Downgrading from Windows 8 to Windows 7 for XPS 15 L521x

 Hi JOSH MC,

Though you have enabled Legacy Boot, please follow the steps given below and see if that helps you.

• Turn your computer on and press the F2 key to enter the system setup.
• Click “Boot” under “Boot” –click “Boot Mode”- select “Legacy”
• Click “Secure Boot Control” select “Disabled”
• Once done with the above steps, press F10 to save and exit.

After following the above steps, Legacy mode will be activated and you can install Operating System with the help of a USB flash drive. Please follow the steps mentioned in the below article for installing Operating System.

http://dell.to/1aPlBiX

Please keep us posted on the results. 

Thanks & Regards
Prateek K
#iworkfordell

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I have an L521X that currently has Windows 8 installed on it. Within the computer I have a 256GB mSATA SSD and a 1TB HDD. I would like to uninstall the copy of Windows 8 from the HDD and Install Windows 7 on the SSD as the Primary Drive. I have run into a few snags though. 0. First, and this is only a major annoyance not a deal breaker, this machine won't boot from a USB. Not at all. It says the system simply can't do it. Does anyone else know about this? Is this standard on new machines? I have been using this methodology for years in loading OS's onto devices. It seems to be a major step back in functionality for PCs. The things that I have tried so far. I have changed the BIOS Boot sequence from being secured to unsecured and enabled legacy boot options. Still I don't see any way to change the booting order to elevate the USB or CD over the HDD. This actually becomes the major issue. I can't get the SSD to become recognized as a bootable disk. I have also updated the BIOS to the most recent version, A14, that Dell offers on their website. Any suggestions from anyone that has encountered this issue. I've done quite a bit of looking around on here, but haven't seen anything that actually solves my problem. Thanks in advance for any help. I appreciate it!

The XPS L521x has USB 3.0 ports only. Windows 7 installation media does not have support for USB 3.0 and so will freeze the installation. You must disable the USB 3.0 functionality temporarily while you install Windows 7.

Also you should change the SATA operation of the hard drive set to AHCI as you are using the mSATA drive as a boot drive and not a cache drive. You may need to load SATA drivers during the Windows setup.

See Windows Reinstallation Guide/A Clean install of Windows 7 for more details:

http://philipyip.wordpress.com/dell-community-forums/