Dell Inspiron SE 7720 :: UEFI Boot From USB Drive Is Not Working
Feb 15, 2013
I have just purchased a Dell Inspiron 17R Special Edition 7720. It came with a preinstalled Windows 8 (so 64-bit and mandatory UEFI boot). I want to use Linux (more specifically, Archlinux) for work and Windows for games, so dual boot is needed.
I almost completed the Linux installation except for the bootloader: I need to boot Linux from UEFI and didn't manage to do it so far. Here is what I did after I received the PC:
-Disabled Secure Boot; updated BIOS to version A12
-Resized the main Windows partition and created a few partitions for Linux;
-Switched to legacy boot mode and managed to boot a MBR-bootable Arch linux installation USB drive;
-Installed most of the system switched back to UEFI boot mode, Secure Boot off.
At this time I needed to boot the kernel from UEFI for the bootloader installation program to have mandatory access to the EFI environment variables. So I created an UEFI-bootable Archlinux installation USB drive (with a FAT partition) but so far I couldn't manage to successfully boot this drive from UEFI instead of Windows 8.
I think I really tried every single combination, such as:
different USB ports; different boot entries created with F2 boot setup, with different parameters; different orders for the boot entries; hit my boot entries directly within F12 boot menu.
No matter what, in UEFI mode the system always boots the Windows partition.
Also, I could not find any relevant manual or software documentation about the A12 BIOS on the Dell site, did I miss something?
The solution that the user described in this thread to UEFI-boot to a DVD did not work for me with a USB drive.
I've finally managed to find someone to replace my optical drive with an SSD (wouldn't want to void the warranty, do we?) and I've got quite bit of a problem here. After installing Windows 8 on the SSD, I get the error "winload.exe missing or corrupted" and error code 0xc000000e. The installer automatically put the boot data on the original HDD, while the OS is on the SSD - and it seems the UEFI can't find the OS like this.
The OS itself seems to be intact, since pressing F12 at booting and selecting Hard Drive starts the computer normally.
I've tried to move the boot sector to the SSD, but it seems I'm missing something... Would a BIOS update maybe work with this?
I purchased a Dell 7720 (contains 2 1TB HDD's) after speaking to Dell technical support who reassured me that when I install an mSATA drive, it is possible to install the OS on the drive and use it as the primary boot device.
So I received my 7720, plugged in the mSATA drive and cloned the OS partition to the drive. When I restarted the machine, behold... it is not in the list of bootable drives, however it has been recognized as an mSATA drive. After messing around with the BIOS for 30 minutes, I am unable to get it to be a bootable device.
I have a dell 7720 laptop, which I would like the Windows 7 install on a SSD msata. I set UEFI, everything is OK, it loads the installer, run the install halfway, and it's the first reboot, the BIOS can not find the half-installed Windows, and start over again ... I have tried everything, I have the BIOS is re-installed. Windows 8 is also doing the same.
The funny part about it the same way I did two months ago and everything was fine, the machine worked, I just wanted to make Windows 7 the next and 8 easyBCD replaced with the sequence, and then he died doing it every since.
Maybe this program (easyBCD) I reached into the BIOS to do a bios update bios reset and not restore? If you do not install uefi, but then a traditional HDD for no reason, and the SSD is not uefi does not work.
I think the BIOS is going to be something, because I see the following installation to set up the UEFI, and partition, but the BIOS does not recognize (ran half the installation and over again to start because UEFI boot is not displayed you installed.) If you set it that boot device is added, it will print that you can not find a file system, but if I turn off the traditional boot then you will find the first installed unfinished Windows, you add the boot list, and then I went to the BIOS settings, restart, and again, you do not see your operating system. (none of what I just set it boot list)....
I just received my XPS 15 and plan on dual-booting Win 7 and Ubuntu. I'm trying to install both, but I have no disk drive boot option in UEFI mode, only in legacy mode.
I received my Dell Inspiron 15R - 5520 laptop and am attempting to set it up to perform a UEFI boot to a Windows 7 (64 bit) installation. I am using bios version A11 which is the latest available.
If I use legacy, I am able to boot fine to the Installation DVD and install/use the system. If I use UEFI (non-secure boot), it will freeze during the boot process for a long period of time. I do not ever get to the GUI to attempt installation. I have tried clearing the disk partitions using diskpart -> clean to ensure it is not due to having GPT vs MBR and have also tried changing the SATA adapter to ATA vs AHCI.
