windows 10 to 7 with new ssd

[overbet]

This question is actually for a work desktop machine. I bought a Dell XPS desktop that came with windows 10 pro. It is a work computer and I need to get windows 7 pro on it instead. The machine came with a HDD. I want to put windows 7 pro on a new ssd and use the hdd that came with the xps as backup storage.

I bought a new SSD and cloned a copy of the machine this one is to replace onto the new SSD. I am struggling to get the machine to boot the cloned drive. The clone drive booted in other machines without issue and I tested a lot of programs and everything worked perfect. The new xps is reading the cloned drive in the bios, but it wont boot to it. I am unsure what settings I need to apply in the bios such as Legacy or UEFI, AHCI or raid, secure boot or load legacy boot?

When I try different settings I get an error that says "Boot failure on device, press any key to reboot"

Anybody have any idea what I need to do here?

 

[13thmonkey]

I dont know what that is, but I will read up on it now. Pretty desperate. Thank you for the suggestions.

It's a last ditch option, it'll take your image back to the out of the box state, I. E. Before it encounters the hardware. But this is a stretch of it's usage and may have odd surface effects, I can't use USB 3 on mine for instance.

 

[13thmonkey]

Ah yes, didn't spot the 7 on kaby issue, Google slipstreaming on 7, you can insert the drivers into the iso, but that's just for a new install.

 

[overbet]

There is a lot of info out there on how to get 7 to run on kaby, but they are all using a clean install. I am not a power user so I am not sure if this makes sense, but have a theory to test.

If I do a clean windows 7 install on the new kaby machine and get it to boot. From reading online I see this is possible. What if I then use cloning software to clone over that clean install replacing everything except the system files partition with the cloned data. This would leave the kaby clean install system files on the ssd drive. Sounds like it might work. I am going to give a try today.

 

[overbet]

Seen this last night. He mentions something about installing usb 3.0 software. Maybe this will work for your issue?

https/www.youtube.com/watch?v=93gg-xZpIAA

 

[13thmonkey]

will have a look at that.

if you get one working with a minimal install, just the basics no additional software, then you can use sysprep to make the image and move from machine to machine, follow sysprep rules precisely.