Why Oh Why Did I Buy The Little Dell Blue Laptop?

jerryjam

Estimable
Sep 4, 2014
2
0
4,510
"This build of Windows will expire soon" How to Get Win 10 Preinstalled back on Dell laptop I purchased this $200.00 Dell after receiving an email offer from Dell. Offer of laptop with Win 10 installed on a 32GB SSD. Turns out to be a 32Gb eMMC flash drive (with no hard drive “C”). I failed to open the shipment until the warranty had expired. The laptop needed update of Win 10 immediately upon first boot. I performed initial setup and I added it to my LAN via Wi-Fi. The Win 10 update never completed because of insufficient disc space. I put a 64Gb SanDisk Ultra micro SD card in the slot, turned on the Microsoft storage manager and directed all downloads, documents, etc to be stored on the SD micro card. Win10 updates finally caused a blue screen boot failure Dell Inspiron 11-3162 error 0xc000000f. The laptop was just out of warranty. I downloaded the Dell USB media creation tool from the Dell support site. The Boot disc had all of the correct software and Win 10 for the laptop by service tag number. The boot disc would boot the pc but would never finish the install beyond 58%. Dell offered to repair the pc by my returning it to Dell along with $129.00. I tried A Win 10 preview ISO USB boot disc to see if the pc would boot and install Win 10 OS. It did install, and all was well except now I have a constant nagging banner "This build of Windows will expire soon" plus the screen shows the preview version of windows. The Laptop is about ten times faster now than it was originally and everything works correctly without the Dell drivers. I have put in a 128Gb USB 3.1 Flash drive and a 64Gb micro SD card to allow Windows updates to complete. I have tried every trick I can find to resolve this issue. I saved the original Windows on a micro SD card but I am unable to restore it to the eMMC card which is now reporting to be drive “C”.
Original diagnostic tests passed everything except reported no hard drive C.
HELP, old grandpa, I would like to solve this riddle without a complete uninstall and clean Win 10 installation. The Win 10 OEM license is embedded in the bios and I have the license as well. Activation will not allow me to input the keys because of the digital signature OEM license. The laptop can access all my computers and network devices and can share network media very well. (surprised at this) I would be happy with the little laptop if I could stop the nagging banner. Sometimes a guy has to ask for directions.
 
Solution
Reasonably easy fix:
From a different PC, create a new Win 10 USB install.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Remove the 64GB SD card.

Boot from the USB you made, and run the install
It should give you the option to wipe that drive and install the latest upgrade of Win 10, v1803.

The eMMC drive WILL be the C, no way around that.
I have an Asus Transformer with a similarly small (useless) eMMC drive. Real PITA.

You're getting that "expire" thing because that Preview did and will expire.

jerryjam

Estimable
Sep 4, 2014
2
0
4,510


Dell Inspiron 11-3162 It has an eMMC Flash drive D? instead of an SSD drive. It is like a built-in SD card instead of the faster SSD or spinning hard drive. It is slow. It also has the new ePSA Pre-boot BIOS. I would have spared myself this problem if I had read the specifications more carefully or had I unboxed the la[top and set it up at the time I received it. I am not even going to look at another Dell email special deal. I did not need another laptop as already have three much better ones. I plan to give my eight-year-old grandson this little laptop once I get the nagging problem corrected. He wants it for games. It really is not fast enough for that.
 

USAFRet

Illustrious
Moderator
Reasonably easy fix:
From a different PC, create a new Win 10 USB install.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Remove the 64GB SD card.

Boot from the USB you made, and run the install
It should give you the option to wipe that drive and install the latest upgrade of Win 10, v1803.

The eMMC drive WILL be the C, no way around that.
I have an Asus Transformer with a similarly small (useless) eMMC drive. Real PITA.

You're getting that "expire" thing because that Preview did and will expire.
 
Solution