Dell :: Inspiron 15z With 32GB MSATA And 500GB HDD - OS Installed On Wrong Drive
Nov 19, 2013
I just received my Inspiron 15z with 32GB mSATA and 500GB HDD, and I was disappointed to find that Windows 8 is installed on the 500GB (presumably 5400 RPM) HDD. For performance sake, I expected that the OS would be installed on the mSATA drive.
I'm not sure the best way to fix this with the Recovery Media, as I've never done this before. I don't want to run into Windows activation issues, but I want to do a clean installation using the mSATA drive as my OS drive.
I don't really care about the recovery partition, since it's apparently configured incorrectly (in my opinion). I just want the OS on the mSATA drive.
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May 19, 2014
I was wanting to dual boot a Dell pc inspiron 600 with win 8. I thought I will breeze through it like I used to circa WXP/Vista/W7 and didn't research what changes there might be with Windows 8. I have focused my attention more on Android and I really should have done that research.
I hadn't backed up externally docs that I needed to save - so I will remove the drive and copy the contents to my laptop to be on the safer side. So the first wrong move has led to missteps.
I downloaded Easus and created a blank disk space before the current active partition instead of behind it. I thought I needed to have win 7 in the first partition. Before rebooting I also installed a popular freeware boot selection manager (I totally forget the name but I know some most will know the one I am referring to EDIT: ***EasyBCD*** ). It gave me a warning that no bootable system was selected. I kept editing to point it to current Windows 8 but nothing changed. It also warned me that my pc might not boot. I thought I will fix it to a bootable drive with my old discs-Ultimate boot cd, CPM, etc. Easus performed creation of the new partition and then trouble started. It refused to boot.
None of my discs are working as they did before Windows 8. on UBCD Fdisk cannot find any partition it can make active. I decided not to write an new MBR. My windows 7 install CD is giving me the "Windows cannot be installed to Disk 0 Partition X" details ->"The selected disk is of the GPT partition style."
Here are the partitions
My questions are: At this point I don't mind to have only windows 7 installed or if this situation is salvageable a dual boot then I don't have to remove the drive to copy the docs. I can just boot into 7 (which is what I mainly want to use) and just have access to Windows 8 partition from there to access my docs. I would prefer not to pull the drive out if I can avoid it but only if I know for sure what I am doing.
Second question : I believe partition 3: 489GB is the newly created one and Part 4 OS would be the Wind 8 partition. How can I know for sure that this is the wind 8 partition?
If I format the partition 3: 489GB will windows now allow for windows 7 to be installed?
Is there any way I can fix windows 8 partition to boot?
Lastly the basic question is how do I fix this error so that I Can install windows 7?
I don't have any pre-created OS discs of Windows 8. My current laptop is a toshiba win 7.
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Jan 2, 2013
I have a Inspiron 530S. Installed Windows 8 a few weeks ago and Minecraft will not work. Others say with Windows 8 they had to delete Minecraft and reinstall. Tried this but it gives me an error for the OS and graphics.
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Aug 17, 2014
I recently called Dell support about my Inspiron 15R SE not booting and they determined my hard drive had crashed. They shipped a new hard drive to me and got me to install it but I had problems installing windows 8 as it was factory installed using UEFI.
Windows 8 setup would start but immediately gave an error about missing a media driver. The driver and utility discs I was provided did not seem to work at all. I called Dell support again but the guy I was talking to just told me that UEFI was confusing and told me to go into bios and change to legacy boot, which worked and I am now running windows 8 in legacy boot mode.
But is there a way I can reinstall in UEFI? From my brief research, it seems to be more efficient... Is there a driver I am missing that wouldn't be on the windows or driver and utilitys discs?
Doesn't seem like phone support people know much about UEFI ...
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Feb 16, 2013
I just upgraded my Dell to windows 8 because I just recently bought my computer and at the time windows 8 was not out yet. I've upgraded my computer and I have no DVD/CD drive detected. I cannot use my CD/DVD drive on my computer at all. Nothing is showing up, what's up with that? This is the drive that came with my computer so why can't I use it? I put a CD/DVD into it and nothing happens. I go into my computer and there is absolutely no CD/DVD drive detected. What do I do now? I need my CD/DVD drive to work. What I can do to make it work? Again, this is a new computer Inspirion 660S now running windows 8.
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Jun 2, 2014
I recently purchased a dell inspiron 14 5000 with a windows 8.1 preinstalled; I would like to reinstall the operating system and partition the hard, but I didn't get a copy of Windows (and a disc would not be actually useful since the laptop doesn't have a CD unit) which is the easiest way to reconfigure my laptop?
