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How to boot a Dell Inspiron laptop from an SD card
Hi,
I have a Dell Inspiron 7520 laptop (1 year old). I would like to install a second OS on an SDHC card and use it for some occasions. I was not able to boot this laptop from a bootable SD card which works just fine on other laptops (HP, Samsung, Gateway). It seems that only Dell laptops have a problem with that. They don't seem to treat SD cards as bootable devices. The laptop sees the card just fine otherwise (so the card reader is functional, and the laptop can read and write files to the card). Is there any way (e.g. a BIOS update) to actually make this work? Well, except buying an SD to USB external adapter.
Appreciate any suggestion in advance. Thanks.
DELL-Sujatha K
Community Manager
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May 31st, 2013 15:00
Hi catalin.radulescu,
Unfortunately you will be unable to boot from the SD card. The BIOS on this system is not designed to boot from the external device like SD card.
MicroTest
934 Posts
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May 31st, 2013 16:00
Steps you may want to try:
> If your laptop supports UEFI switch boot mode from UEFI to legacy,
> If you can boot from a USB stick the BIOS should be properly configured in that case try "RMPrepUSB"
Info :http://www.rmprepusb.com/home/what-you-can-do-with-rmprepusb
Download: http://www.rmprepusb.com/documents/rmprepusb-beta-versions/Install_RMPrepUSB_Full_v2.1.706.zip?attredirects=0&d=1
try the different options the program gives you=> Boot as HDD etc...
MicroTest
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May 31st, 2013 16:00
@catalin.radulescu
I guess DELL-Sujatha's post answered your question - Sorry - didn't see his reply.....
catalin.radules
3 Posts
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June 1st, 2013 05:00
Thanks DELL-Sujatha. Is there any BIOS update which would allow booting from SD? Or is there any plan to add such feature in the future? Most other laptop manufacturers already provide that, so I'd venture to guess that it is a pretty common feature and not really big deal to implement. It is disappointing that the DELL laptops do not have it. I am otherwise satisfied with my laptop.
catalin.radules
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June 1st, 2013 05:00
Thanks MicroTest for trying to help. I already changed my BIOS to boot on legacy mode and to enable legacy USB support. But, as Sujatya replied, it seems that the BIOS is not designed to boot from SD. Strange, cuz otherwise the SD cards are being perceived by the system as any other removable media (like USB for example).
DELL-Sujatha K
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June 3rd, 2013 16:00
Hi catalin.radulescu,
I understand your concern. Unfortunately there is no BIOS update which will allow you boot from the SD card.
CkMe
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July 3rd, 2013 02:00
Unless it could be installed internally using adapters, a cf to ide or sata, and a sd to cf adapter, probably less than $20 more getting those from ebay.
from this link: http://www.ehow.com/info_12213476_cf-vs-sd-laptop-drive.html
I did learn that CF cards have a controller to allow them to be read as a hard drive. That may be why the CF adapters I saw were about $15, better check that before committing to that solution.
At least CF to IDE or SATA works, hope this helps!
andri_hartono
4 Posts
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August 30th, 2014 20:00
Yes, I agree with your question. I find it difficult to configure "UEFI" bios through Dell N4050. Why on dell bios menu so poor features. Especially after I upgraded to a new version N4050 bios A08 and A09, even changed the menu a bit more. When compared with other brands such as (toshiba, hp, etc) they can boot from SDHC, Partition 1, Partition 2, etc. Why DELL which is one of well-known brands even poor feature? Do I have to use another product such as "Phoenix bios setup untility" in order to setup the os from SDHC and set "UEFI" in my bios?
JustinY
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January 6th, 2017 17:00
Could this be enabled in a BIOS update?
ejn63
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January 6th, 2017 17:00
No. None of the N5xx0 or N40x0 systems have UEFI - they are all legacy BIOS only.
saxofon
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June 18th, 2017 15:00
4 years later - the same problem on inspiron 17 7779. Formatted SD-card with NTFS and GPT. UEFI BIOS doesn't recognize the SD card. I cannot believe that this doesn't work on a high price product?
user_a34e33
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August 20th, 2023 14:39
@DELL-Sujatha K What about Inspirion 15 5578? Does it also have this problem?