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Irfan Khan Mohammed

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Regarding Installation

Hi,
I have dell inspiron 3542 15" windows 8.1 laptop. I would like to install windows 7 on it. I am just confused with the bios setting. It has two options for boot. UEFI and LEGACY. Which option should I opt???

Thanks.
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Haresh Nikumbh
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LEGACY
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Irfan Khan Mohammed

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I am still getting an error......
You could try and boot from CD or USB and or even network to install Windows, when booting change the boot order.
i have selected boot options as "legacy" and "disabled" the Secure boot option....but still iam unable to install the windows 7 os....
Where you try to boot from? And can you still acces your Windows 8.1?
i have choosen the legacy option. so i am booting from that......and i have a usb in which windows 7 is copied with rufus...it is accepting the files but after the "Completing installation" option of windows os , i am getting a blue screen just for a second and then the laptop is getting restarted without further installations.....so iam halfway through installation.....but getting an error....
You should try UEFI, If you look at this solved article from, then let me know what happens. http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-2290701/uefi-legacy-boot-question.html

Because it is from USB you could try UEFI and also check if there are more boot options now.


Legacy Boot is the boot process used by BIOS firmware. The firmware maintains a list of installed storage devices that may be bootable (Floppy Disk Drives, Hard Disk Drives, Optical Disk Drives, Tape Drives, etc...) and enumerates them in a configurable order of priority. One the POST procedure has completed, the firmware loads the first sector of each of the storage targets into memory and scans it for a valid Master Boot Record (MBR). If a valid MBR is found, the firmware passes execution to the boot loader code found in the MBR which allows the user to select a partition to boot from. If one is not found, it proceeds to the next device in the boot order. If no MBR is found at all, the user is presented with the famous "Please insert system disk yadda yadda yadda"

UEFI boot is the boot process used by UEFI firmware. The firmware maintains a list of valid boot volumes called EFI Service Partitions. During the POST procedure the UEFI firmware scans all of the bootable storage devices that are connected to the system for a valid GUID Partition Table (GPT). Unlike a MBR, a GPT does not contain a boot loader. The firmware itself scans the GPTs to find an EFI Service Partition to boot from. If no EFI bootable partition is found, the firmware can fall back on the Legacy Boot method. If both UEFI boot and Legacy boot fail, the famous "Please insert system disk yadda yadda yadda" will be presented.
So, can i get the steps to install windows 7 on dell insprion 3542 through usb........that's all i wanted...im getting confused again and again...
If you have a bootable usb with the Windows 7 ISO put it in a USB port. Power on your laptop and press F12 or ESC. this is most common on DELL. Select USB or Patriot Memory, now it will boot from there. If not you may want to test a other USB or USB port.
Besides USB or Patriot memory it could be called UEFI wit the name o the USB behind.
Afterwords you can go to the Installtion.
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rindi
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