XPS 2720 and Windows 10

Just to add 'a bit more meat to the bone', I tried again to upgrade from this stable, fresh, fully updated version of 8.1.

So, click the upgrade icon and allow it to work its magic, I get a new error this time -

0xc1900101 - 0x40017 installation failed in the second_boot phase with an error during boot operation.

Edit - after this error the system did then put me back to where I was on Win 8.1

I've not had this error before, so I've Googled and can't see anything very relevant to my issue.

So I've had all usb devices unplugged, no A/V installed, latest bios, tried all the various ways of installing Win 10 and which ever way I go it still falls over at some point during installation, or if it does get as far as the desktop then either Win Update or Dell Update makes it fall over at the next reboot.

I have to say this is my worst ever upgrade experience, worse than ME even.

Since you did manage to boot Win 10 a few times, it's likely the product key was upgraded in BIOS. So maybe your best bet now is to wipe the hard drive and do a clean installation using the ISO for the same version of Win 10, which you can download for free from Microsoft and burn on a bootable DVD.

Before you do, you should probably image the hard drive running Win 8.1 onto external media, just to be safe so you can quickly get back to a working OS, if the clean install of Win 10 doesn't go right...

Hi, thanks for the reply, I was getting a bit lonely on here.

I've wiped the drive before and installed fresh with an iso and usb, going in this way gets me to a first boot to desktop, but after Windows has finished doing updates it all goes wrong after the reboot.

On a different install I did the same process as above, this time I avoid Windows Updates and go directly to Dell and get Win 10 drivers from there, but again, once I'm prompted to reboot it all goes pear shaped.

If I go via the desktop icon and do an upgrade I get the second boot phase error as in my second post above.

If you wiped the drive and installed Win 10 from the ISO before you installed it as in-place upgrade from Win 8.1, it's not going to work. 

Microsoft set things up so that you could only wipe the drive and do a clean install after you did the in-place upgrade. So if the original upgrade didn't go right, it's possible the clean install won't work either.

I'll ping some of my Dell tech contacts to see if they have any suggestions.

Hello again,

I've done so many installs that I've lost the installation trail slightly, but from memory I'm pretty sure I did the in-place upgrade firstly. Then the media creator tool in both iso and usb formats.

Last time I managed to get as far as the desktop I checked and the install was activated, so that's one little hurdle that I've crossed.

I do have premium support, it's just that I don't have time to get home and talk to a CS rep without my kids climbing all over me and disturbing my fault finding efforts.

And the bottom line is, the machine was supplied with 8.1, upgrading to Win 10 isn't actually a fault with the machine and may not be covered under the warranty terms anyway?

I tend to doubt your Premium Support warranty will cover upgrading to Win 10. Dell's warranty typically covers the software that they installed for only for first 30 days.

And even if your warranty covers software, since Dell didn't install Win 10, you're probably out of luck there.

I pinged my Dell tech contacts so hopefully somebody will jump in here with some advice since Dell does say this model is suitable for Win 10.

BTW: Does this system have an NVidia video card? There have been some issues with those cards causing Win 10 issues. So if you have NVidia card and can get to the desktop in Win 10, try this:

• Download and Save latest Nvidia driver 353.62 from NVidia site to your Win 10 desktop
• Uninstall old Nvidia driver in Device Manager. Do not restart the system
• Install the latest Nvidia driver 353.62
• Reboot

Hello again,

I finished early yesterday and went home to attempt another install.

This time, used freshly downloaded media creator tool, installed to usb and ran the set-up opting for a clean install and not to keep anything.

I got to the first boot desktop ok, about midway through the install I did notice that Windows was doing a chkdsk and found some errors that were subsequently cleared. I'm not sure of the relevance to my issues, just thought I'd mention it.

Once I got to desktop I had a look at device manager and discovered two devices listed under display adaptors, one an Intel and a Nvidea (Intel HD Graphics 4600NVIDIA + GeForce GT 750M)

Having read about people having issues with Windows installing Intel drivers over the top of Nvidea drivers I thought it best to remove one driver so I chose the Intel driver. It appeared to remove ok, but actually took about 3 or 4 minutes before the system tried to shut down, at this point Windows threw up an error message about not shutting down properly and when the system did finally shut down it would not reboot from that point with the same old errors as before.

I tried to boot into safe mode to remove the other graphics driver, but no dice unfortunately, it won't even boot into safe mode, just hangs.

For now I've loaded my last Acronis image back to 8.1 and all is well again.