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Oct 20, 2013
I have a Dell Inspiron 7720 Win 8 x64 PC which includes UEFI (described in Microsoft link below). However, UEFI is accessed on Win 8 from Settings Charm > "Change PC Settings". This requires that you have booted the system already. In case of a main disk crash, you need to boot from another drive, like a thumb drive.
During restart my Dell PC displays "F12 Boot Options" in lower right of screen during restart, but multiple presses of F12 during startup are ignored. Likewise when I try F1 or F2 during startup. So I have no way to specify an alternate boot drive.
I am thinking maybe my PC is defective, but also maybe I'm missing something. What is UEFI? - Microsoft Windows Support
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Dec 6, 2013
Will there be issues if I try to create a Windows 8.1 USB Recovery Drive on a USB Flash Drive larger than 32GB? The Create a Recovery Drive actually formats the USB drive in FAT32 and makes it bootable. I plan to purchase a 64GB USB flash drive. Will the Recovery Drive Creator repartition the USB Flash Drive as a 32GB FAT32 partition? I tried the same on an external USB hard drive and it repartitioned the external hard drive as a 32GB FAT32 partition.
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Aug 13, 2014
I have just bought an AIO Asus desktop with 1 Tb of storage. The c: (Windows)drive is allocated 100gb and the d: drive 931gb. I just want to transfer all the data from my old computer. This was pretty much all in the folder c:>Users>Myname, but when I try to transfer it all into the same folder on the new computer, obviously with 100gb there is not enough space.
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Jan 9, 2014
Strange problem I am having with my windows 8.
I have an ASUS laptop running 8.0 which I am running with a second screen (dell monitor) connected via VGA. I have it set so the external monitor is the primary screen and the laptop is the secondary screen. It is set for a taskbar on each display, with the primary taskbar containing the shortcuts on the monitor, so when I click them they open there. It's been working fine for months.
So I switched it on today and my taskbar shortcuts have jumped to the taskbar on the second (laptop) screen, however my external display is still set as the primary and still has my desktop icons, trashcan etc but a blank taskbar (like the one that used to be on the secondary display)! When I click the shortcuts which are now on the taskbar of the laptop screen they open on the monitor. (ie the wrong screen) I disconnected the monitor, turned off the extended desktop and set it to just use the laptop screen. All my desktop icons moved to the laptop screen but the taskbar shortcuts vanished and I was left with a blank taskbar. If I plug the monitor in again and extend the desktop they reappear, but on the wrong screen. Even if I reboot without the external screen connected I get no shortcuts until I plug in the monitor and set it to extend the desktop. I have checked all the taskbar settings and they are all correct.
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Jul 4, 2013
Can't access movies I transferred from WD 500 gb to 2 tb wd hdd, they were both external ...
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Feb 2, 2013
I recently installed a HD (WD25EZRX). it's been operating normally for about 2 days.
i was using my comp when i saw an alert that said something about a hard drive error and that my PC needed to be reset to fix it. so i reset the PC and saw another message saying something about restoring to a previous point. i wasn't really thinking and i clicked OK.
upon reset, i noticed the HD in question was now showing up as 1.36TB (it's a 2.5TB HD). it also has a bunch of files from another HD, which is odd.
i've used Error Checking under Tools of the HD's Properties, but the results showed no errors.
i'd like to regain the "lost" capacity w/o having to reformat my entire HD.
System Specs:
Win 8 Pro with Media Center
Intel Core i7-3770K CPU
Samsung 30nm DDR3 1600 RAM 16GB
ASROCK Extreme4 Z77 Motherboard
ATI Radeon HD4650
Samsung 840 Pro 128GB SSD (OS)
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Jul 30, 2013
I recently purchased a Dell Inspiron 17R SE.
The first thing I wanted to do to it was transfer the OS to an SSD, and use the 1TB drive that came with the computer as a data drive.
I wanted to shrink the C: OS partition so it would fit on my SSD but the Windows Shrink Partition tool wouldn't let me due to unmovable files.
I tried using the Windows 7 File Recovery backup tool to do a backup. With over 500 GB space on my backup drive and only 65 GB used on the 1Tb drive I was backing up, it kept telling me not enough disk space. Eventually I gave up.
