Inspiron 3670, Secure vs Legacy Boot, Win10 UEFI

Question

I have a Dell Inspiron 3670 using Win10 UEFI, purchased about a year ago, and have a few questions about secure and legacy boot.  The computer has a single hard drive. I assume all 'normal' Dell non-Linux desktops purchased in early 2019 came with win10, UEFI, and secure boot.  Is this correct? Running Legacy boot, can I boot from an external flash drive by pressing the appropriate F-key during startup? Is it possible to switch from secure to legacy boot, and return to secure boot at a later time?  If so, how do I make these changes? I have used Macrium Reflect to make a backup image, but am concerned about restoring later.  If I goof, I'll have an inoperative computer.  If I'm unable to fix it using help from forums, I'm stuck (other than reinstalling everything).  I have another older win10 computer that uses MBR/BIOS, and have no problems using my Terabyte Image for Linux software.  I intend to switch to legacy boot, use Terabyte Image for Linux to make an image file, then return to secure boot and attempt to restore using Macrium. Jim

speedstep · Answer

3670 is 7th gen processor and chipset.

6th gen and earlier allow legacy boot.

legacy MBR booting is NOT ALLOWED on 7th gen and up.

https://www.dell.com/support/article/en-us/sln309720/newer-dell-systems-unable-to-boot-to-internal-boot-device-in-legacy-boot-mode?lang=en

With the Boot option set to Legacy boot mode on newer series of Dell systems, you will be unable to boot to internal boot devices (including HDD, SSD, or eMMC storage devices). This issue may also occur after installing the operating system in Legacy Boot mode. 7th gen and later systems will not have the option to boot internally in legacy mode. But it will still be possible to boot externally from legacy devices.

These models are GPT only UEFI only , 64 bit OS only. legacy BIOS and UEFI booting are supported for USB flash drives, however UEFI secure boot must be turned off.

Ubuntu Bionic 64 BionicPup64 8.0

http://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/puppy-bionic/bionicpup64/bionicpup64-8.0-uefi.iso

http://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/puppy-bionic/bionicpup64/bionicpup64-8.0-uefi.iso.md5.txt

w6ivw · Answer

Thanks for the really helpful information.  I have decided to clone the internal drive, so I just need to replace the drive if my restore fails.  AOMEI appears to have something that will work. Jim

Inspiron Desktops

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