diff --git a/drivers/watchdog/stm32_iwdg.c b/drivers/watchdog/stm32_iwdg.c
index a3a329011a06..25188d6bbe15 100644
--- a/drivers/watchdog/stm32_iwdg.c
+++ b/drivers/watchdog/stm32_iwdg.c
@@ -262,6 +262,24 @@ static int stm32_iwdg_probe(struct platform_device *pdev)
 	watchdog_set_nowayout(wdd, WATCHDOG_NOWAYOUT);
 	watchdog_init_timeout(wdd, 0, dev);
 
+	/*
+	 * In case of CONFIG_WATCHDOG_HANDLE_BOOT_ENABLED is set
+	 * (Means U-Boot/bootloaders leaves the watchdog running)
+	 * When we get here we should make a decision to prevent
+	 * any side effects before user space daemon will take care of it.
+	 * The best option, taking into consideration that there is no
+	 * way to read values back from hardware, is to enforce watchdog
+	 * being run with deterministic values.
+	 */
+	if (IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_WATCHDOG_HANDLE_BOOT_ENABLED)) {
+		ret = stm32_iwdg_start(wdd);
+		if (ret)
+			return ret;
+
+		/* Make sure the watchdog is serviced */
+		set_bit(WDOG_HW_RUNNING, &wdd->status);
+	}
+
 	ret = devm_watchdog_register_device(dev, wdd);
 	if (ret)
 		return ret;