Replacing motherboards

Question

Hi, I was under the impression I could simply swap out one motherboard for another and things should work as before. Unfortunately I just tried this and whilst the laptop now turns on, it doesn't quite boot up, I just keep getting the following message and am now stuck in a cycle.

Intel(R) Boot Agent CL v0.1.10
Copyright (c) 1997-2013, Intel Corporation

PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-MOF: Exiting Intel Boot Agent
No Boot Device Found. Press any key to reboot the machine.

It's a Dell Latitude E7450 and I've got some information on there I need to access, please help!

Thanks

Devin

ejn63 · Answer

Some of the possibilities depend on what OS is on the system, and on how the the boot was originally configured.

Windows 10?

UEFI or legacy mode?

On a hard drive, or an SSD?

What happened to the original board?

Is the system recognizing the hard drive or SSD (F12 at powerup to check)?

While in there, what device is set to your primary boot drive?

DC2525 · Answer

Thank you very much for looking into this! My answers below, hope it helps:

Windows 10? - Yes

UEFI or legacy mode? – “Legacy; secure boot: off”

On a hard drive, or an SSD? - SSD

What happened to the original board? – Just died, wouldn’t power up at all any more. Every time I plugged the charger in the light on the charger turned off. Replacing the motherboard means it now powers up but doesn't boot.

Is the system recognizing the hard drive or SSD (F12 at powerup to check)? – When I press F12 I see hard drive options but they look generic. When I selected “UEFI Boot: UEFI: Hard Drive” it failed. However when I press F2 to enter setup, I can see a 512GB HDD there, so assume it is being picked up.

While in there, what device is set to your primary boot drive? - Can't see the "primary boot drive in the F12 settings. When looking in the F2 settings, the "boot sequence" shows the following and they are all ticked: Diskette drive, internal HDD, usb storage device, DC/DVD/CD-RW drive, Onboard NIC)

Thanks

Devin

DC2525 · Answer

Thanks for the quick reply. I've just tried the reset process but unfortunately no change.

Thank you again for your help, and please let me know if you have any other ideas for me to try.

Best regards

Devin

ejn63 · Answer

You may want to return the system to its defaults -- if it was the same Windows configuration, it should be UEFI, Secure Boot On. To reset: disconnect the main battery and hold the power button for 30 sec. Then reconnect the battery and try booting again.

You must match the BIOS settings to what they were when Windows was originally installed on the system in order to boot the drive.

ejn63 · Answer

The very first thing to do is make a backup of anything on the drive you can't afford to lose - use a USB adapter to connect the drive to a working system.

Once that's done, the next step is a repair install (or a complete reinstall) of Windows. DO NOT do that without making a backup first -- many things can go wrong.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-windows_install-winpc/how-to-perform-a-repair-upgrade-using-the-windows/35160fbe-9352-4e70-9887-f40096ec3085

DC2525 · Answer

Hi, sorry for the late reply. Something urgent came up and I've only just managed to look at this again. I wasn't quite sure how to set up the ISO file but found the issue was resolved by simply swapping the boot sequence from legacy in the BIOS menu - so all working perfectly now as before!

Thanks again for your help.

Devin

Latitude

Replacing motherboards

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