M4800 Owner's Thread

Oh yeah, I've checked that already. Made sure it was first in the boot sequence too, but all that did was make it reach the error faster.

 

It is normal for the drive not to appear in the boot order for UEFI right after you switch. If you reboot with UEFI enabled, it should enumerate the options and the drive will be listed after it is used once.

 

Looks like I have to fix the power issue first. After making the boot drive the only detectable drive in the laptop, the laptop won't boot into Windows.
EDIT: Never mind. Same result.

 

So the new motherboard lacked one UEFI boot option my old motherboard has: Windows Boot Manager. I think the lack of that caused the boot issues.
Either way, old motherboard still boots into Windows, so back the new motherboard goes.

 

This doesn't show up in the boot menu until you boot Windows one time. You should just need to switch it to UEFI and then have it try to boot. If it doesn't work automatically, press F12 and select your drive from the boot menu.

 

Check the settings in "Advanced Boot Options" and see if "Enable Legacy ROM's" is disabled. uEFI won't boot if legacy is enabled.

I love my Dell's, but their BIOS sucks, IMO!

 

I've already done the latter. But it seems like from my old motherboard, I boot from Windows Boot Manager (and I just confirmed this as well).
I should mention I did get a used motherboard (I only call it new since it's newer than my current motherboard. Sorry for the confusion).
EDIT: Tried UEFI Hard Drive boot option, and it worked on my old motherboard. So that's good to know. However, since I can't solve the odd issue in the newer motherboard, I'm seeing if I can return it.

 

UEFI is more... I dunno, fluid/flexible, than the legacy boot when it comes to the "boot order" menu. It actually reads boot loader information off of the drive (the hidden UEFI partition). Normally the specific text like "Windows Boot Loader" will only show up after you either boot from the drive once or the OS actually asks the BIOS to add it to the list (which would happen during Windows setup).

 

How "dead" is your old board? Can you boot to the BIOS and see how it was set? Otherwise, your probably going to have to wipe and reinstall.

[EDIT] Can you boot from a USB stick? If so, is it MBR or GPT?

 

Well, it's not dead. I just needed a motherboard replacement because I accidentally broke the SATA port on the old one. It still works, hence how I found out the UEFI boot option Aaron recommended worked (and the Windows Boot Manager thing).
Anyways, turns out the newer motherboard had a bent pin on the AC port. Fixed that up, used the recommendation, and voila, a fully functioning laptop. No more boot problems. Thanks for the boot help.