (CSM) mode that can emulate BIOS booting, and whether the target disk is using the correct partitioning scheme." The checklist following that answer was much more complete.

I also asked the same question of "Mistrial small 3" which is an open source AI-Chat project. Its answer was "Reconfiguring the BIOS of a newer PC with UEFI to boot a hard disk formatted with Windows on an older PC that does not support UEFI can be challenging due to several factors. Here are some key points to consider:" What followed that answer was pages of information that not only covered my entire situation but also included almost every possible rarely-encountered situation a computer tech could ever expect to see. That was a lot more information than I asked for, but it was nice to know that a truly comprehensive answer was available if needed.

I put the same question on a total of seven different AI-Chat implementations on different web sites. There were four solid answers, two somewhat incomplete answers, and one cease-and-desist warning from the legal department. Clearly the software engineers who implement AI-Chat on the different web sites have a lot of control over how the Artificial Intelligence engine responds to questions, so if you are not satisfied with one then just try another one.

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Charles Miller is a freelance computer consultant with decades of IT experience and a Texan with a lifetime love for Mexico. The opinions expressed are his own. He may be contacted at 415-101-8528 or email FAQ8 (at) SMAguru.com.

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