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2 Intern

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512 Posts

1309

December 16th, 2016 15:00

Dell Precision 490: Revert to Windows 7?

Hi,

My Precision 490 is frozen into an abortive Microsoft Windows 10 update & hangs in mid boot, I cannot boot into F2 or F12 from restart.

I have ordered an OEM Windows 7 disc for clean install.

Presumably, I will have to remove the entire C Drive and replace it with a blank drive to load Windows 7, because the current C Drive has been frozen by Windows 10?

Possibly also if I load the old C drive as slave then I can salvage all the data on the old C drive, when I have the new master drive formatted to Windows 7?

Advice please.

Thanks,

KR

4 Operator

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20.1K Posts

December 17th, 2016 10:00

You don't need a new drive if the drive is in good condition/has not failed--just a clean custom install of windows. A custom install will allow you to delete the partition with windows 10 and install win 7 on the empty unallocated partition. Windows will format and install win 7. All files and programs must be reinstalled from backups or copies.You do need a dell installation disk with the same version as your license that came on the computer when new and your win 7 license key. 

Try shutting down (not Restart) reboot and start tapping F12 without waiting for any screen to access the boot menu.* Run the Diagnostics with a custom test of the hard drive to check the drive. *Check your manual for specific instructions on accessing the boot menu. It might be different on your model.

9 Legend

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47K Posts

December 17th, 2016 15:00

Actually windows 7 will be unable to remove the windows 10 partitions.

You will have to use diskpart with windows PE and remove them that way. The partition is protected in such a way that even the powerful Disk Management tool cannot do anything to it. Note that it's not because the partition is EFI, it's because the tool that created that partition had marked it in a way that prohibits other tools to tamper with it. (That's usually the case for the system hard disks formatted on with windows 10.) However, what if we want to delete such a partition and re-initialize the disk from scratch?

While the Disk Management tool is helpless in this situation, fortunately Windows offers yet another tool, DISKPART, that can do things to the disks that Disk Management can't. The tricky part is, that DISKPART is a command-line tool, that requires us to type commands into its command prompt to make it do what we want.

To get access to the DISKPART tool, first let's open the Windows command prompt in the "administrator" mode. We can do that by clicking the Start button and entering cmd in the search box:

http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/005929en?language=en_US

2 Intern

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512 Posts

December 19th, 2016 12:00

Thank you. That sounds hellish. What if I removed the C Drive and installed a blank drive in its place - then loaded the Win7 disc, wouldn't that do the job please?

9 Legend

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47K Posts

December 22nd, 2016 10:00

DBAN or whitecanyon wipedrive might also do the trick.

http://http://www.dban.org/

https://www.whitecanyon.com/consumer-wipedrive

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