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Upgrading a Dell Precision T3600 from windows 7 to windows 10

I am trying to upgrade two of our engineering machines from Windows (64 bit) to Windows 10. Before I went to 10 I reformated one of the machines back to a fresh copy of the OEM Windows 7 install. In order for that to happen, during the install i had to install drivers (intel onboard controller drivers) in order for the installation to see a hard drive. Otherwise you can not reformat because the install does not see the hard drive. It took me a few phone calls to Dells pro support to find the proper driver as they were not on the website under the service tag. So I am at a point now where i have a fresh copy of windows 7 and have run all updates and want to install Windows 10. I have already downloaded the install tool to a flash drive and am trying to install off of that. Windows 10 appears to be installing but during the install there is a time where you are looking at a purple screen and it is going though a percentage and when it gets to 100% the machine reboots and then the splash for Windows 10 and then typically it goes to a black screen and load circle where it goes to 100% load again. This machine does not. After the Windows 10 splash and load screen it goes to a light blue screen asking what language and then a couple options like "reset OS " "repair" "advanced tools" (I'm not sure of the verbiage but if you've seen this screen you know what i'm referring to). I've tried everything and at one point it states ‘The Drive Where Windows is Installed is Locked’ During the 10 install i see no place to add a driver during install. Anyone have an idea of what i can do to get this machine up on 10? I am still working with Dell so please don't offer that as your help and expect points. They are really dragging their feet to help even though on their website this model precision has supposedly been OKed for Windows 10.

SOLUTION

Jambon316

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Jambon316

I really don't understand why you have gone to such lengths to do an upgrade install but you wiped the data?

the only real plus point for the upgrade install is data transfer / roll back to old OS. both of which are already not going to be an option.

just do a clean install to a reliable working disk

techitch2

ASKER

Jambon,

The machine is roughly two years old. I did a reformat to clean the machine up. All the data is saved into a network drive. I've done' this procedure on a few machines and had no issues at all until this precision. The disk in the machine is a working disk. It's the controller on the mobo that is causing the issues.

SOLUTION

John

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ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

☠ MASQ ☠

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techitch2

ASKER

All answers helped out. Speaking to Jambon and John. I didn't know you could just do a fresh install of Windows 10. I thought you had to be upgrading from 7 or 8 (already installed on the machine) to get it for free. The real issue here was the SAS controller which MASQ brings up. Even though Dell says the precision 3600 is thumbs up on Windows 10 they do end up not having drivers for it. Today through trial and error I found a Windows 8 driver that seemed to do the job. The secondary issue is I was attempting to run the upgrade instead of doing the fresh install. During the upgrade there is no point where you can point to the controller drivers. During the fresh install there is. Some let me know the steps and some made sure I felt stupid about it. I don't expect anything less. Thanks to all.

John

Thanks for the update and I hope all is well now.

techitch2

ASKER

I've got one of these machines up on 10 and will tackle the other tomorrow without wasting my time reformatting to Windows 7 first (which Jambon pointed out) Thanks again, John.

John

You are very welcome and I am always happy to help.

Ken Colangelo

Where'd you get that Windows 8 driver for the T3600 that ended up working during a fresh install of 10? I'm stumped.

Ken Colangelo

A Dell tech guided me here to get the "real" latest driver CAB for Windows 10 for the T3600.
http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/enterprise-client/w/wiki/11589.precision-t3600-windows-10-driver-pack
It's 768MB and I guess you'll have to extract it but I'm hoping this satisfies the following dialog that is blocking my fresh install of Windows 10 on a single new SSD.
"A media driver your computer needs is missing..."
I've tried different SATA ports, different BIOS settings, lots of different drivers. I have no PERC nor other RAID card, just the built-in C600 storage controller.
I'll report back tonight if this drvier CAB solves my problem.

Ken Colangelo

The new drivers did no good. Going into the BIOS and enabling UEFI boot and adding my.USB drive allowed me to successfully boot Windows 10/64 setup off my standard Microsoft USB boot disk. I used the standard MS Media Creation tool to make it. Something about having the boot CD in there made it seemingly impossible for Win 10 Setup to start without demanding a driver that there was no way to provide. It just wouldn't take ANY driver. Now I'm breezing through Win 10 setup, no driver's have been demanded.

Ken Colangelo

Ooo, I also disabled USB 3 in bios and made sure to use a USB port that is just 2.0/SS.