Hard drive replacement in Dell laptop with UEFI?

[SunGazer]

Hello to All,

I need to replace a hard drive in a DELL Inspiron 15R. As long as I am doing the HD I figured go for the SSD.

I tried the same way as I had before but no more BIOS the systems are now UEFI. There are multiple partitions that have to be present and hoops to jump through.

The Dell website is of no help. So I wanted to ask the group here if anyone has done this successfully and if anyone could instruct me as to how I can accomplish this task?

Thanks in advance.
- Mark S.

 

[ldewitt]

UEFI is the bios. Just more interactive and mouse function. I have successfully installed windows 7 on my Samsung 840 series SSD. Im not quite sure what the issue is here?

 

[SunGazer]

Thanks for the reply Idewitt.

I tried installing Win7Pro on the drive. Everything started out OK but it got stuck during the install and wouldn't go any further. I figured it was the UEFI that was causing the issue.
When I did my Toshiba Satellite same thing happened. I had to set their UEFI to reboot into a pseudo-BIOS they offered and then Win7Pro CD that I have, could be installed. Win7Pro now working well in that machine, though I still have one driver not working.

Is there a different CD version of Win7 for UEFI systems?

I had to find the "trick" for the Toshiba to make the Win7Pro install work. Is there something similar in the Dell system?

Thanks again for the help.

 

[ldewitt]

Hmm that's weird i had a regular phoenix bios that i used my windows 7 pro i got from my school, then when i built a PC i installed the same dvd on my new ASUS Sabertooth 990FX(uefi bios) and had no problems. How much RAM is installed(might not be linked to your issue) but once trying to install windows 7 on my work desktop i was forced to only use 1-4GB of RAM instead of the 8GB installed for some reason(after installation i could put the rest of my RAM back, and it was 64-bit also). Random i know. Maybe its the same issue you having who knows.

 

[SunGazer]

Hmm that's weird i had a regular phoenix bios that i used my windows 7 pro i got from my school, then when i built a PC i installed the same dvd on my new ASUS Sabertooth 990FX(uefi bios) and had no problems. How much RAM is installed(might not be linked to your issue) but once trying to install windows 7 on my work desktop i was forced to only use 1-4GB of RAM instead of the 8GB installed for some reason(after installation i could put the rest of my RAM back, and it was 64-bit also). Random i know. Maybe its the same issue you having who knows.

Thanks for the ideas Idewitt,

I believe the Dell that I am working on has only 4GB installed. Not sure since I am not in front of it at the moment. Dell website says that is what it shipped with, and I doubt they would have added more without my knowledge. I will definitely double check before beating my head against the hard drive tonight.

I am also using the Win7Pro disc from our college. I can't tell you how many times the disc has been successfully used to install Win7Pro on laptops. I was working in the Physics Dept. and one time I had to load it on 15 laptops at once that were donated. No issues, all were Dells but all BIOS machines, too old for UEFI.

I'll be putting a couple more hours in on it tonight.

 

[ldewitt]

If you figure it out come back and let us know. And if i think of anything else ill post back also.

 

[Lindakay66]

It could be that Windows 7 is not compatible with UEFI. I had to use Diskpart after putting in the 7 disk and convert MBR so 7 would install. Did you get it fixed yet? This is what I had to do to make it work,,,and its working great now!

At first installer screen Press Shift + F10 to open a Command Box, type:

DISKPART
LIST DISK
SEL DIS 0 (after confirming Windows 7 target HD #)
CLEAN
CONVERT MBR
CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY SIZE=102400 (for 100gb partition, adjust as desired)
FORMAT FS=NTFS
ACTIVE
EXIT

 

[SunGazer]

It could be that Windows 7 is not compatible with UEFI. I had to use Diskpart after putting in the 7 disk and convert MBR so 7 would install. Did you get it fixed yet? This is what I had to do to make it work,,,and its working great now!

At first installer screen Press Shift + F10 to open a Command Box, type:

DISKPART
LIST DISK
SEL DIS 0 (after confirming Windows 7 target HD #)
CLEAN
CONVERT MBR
CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY SIZE=102400 (for 100gb partition, adjust as desired)
FORMAT FS=NTFS
ACTIVE
EXIT

Thanks Lindakay66,

I came to the conclusion my Win7Pro CD was not compatible with UEFI systems. It is one of the first editions that was released. The setup always stopped at the point of sensing and partitioning the hard drive. I figured the CD wanted to create an MBR & standard BIOS partition and the UEFI was looking for a way to create the 3 or 4 partitions it wanted. The impasse is probably what caused the kerfuffle. This sounds like the best thing to try at this time. I will be trying this during the Winter break and I have time to test this method.

Thanks Again, For all the help.