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Hi, I have a Dell Inspiron 17R 5720 with Windows 8.
I want to downgrade to Windows 7, but I can't access the BIOS to change the boot order and turn off UEFI.
At boot screen (Dell Logo) I've tried f2, f1, fn+f1, fn+f2, f12, del, none of these work it just boots into Windows.
There is no f2 option at boot screen but there is f12 boot menu, but it doesn't work.
Any help would be appreciated.
Dave
Hmm. Take a look at this:
http://www.akits.net/blog/inspiron-1...2-corrupt-bios
I don't get the error message that they got. I also don't want to open the laptop to get at the CMOS battery. (it's not mine)
There has to be away to get into the BIOS without major surgery.
Someone told me to let the battery run down and then try to boot and it'll offer the option of f2 for setup.
Ok then. I guess that'll be your last resort.
So the keyboard works fine once you boot to Windows? Did you try a USB keyboard? F2 is the bios key for that model.
If everything works ok in Windows, you might want to try a bios upgrade. I know that sounds risky, but I'd at least check if a newer bios is available.
Do you mean the main battery or the CMOS battery? The CMOS battery would still have power even if you remove the main battery, so I don't see how that would help.Quote:
Someone told me to let the battery run down and then try to boot and it'll offer the option of f2 for setup.
After searching online for this problem it seems I'm not the only one with it. It seems Dell locks people out of the BIOS on purpose. I know the f2 key is working because when I push it I get a blue bar under the Dell logo and the "f12 Boot Menu" option comes up. But pushing f12 does nothing as well. I've never liked Dell and they haven't done anything to improve that opinion in the last few days. It be like buying a car and the hood is locked so you can't do anything to the motor.
I was told if I pull the hard drive out it will force the f2 key to work, but I'm not going to start pulling the laptop apart to do that.
Shame on Dell!
Removing a hard drive from a laptop is generally an easy and quick thing to do. Basically it's a couple of screws to remove the cover on the bottom of the laptop then a couple more screws to be able to pull out the hard drive which is just sitting in a small bay under that removed cover.
eg- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_SoStCYl3M
Of course, there's no need to remove the drive from its bracket as shown here.
I agree it doesn't look too hard to pull the hard drive. It just makes me mad that I have to resort to this just to get into the BIOS!
No arguments here :)
Hi, Wacky ..
I have a Dell Inspiron 17 5337 that I wanted to downgrade to Win 7 as well. The problem seems to be with the way that Microsoft changed the boot sequence in order to make Win 8 boot faster than Win 7. The time for hitting the F2 key when rebooting is VERY short! I finally managed to get into the BIOS by starting the reboot and hitting F2 as soon as the boot starts, before you see the Dell Logo. Do it fast ... if you start to see the spinning dots, even while still on the Dell logo screen, that's too late, it's already booting Win 8. It may take a few tries.
Once you do get into the BIOS, it's easy enough to change to Legacy boot from UEFI, and to turn off Secure Boot. I had my Win 7 disk already in my DVD drive. After changing the BIOS & saving, the computer then rebooted from the Win 7 installer.