Dell Inspiron 3521 Unable to Boot anything but hard drive

I'm attempting to replace windows 8 with something that better meets my needs. Unfortunately, I'm unable to get it to detect any other boot devices.

So far, I've reverted to Legacy boot (no more UEFI), and changed the boot order to CD, USB, HD. I also disabled the "Integrated NIC" so it'd stop trying to PXE boot. Unfortunately, when I insert a bootable DVD, I get the error "No Boot Device Found. Press any key to reboot the machine" Same thing occurs when I change the order to USB, CD, HD and use a USB key with a bootable image.

Any suggestions? Windows 8 is infuriating (especially as a browsing platform), and I'd love to dump it for something better (like Ubuntu).

Thanks,

Rob

 

What if you go to the F12 boot menu and try to select an alternate boot device from there?

 

Tried that too. In fact, that was the first thing I tried before disabling UEFI, which led me to google. Now it shows CD/USB/HD (dependent upon order in bios), but it results in the exact same behavior regardless of what options I choose.

Is there one USB port that favored over others? I wouldn't think it'd matter, since it's supposed to be a bus, but one never knows with cheap hardware. I'm also not sure why it's not finding the CD/DVD drive, when the diagnostics all report zero failures (even the long memory test).

 

it may only work form the usb2 port I have seen problems with ting to boot off usb 3 ports

but yeah try the other usb ports

there is a combination of bios settings that will work, it was a trial and error when I tried loading windows 7 on my 7537

 

I had the same problem when I installed Windows 7 on a Samsung laptop that was pre-loaded w/ Windows 8 (I could not boot from the built-in DVD drive, a bootable flash drive, or my USB-connected DVD Drive). I had to turn off the Quick Boot, and a couple other features inside of the BIOS Config.

 

I am having the same issue with my Dell inspiron 3521. It keeps trying to pxe boot, and when no image is found it tells me no boot device found. I have gone into the boot order and made network last. I have also ran the diagnostic and everything checks out fine. The hard drive is visible on the main screen of the setup. Also the hard drive is brand new and has no OS loaded. I am unable to load from usb or CD/dvd...please help!

 

Legacy USB enabled? External boot enabled? (if such options are present in the BIOS settings)

 

Legacy boot is the only boot with options so yes, and there's no "external boot" labled but virtualization and usb are all enabled. I even tried disabling the nic which had no effect.