Alternately, I am able to boot to, and install Windows 8 RTM in UEFI mode.
Before I get a lot of responses of "Don't use UEFI", the reason I purchased this laptop was for the purpose of dual booting between windows 8 and windows 7 for development purposes, and require the use of secureboot to properly test the software I am developing. If this laptop is not able to run Windows 7 in UEFI mode, I will need to return it and select an alternate vendor.
I purchased my laptop a little over 2 weeks ago. After the first week I noticed that when I turn it on the dell logo will come on and then immediately go to a black screen. At that point I have to power off the back on and it boots normally. I flashed the BIOS to the A11 update but the didn't fix the issue.
Brand new Dell Inspiron 17R SE has started to switch off in a few seconds after I hit the start button. I tried going into setup using the F2 key and just doing that and exiting without saving allowed me to restart yesterday. Today, that didn't work. I had to go to Boot Options F12 and I tried randomly changing secure boot to ON and then exiting by discarding changes. That worked. I don't want to be doing this everyday.
Dell Inspiron 7720 (17R SE) approx 2 years old, just started having problems about a week ago when turning on the computer. LEDs flash and dell quickset buttons light up; but then process just dies, screen is black and only the LEDs by the power symbol and on power buttons are lit, never reaches the Dell logo screen, no fan sounds or anything.
At first, hitting the power button to turn off then back on and the second time the boot process would work. Then it failed to do that, so I had to remove the battery, pull the power cord and hold the power button down for 30 sec's, and then it would boot normal. Now even that does not work, just have to keep powering down and re-powering and after a random number of times, 10-30 it finally boots normal, every once in while it will work first try. It seems to be getting worse.
I have used the Dell Diagnostic on boot (though it took many tries to get into the ePSA, that did not detect any problems. When I use the Dell Support Advanced, no problems detected, and I specifically rand the Motherboard (which included CMOS test) and those did not find any problems.
If I put the computer in sleep, it comes back fine. It is only when I shut down, laptop just will not boot until I hit power on (fail) / power off repeatedly until finally, as if by luck it works fine.
I have an Inspiron 17R SE 7720 running Windows 7 64-bit Pro which has been working fine, but I was thinking about getting an mSata flash drive to cache the hard disk, and reading on this forum discovered that my A01 bios version wasn't up to the job, so tried to update the bios tonight.
I downloaded the 7720A12.exe from the Dell site but wanted to backup my bios first. Again searching this forum, I saw a post that said there was a backup option when running the exe. Wrong.
Running it from within windows it immediately said it was going to reboot (I wasn't given an option!). My laptop powered down as if doing a restart, but immediately hung.
There was nothing but blackness on the screen, no text, no beeps. It appeared to be stuck in a boot cycle, as the screen back light was coming on, and off, and on, and off etc, for 10 minutes straight.
I powered down and powered up and I get the dell logo and can enter the bios setup, but after that, no matter what I do, I get a dos based "BOOT MENU" with just these options on:
Network Boot <- does nothing except messes up the display of this menu Setup <- loads the bios settings Diagnostics <- runs a diagnostic program which tests the hardware and reports all tests pass Change boot mode setting <- does nothing except messes up the display of this menu
I can't get passed this menu.
I've tried booting from a DVD - both a Windows 7 installation disk, and the Dell recovery DVD I created when I first got the laptop, neither DVD boots, and apart from buzzing the DVD drive, don't have any effect at all.
Both disks have been tested in another Inspiron laptop I have, and I also set the boot priority order in the bios so that DVD is the first item in the list.
I've also tried a bootable USB stick, but no joy there either. The light on the stick shows it's being accessed, but I still end up at the Boot Menu above.
I bought a recent Inspiron 7720 laptop, with Win8 pre-installed. It seemed to be installing some updates, when it shut down(with them having installed only 35%). When I attempt to power on, it passed the Dell logo screen, then sticks FOREVER (doesnt load the w8OS apparently). I tried the battery out-in trick - doesn't work.
If I press F2, it guides me to BIOS (Phoenix A10) Disabling secure boot and starting Legacy mode has NO IMPACT WHATSOEVER, exactly the smae startup issues but without the "F12 Boot Option)
If I press F12 during logo screen, it takes me to "F12 Boot Options", which is a black screen with an empty progress bar in the middle(apparently this should have the option to run a PSA diagnostic but it DOESNT SHOW ANYTHING!)....
