- May 13, 2014
- 3
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- 4,510
OK hello to all, long time lurker here and finally decided to create an account since I have run into something I cannot seem to solve on my own. As a brief background, I am very computer-savvy and often provide support for family and friends so any solutions suggested certainly won't scare me away.
I have an old Dell Vostro 200, a true dinosaur but a real trooper, its gone through several minor upgrades (memory/video card, etc.) and has run XP right through to Win 8.1 currently. I decided to try Win 8 on it because I wanted to try something new; my other machines run Win 7 and for awhile I was steadfastly resisting the urge to upgrade. With this machine though, the newest OS is definitely highlighting its shortcomings and age and I do want to move it back down to Win 7 where it behaved alot better. I thought this would be an easy process but I quickly realized it might not be.
Firstly, this machine does not have a functioning optical drive so OS installs are via USB...fine no problem I have the bootable image on a stick ready to go. I realized right away I had a problem...Win 8 has disabled the legacy BIOS that the Dell would normally boot through. So, no way for me to instruct the PC to boot from USB first. Secondly, checking under Advanced Windows Settings, I lack the UEFI option all together; understandably I guess since when I originally updated from 7 to 8 this old motherboard was not supported for UEFI. And lastly, of course, hitting F8/F2/Delete or whatever else while standing on my head and quoting Shakespeare during the boot process has no effect.
So, sorry for the long post, really this boils down to needing to find a way to access my "Legacy" BIOS options in order to allow boot-from-USB, I should be able to handle the rest from there.
Thanks in advance.
I have an old Dell Vostro 200, a true dinosaur but a real trooper, its gone through several minor upgrades (memory/video card, etc.) and has run XP right through to Win 8.1 currently. I decided to try Win 8 on it because I wanted to try something new; my other machines run Win 7 and for awhile I was steadfastly resisting the urge to upgrade. With this machine though, the newest OS is definitely highlighting its shortcomings and age and I do want to move it back down to Win 7 where it behaved alot better. I thought this would be an easy process but I quickly realized it might not be.
Firstly, this machine does not have a functioning optical drive so OS installs are via USB...fine no problem I have the bootable image on a stick ready to go. I realized right away I had a problem...Win 8 has disabled the legacy BIOS that the Dell would normally boot through. So, no way for me to instruct the PC to boot from USB first. Secondly, checking under Advanced Windows Settings, I lack the UEFI option all together; understandably I guess since when I originally updated from 7 to 8 this old motherboard was not supported for UEFI. And lastly, of course, hitting F8/F2/Delete or whatever else while standing on my head and quoting Shakespeare during the boot process has no effect.
So, sorry for the long post, really this boils down to needing to find a way to access my "Legacy" BIOS options in order to allow boot-from-USB, I should be able to handle the rest from there.
Thanks in advance.
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