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October 29th, 2012 06:00

XPS 8500 UEFI boot

I was doing some prep for Windows 8 upgrade. 
I went into the Legacy BIOS settings and switched to UEFI (because my understanding is that allows Windows 8 to use Secure Boot feature). 
On restart, the computer stopped with a message that  said something like "no bootable device found". 

Anyone else have this issue?

The BIOS version to A09.
 
Thanks!

611 Posts

November 2nd, 2012 13:00

This morning I deleted all of the partitions on my boot drive then changed my BIOS to UEFI mode. I only changed the one setting in the Bios.  left the secure boot to disabled.

I rebooted and hit F12.  I selected the UEFI DVD drive (legacy DVD drive was also listed) and booted to my Win 7 SP1 OS DVD.  It installed fine on the unpartitioned hard drive and sure boots faster now.  Still playing with it.

3 Apprentice

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710 Posts

October 29th, 2012 06:00

Hi,

It appears that you have accidentally selected 'Legacy Mode' in BIOS. The default Boot Mode is set to UEFI and the operating system is installed in the UEFI Mode from the factory. The System will display the following error if the Operating System was installed in UEFI Mode and the Boot Mode has been changed to Legacy or Vice Versa.
  

To correct this error, please recheck and change the Boot Mode in the System Setup from Legacy to UEFI Mode. You may want to refer to the following steps to change the Boot Mode in System Setup to UEFI.
- Restart / Power on your computer
- At the first text on the screen or when the Dell logo appears, tap until the message Entering Setup appears
- Boot Mode will be listed under Boot
  

Select UEFI using the arrow keys to navigate and press enter
Save and Exit the System Setup
  







Hope this helps. Do reply if you have any further questions. I would be glad to assist.


11 Posts

October 29th, 2012 07:00

This XPS 8500 is in Legacy mode, which is how it came to me. When I try to switch to UEFI, I got the error message saying "No boot device".

3 Apprentice

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710 Posts

October 29th, 2012 13:00

Hi,

Thank you for a prompt response. Your computer is running with the latest BIOS version (A09) currently available. By design XPS 8500 is shipped from the factory with UEFI boot mode and the factory installed operating system is also installed in UEFI mode. Therefore I recommended you to recheck and retry switching between UEFI and legacy modes. Apart from this, you may also try to 'load BIOS factory defaults'. This will take the BIOS settings back to factory condition and will eliminate the confusion completely.

To load defaults, please follow the below mentioned steps:
- Enter BIOS (By tapping F2 on start-up)
- Tap < F9 > (You will be prompted with load defaults message)
- Use arrow keys on keyboard to highlight < Yes > and tap < Enter >
- Tap < F10 > to 'save' settings
- Exit BIOS and recheck if the computer loads into 'Windows'

In either case, please re-enter in system BIOS and check the updated status of 'Boot Mode'.

Do reply if you have any further questions. I would be glad to assist.

11 Posts

October 29th, 2012 13:00

This was a refurb system that I purchased last month. Perhaps that has something to do with why my system came with a different configuration? I will try as you suggest.

11 Posts

October 29th, 2012 15:00

Really? Hmm, so if that's the reason I get the boot failure then in theory I could try to change my boot order and boot from Windows 8 install media. I really didn't want to do a clean install and then have to reinstall everything. Maybe Secure Boot isn't that necessary :)

14.4K Posts

October 29th, 2012 15:00

If you truly were in legacy mode you cannot just change it to UEFI and boot. you would have to reinstall windows.

5 Posts

October 31st, 2012 19:00

I have an XPS 8500 that I am trying to fresh install Windows 8. My refurb system also came with Legacy option as default (that is the A09 default.) Upon setting it to UEFI and rebooting, it does not even recognize the bootable DVD in the drive - giving me the No Boot Drive found problem.

 

Is this something with the firmware? Is UEFI and secure boot support on the XPS 8500 with A09 firmware?

611 Posts

November 1st, 2012 16:00

My XPS 8500 received on 10/23  also came set to "Legacy" and the manual indicates Legacy is the default.

611 Posts

November 1st, 2012 17:00

UEFI only works with x64 OSes.

11 Posts

November 1st, 2012 17:00

XPS 8500 definitely has 64bit OS because they have 8Gb of RAM or more. My theory is that whoever is re-imaging the refurb hard drives is using the wrong drive image.

105 Posts

November 1st, 2012 18:00

Apparently, to install Windows 8 you need to boot in UEFI mode and the disc in which Windows is to be installed must be blank (without any partitions). See http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/2328-uefi-unified-extensible-firmware-interface-install-windows-8-a.html.

11 Posts

November 1st, 2012 19:00

You can definitely install Windows 8 without having a UEFI compatible BIOS because very few machines made before this year have that type of BIOS. You just don't get the features of Secure Boot, which I'm not sure what those are (except for "more better security").

5 Posts

November 2nd, 2012 13:00

Yes, I have success with a Windows 8 x64 bit install using Legacy. However, the PC will not boot from a Win8 DVD drive with UEFI enabled. It appears that the drives are not recognized when UEFI is enabled (not even DVD.)

105 Posts

November 2nd, 2012 14:00

If Windows was installed in legacy mode, another possibility to enable UEFI is to use the "Migrate to UEFI" Paragon tool, http://www.paragon-software.com/technologies/components/migrate-to-uefi/.

In this case, the Windows installation medium is not needed. Install a blank disc as second internal disc, boot in legacy mode and execute the process. When completed successfully, install the "migrated" disc as boot disc and boot in UEFI mode.

 

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