My mums computer has ended up in a Black screen "Preparing automatic repair" loop and therefore will not boot :(
None of the repair options work from the boot options etc, so I need the OEM win 8.0 installation disk, so that I can at least boot to safe mode and maybe correct from there once out of the boot loop.
Just bought an Inspiron 17R SE 7720 with a 32gb SSD. Started it up today and completed the 'setting up windows' bit. Opened up 'Intel Rapid Storage Technology' and it can see both of my 750gb HDD, and the 32gb SSD but there is no 'accelerate' tab available.
Incidentally, when I click on My Computer, I can also see both 750gb HDD and 32 GB SSD- i though the latter was not supposed to be visible here. Under 'Computer management' the SSD has an 8gb 'Hibernation' partition and a second usable partition.
Having read numerous posts about this already, I have checked in the Bios that Intel Smart storage is already selected.
Everyone: Absolutely cannot boot from CD-DVD even if I turn OFF Secure Boot and UEFI and my machine lists my CD-DVD as a boot option. When I then try to boot from the CD-DVD, I get an error message. (Optiplex 7010 Mini-Tower with Win 8 Pro 64-bit, an Intel i5 3470 processor, 8 GB RAM and 500 GB hard drive. It has BIOS version A16 right now.)
I started a thread on this issue in Desktop Hardware Forum - [URL]...
I'm having getting my USB stick recognized as a bootable device (installing windows 7 onto a system that came with windows 8.1 pre-installed, no optical drive)
System: Acer E 15 (E5-571), BIOS V1.15 (UEFI)
What I've tried:-Disabled Secure Boot -Created bootable USB stick with Windows 7 iso, via 'Microsoft USB/DVD Download Tool' (on alternate Windows 7 system) -Created bootable USB stick with Windows 7 iso, via 'Rufus' (on alternate Windows 7 system) -Windows 8.1 Advanced Restart -> Boot from UEFI USB Device (No UEFI device recognized)
What worked:-Enabling 'Legacy Boot Mode': USB stick was recognized upon boot and loaded Windows Installation. HOWEVER, Windows 7 won't instal to a GPT formatted drive under Legacy Boot Mode. I've read booting in UEFI mode is the only way to get Windows 7 to install onto GPT.
What I don't want to do:-Format the drive, change drive mode to MBR to instal Windows 7. Why? Because then I'd loose the factory installation of Windows 8.1
I have a new dell latitude 6510 notebook and now i will install Windows 7 Pro 32 Bit again. When selected "Boot List Option" under bios settings i see legacy and uefi but i can´t "Add Boot Options" - Warning "File System not Found". Windows 7 Pro 32 Bit is installed and working under legacy but not working on uefi. When uefi selcted windows 7 pro 32 Bit is installed and when installation is finish can´t find bootable device.
My Lenovo U430 touch came with a Samsung 128GB SSD. Since it was becoming a little on the small side, I decided to replace it with a Samsung EVO 250GB SSD.
My first thought was to clone the old SSD and then resize the partitions afterwards. I quickly ran into trouble, the cloning didn't work out. So I decided to begin from scratch. So I installed the new SSD and installed a bare Windows 8.1 Pro install.
Although everythings works one thing is still bugging me. For the new Samsung SSD to be bootable I must:
- Disable Secure Boot - Enable Legacy booting
I thought all the necessary codes were a BIOS / OS thing?
My notebook pc is installed with Windows 8.1 and i would like to dual boot it with Windows 7 using a cd but when i try it ,there is an error saying windows cannot be installed in the selected partitions as it is of GPT format.
Yesterday I flashed the firmware of my XPS L702X to version A19, which enabled UEFI boot mode. I decided to go ahead and try to install Windows 7 in UEFI mode on a GPT disk. Installation succeeded, booting failed however. Then I read a message on the web from someone who succesfully installed Windows 8 on the same machine in UEFI boot mode on a GPT disk. So I decided to try Windows 8 instead. Installation failed. Using the recovery menu from the Windows 8 installation media, I wanted to try and see how far installation had come and more or less accidentally selected in some "Advanced options" menu to reboot to my USB flash drive (where the Windows 8 files were on). Rebooted fine. Then I shutdown, using the regular option.