I opted to install EaseUS TODO Backup and tried to backup the the whole 1TB drive. It raised an error indicating too many unnamed partitions. I opted to backup only the C: OS and the EFI System partition - leaving 3 oem hidden partitions not backed up as I wasn't going to do anything to them anyway. It worked.
I used EaseUS Partition Master to shrink the C: OS partition to 120 GB. Worked again.
I thought now would be the time to generate the Windows backup - created an image OK. Afterward however, it failed to generate the system recovery disk indicating some invalid parameter error. This was concerning. I went to the Dell Backup and Recovery tool and it told me it couldn't find the recovery partition. Not good again.
In disk management, all partitions are still there. I'm pretty sure the 3 OEM hidden partitions (40Mb, 500Mb, and 14.73Gb) had names in brackets like 'Healthy (Recovery Partition)', ... They all just say 'Healthy (OEM Partition)'. I'm guessing EaseUS Partition Master messed up their names and/or messed with their content.
At this point, the computer still works fine, and on the second pass I was able to backup the entire drive using EaseUS TODO Backup. I can't use the Dell or Windows backup utilities. I'm not sure what mess I created by messing up the 3 oem partitions, or if I can recover somehow.
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Jun 25, 2013
Diagnostics says all is fine no problems found. I can boot to bios... cant boot to safe mode.
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Jul 17, 2014
My dell Inspiron 15 7537 crashed by itself yesterday.
It wants to restart and repair itself but every time it does it fails and tries again.
What should/can I do to repair it?
Or should I just try to install windows 8 again? And how do I do that?
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Nov 8, 2013
I have just upgraded to Win 8.1 (Pro) OS.
I have downloaded and installed new drivers for Win 8 (Pro) last year.
Are the drivers for Win 8 suitable for Win 8.1 PC?
May I know if Dell going to come up with new drivers for Win 8.1?
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Jun 13, 2013
I have a new laptop with Windows 8 and I really like it. I also have an older Dell Inspiron 1521 with an AMD 64 bit processor, 4 gig of RAM and a 160 gig SSD. It runs Win7 just fine and I believe it will run Windows 8. My new laptop came with 8 installed so I don't have a box to check the low end specs for running 8. I have Linux on it now and I would like to run both. It boots in to Linux in 20 seconds, about the same time as my new Windows 8 laptop.
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Nov 20, 2013
Hey I just got a brand new Dell Inspiron with Windows 8 (got it yesterday). In the power options I have the settings set to sleep when closing the lid of the laptop, but the computer seems to always turn off. When I open the lid, my computer is completely off and I have to press the power button to turn it back on and wait for windows to reload.
This is not a battery problem as it happens even when plugged in. I have also tried using the command prompt "powercfg /hibernate on" but it hasn't fixed anything.
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Mar 31, 2013
I own dell inspiron 14z and i tried to install windows 8 on the 32SSD drive, i turned SATA controller to AHCI and installed the OS. Windows was booted ones and it was all fine but when i restarted the computer it consistently led to the screen "your pc ran into problem and needs to restart...." I tried turning back to ISRT and same, I reinstalled windows and turn the acceleration of but after installing the driver an error was occurred says "your computer does t meat the minimum requirements....".
I turned back to ISRT and tried to install the windows again but it could not find the hard drive even after browsing through usb (it was loading and loading but didn't find anything) and now i really don't know what to do...
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Oct 8, 2013
I have a Dell Inspiron One 2330, which had Windows 8 Pre Installed, one fine day it stopped booting windows 8...
No matter, I had the recovery media... I made a full system restore... and nothing... it still does not boot.
Black screen after windows logo.
Dell Diagnostics accused no trouble whatsoever, all the tests performed successfully.
After a lot of tinkering, I managed to go back to Windows 7, the system runs fine, but I am running a trial license of Win 7, as I have not yet bought a license (I actually tried restoring the system using the Dell generated backup disks AND the Windows 8 OEM Disk, provided after those did not work).
What could be preventing Windows 8 from booting, since neither the installation fails, nor the HDD acuses any problem?
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Dec 15, 2012
I have an Inspiron One 2305 All in One with touch display and was planning to upgrade to Windows 8. However, I just noticed on the Dell Support site that they do not support the upgrade, and thus, don't recommend owners of this computer doing the upgrade.
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Feb 8, 2014
I purchased a dell inspiron 5521 a few months back but i didn't get any windows 8 CD with it. I have to reinstall my windows, but when i try to do it with my friend's original windows CD, error says product key entered is different. I don't even know the product key for my windows 8.