I'm tempted to try again and follow your instructions, but not sure what to do about the Intel driver?

Your system has both onboard Intel video and the NVidia card. You should not have any issues installing both drivers. There may actually be times when it needs to switch between the two.

If you uninstalled the Intel video driver, but the existing NVidia doesn't work, it may not be surprising that PC doesn't boot now.

If you're game, you can do an upgrade to Win 10 again, and then follow the instructions in my earlier post to install that specific NVidia driver. Hopefully, that will solve the problem.

FWIW, my Win 10 Inspiron laptop has both Intel and AMD video and both drivers are needed. When battery power gets low, the lappy turns off the AMD card and reverts to the less power-hungry Intel video.

I'm not very savy at PC stuff, but I found it very easy ? Although I'm in the Ms insider program for win 10. I just up-dated it and well that was it. The only reason I did it for was to secure my free up-grade. I then down loaded it again back to windows 8.1, although another story there too.

Windows 10 does something to your recovery partitions too so be aware of this as you might not be able to recover back to 8.1...

You have 30 days after upgrading to Win 10 to revert to whatever prior version was installed.

After that, there's no going back, unless you have an image of the HDD before you upgraded to Win 10.

Many thanks for your wisdom here but I somewhat disagree ? I think, although it may well be the written rule to enable you to downgrade back to where you were before the upgrade, I'm finding it hard to believe as it took most of the partitions from my hard drive ?

I have only 3 partitions now, whereas I had 7 (?) before ... That is the reason in another thread I was asking is there anyway to install from the PBR_DRV the factory install as that and the WinRE partition along with the laggy windows partition is the only partitions left on as reported by Paragon and Tiny Partition wizard  show.

I've tried everything, even the factory restore hangs half way through and reports an error trying to create the HD ? I've decided to format the lot, and install windows afresh... I knew windows 10 would cause problems, and think Dell should address this problem for existing owners after all, when upgrading their machines they are more likely to buy Dell again if they feel they are being helped, and of course buy elsewhere if they feel they are left on their own to sort out such problems !

I see Microsoft have asked Dell to promote their goods into the business sector ? Rather than Dell blaming Microsoft and Microsoft blaming the likes of Dell they should get their heads together and sort this mess out. After all, if they don't windows 10 will end up like windows 8, a dead flop. There's already problems regarding the information it collects from you, and they want Business to take it up ?

Thanks again

I don't know what 7 partitions you had prior to Win 10 but PRB_DRV and WinRE are all you should need to re-install the factory Win 8 (8.1) image. Once you've upgraded to Win 10, the rules changed.

And it's also possible your Win 8 (8.1) factory image got corrupted so it's unusable, assuming that restoring the image is still allowed.

Many different brands have had and are still having upgrade problems with Win 10. We don't know if Dell tested the 2720 for Win 10 compatibility after a clean install or after an in-place upgrade from a prior version. So it's hard pin down problems, given all the variables between your system and theirs.

I've been a Win 10 beta tester for at least a year. So when the final version of Win 10 was released, I did an in-place upgrade on a Dell laptop from the last pre-release version to the final. And even that didn't go smoothly. At some point, I'm going to have to wipe the hard drive and do a clean install of the final Win 10.

So wiping your hard drive and doing a clean install is probably the way to go too. It may be a pain, but you'll have a faster, better behaving system when you're done. 

I've the same machine and I'm having problems too now. I thought I had upgraded easily but alas it started playing up and grinding to a halt. I've been advised that Dell may not have tested the 2720 with windows 10 so I guess people are having a lot of trouble with win 10

If I get 8.1 up and running again I'll leave it at that until everything's sorted....

Hope you sort it ....

Hi, and again thanks for taking the time to reply. It seems the initial upgrade for some reason did not properly complete, although it still worked it was after a few days it started getting very laggy. I did ask if there was a way to recover the drive with the PBR_DRV and WinRE partition but didn't get a way to do it. I then tried the upgrade again but it failed. I then tried installing it through the iso route, that too failed so I deleted the lot. I've now an empty drive that windows 10 will still not install, even though I've formatted it and changed the label. I'm installing windows 8.1 now as that seems to be installing but I'll wait till it completes before saying I've installed it as it's installing very slow.

You would think Dell would have tested the 2720 with windows 10 as the flag was there but when clicked it reported I've reserved my copy but Dell are still working on it. YET on Dells updates it tells you there's a windows 10 upgrade to install ? That's the only reason I upgraded in the first place, as I was happy with 8.1...