When I turned on my machine again, I found out that pressing either F2 or F12, for the firmware setup and the boot menu, respectively, didn't work anymore. The firmware recognised my input, as the text in the lower right of the Dell splash screen became lighter, but instead of entering setup or the boot menu went straight ahead to boot my existing and working Windows 7 installation on my first (MBR) hard drive instead.
So, in short, I am locked out of setup and the boot menu. I have already tried reflashing the firmware, but without any luck. What to do now?
I'm trying to install Ubuntu on an e6530. I changed a BIOS boot setting from Legacy to UEFI. Now the laptop doesn't even show me a BIOS screen at startup. The screen is backlit, so power is on, but shows nothing. The drive light flickers a few times, but no matter how long I wait, nothing appears.
I can't even switch it back to Legacy because I can't get into the BIOS. Hitting F12 after power on does nothing. Is there some way to get it back to Legacy mode? Or simply reset the BIOS to default settings?
I have a Acer Aspire E5-511P with bios Insydeh20. On UEFI it does boot USB-drive, even with passwords set. It boots on USB-drive with legacy set, but now my Wifi doesn't work. On older laptops no issues with UEFI, I just had to set boot order. And Wifi works just fine.
I've recently purchased a Dell Inspiron 7520 SE FHD and following the indications on the drivers download page I upgraded Bios to A9 version. Now I'm having 2 issues, one minor and one that bothers me pretty hard.
1. I can't boot fro USB stick when I try to install WIN 7 again. If I have the bootable usb stick with WIN 7 (created with Microsoft USB DVD Bootable Tool) plugged in the usb port and I press either F12 for boot options or F2 for Setup everything blocks and won't have any other option but to keep the turn on button pressed until the laptop turns off.
I also tried F12/F2 without the USB stick plugged in and I can't find the option to boot from USB neither under F12 menu or Boot menu when pressing F2 for Setup.
2. After doing the BIOS upgrade, the first thing I see, the black page with the Dell Logo seems to be a little broken, meaning the logo is bigger then it used to be and so is the blue line that shows the loading status below it.
My hard drive went bad (CHKDSK fails), so I replaced it. When it boots, I see the Dell starting up screen with F2 and F12 options but then it immediately displays a black screen with the text "Operating System Not Found". I've tried to press F12 with no luck, it always displays "Operating System Not Found". I double checked to ensure the hard drive is not loose and everything looks fine.
I just booted into the BIOS of my Inspiron 15 3531 model and I realize that the only boot option it allows me to use is from the hard drive.......that's it. No external usb, no lan option (it doesn't have an ethernet port, so I understand that), nothing.....Why would setup a BIOS like this? How to boot this system from a USB or external cd drive...
I bought a ThinkPad 540p that comes with preloaded Windows 8.1. As I want to dual boot the machine I tried to select the Legacy Boot option in the BIOS/Startup tab, but I can't do anything as the option UEFI/Legacy Book is greyed out and locked in "UEFI Only". Below it there is an option called: -CSM Support that is also greyed out and selected as [No]. (below these options there is a little note with an asterisk saying "Unselectable for Secure Boot").
How can I enable the UEFI/Legacy Boot option again in order to dual boot the computer? I want to be able to boot from USB or from the CD Drive.
This laptop has win8, I am trying to load win7 on this laptop but I am not understanding how to change the boot order to boot from the cd drive, what's listed below is what I am seeing in SETUP? Boot list option [UEFI] File browser ADD boot option File browser Del boot option Secure boot [Enabled] Load legacy option rom [Disabled] Boot option priorities Boot option #1 [Windows boot manager] Boot option #2 [UEFI OS] Boot option #3 [UEFI IP4 Realtek PCIe FE Family Controller] Boot option #4 [UEFI IP6 Realtek PCIe FE Family Controller]
Also, my research is showing this is a 64 bit unit.
Dell Inspiron 15Z model 5523 laptop less than 2 years old. Locked up during a Windows update. Refreshed it and lost all my programs. Downloaded Firefox accidentally from a bad site and it was bundled with malware. So I refreshed the laptop again. Had everything working and then later that day it just quit. Locked up and when I rebooted, it said no hard drive could be found. I have a new hard drive, but how do I get my Windows 8 (paid for with the computer) and a boot disk from Dell?