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Sep 21, 2013
I'm trying to figure out if my Dell Inspiron N4010 has full compatibility with Windows 8. I downloaded the Windows 8 Upgrade Assistant. The two issues I have are Secure Boot and was touch capabilities my Dell Computer has if I decide to upgrade to Windows 8.
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Feb 25, 2013
I have dell inspiron 5520 with win 8 pro . I have problem in display driver .
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Aug 19, 2014
What do I have to do to get the product keys for the installed operating system? What do I do to re-install in case of a failure. Where is my copy of the software so I can re-install it?
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Jul 21, 2013
I am using Windows 8 on Dell Inspiron N5110 15R laptop. I had to upgrade my BIOS so as to install and use the most recent operating system, Windows 8. I was Windows 7 user and had to clean install Windows 8. In Windows 7, I was very much familiar with safe mode, but today, when I booted Windows 8 into safe mode (Using PC Settings, Advanced Startup etc.), and I selected "Safe Mode With Networking" on restart, and then a blue Windows logo appears with waiting dots circling, and after that the screen is just black, and even after waiting for quite some time, it is still there, as it "freezed"
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Mar 7, 2014
I have a Dell Inspiron 530 and I cannot get WOL to work.
I have installed a new TP-LINK TG-3468 Network Card, which supports WOL.
Remote Wake Up is enabled in the BIOS, as are the usual required settings on the Network Card properties.
However whenever I hibernate, sleep, or shutdown my PC, the lights switch off on the Network Card so it is no longer receiving a connection.
Running Windows 8.1 - have also disabled Fast Startup .
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Jan 4, 2013
Here is my problem.
I've edited the host file with notepad with administrator permissions
192.168.118.129 localhost
But localhost is still resolving 127.0.0.1
I am not using a proxy. I had McAfee (Firewall, antivirus) but I uninstalled it.
I don't have any program like box.com / dropbox, IIS, Apache installed yet.
I tried to temporary disable some service but without success.
My Laptop is a Dell Inspiron by the way.
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Nov 13, 2013
Since I've updated to 8.1 my laptop is taking a long to boot up and when it finally does load it's slow as hell.
I'll then be playing Football Manager and when I hit the windows key to go back to my desktop it freezes. I've tried opening task manager and that freezes too, the only thing that functions properly is the metro screen.
I thinking it's a compatibility issue with a program that's causing it.
Specs:
Dell Inspiron 7250
Intel Core i7 3612QM @2.10GHz
6gb RAM
Windows 8.1 Pro
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Aug 15, 2014
Yesterday, I restored my Inspiron 15 to it's factory settings. Post-reset, I installed all drivers for Windows 8 directly from the Dell website except for the AMD driver which I took from the AMD website (just wanting to get the latest directly from the source, I guess). I also used that "Dell Detect" thingy to make sure I have all the latest drivers for everything.
After installing, everything worked great, but I realized that when the display turns off / when I shut down the laptop / when I close the lid, it does not turn off the computer or hibernating it or making go to sleep - it just keep running but there is no display, total darkness. Trying to press the power button / F4-F5 / any other button-pressing related solution did not work, only hard-reset.
Googling this issue, I found that it is very common, and many people with almost brand new Dell laptops, just like me, have encountered the same problem. In most of the solutions offered it was said that doing so would cause the system to mainly use the Intel Graphics HD card and not the AMD, meaning that for games and graphics, the AMD won't matter, which doesn't seem to be fair after paying extra exactly so I can have a dedicated card.
Either way, I started with the first which was using Windows Update. After checking the Windows Update updates list, I saw 2-graphic card related items - something called Graphics Adapter WDDM, one for the AMD card and the other for the Intel Graphics HD. After installing this update, I realized I can successfully turn off the laptop.
Once I turned it back on this morning, I got a pop-message:
I then realized that it just simply doesn't see/use/detect the AMD card. This is how my AMD Catalyst looks right now:
Looking at Everest, you can see it only sees the Intel Graphics HD:
However, device manager is still listing the AMD card as if it's properly working:
And if you look at the event log, you can see that initial driver was installed right after the Windows 8 fresh install I made a day and a half ago, and then there's other events, last night, around the time when I installed the Windows Update thingy:
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Jan 15, 2013
I want to download my bios update (A14) and 'Intel rapid storage' (11.6.0.1030, A02) for my inspiron 5720 but i've this message when i want download it
"Sorry, the requested file could not be downloaded.
Invalid File I.D. The file does not exist."
this is the link here : [URL] .........
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