Originally Posted By onthebreeze:
Here you go: https://linuxmint.com/download.php

Seriously, I wouldn't put Win11 on a damn thing, it is a huge mess.

Originally Posted By FALARAK:

I live windows 11.  It is better than 10 in every way.   I don’t get the hate, unless you are just a general windows hater.

Originally Posted By Chromekilla:
So I got the new used laptop in today.

Plugged in/attempted to turn on straight as it came to verify function. The lights would come on and flash, and I heard a ticking kinda noise. Power cycled a few times and screen would never come on/boot.

Decided it must be a failed cmos battery, so I swapped that from old laptop. I then was able to get it on. It then wouldn't recognize the existing HDD in the machine. I switched boot settings to UEFI from legacy.  Then it came on and went to regular windows screen/desktop appeared to function as normal.

I then figured I was smooth sailing and tried to  swap my SSD over, and it keeps saying no bootable devices found.

I double checked it was inserted fully, and on UEFI mode and also changed from raid to ahci. It goes to a blue windows screen that says no bootable devices found.

Any ideas for a work around?

The good thing is I can likely use my new laptop to charge a battery and get power to my old laptop. Is there some kind of restore disc that would make my life easier?

Originally Posted By mancat:


If you're already able to get into the bluescreen at boot then you're most of the way to recovery console. Just keep hitting the power button to shut off the system when you get the "NO READABLE BOOT DEVICE" error and after the third try you'll typically get dumped into Recovery Console.

In essence you're already booting from the SSD drive, but Windows isn't loading the necessary SATA/AHCI/RAID controller drivers that it needs for the OS to read data from the drive after the kernel is loaded and takes over from the EFI bootloader.

In part this is because Windows is stupid about how it handles storage drivers, and the default behavior is to only load the required storage drivers at boot time in order to increase the speed of the bootup process. The downside to this approach is that if the drive is moved to another system, or certain BIOS settings are changed (like switching AHCI/RAID mode) then the required storage driver changes as well and you may run into a no-boot situation.

What you want to try is from the recovery console, set startup options to safe mode. In safe mode, Windows will load all known storage drivers, likely including at least one that's compatible with your controller, and will also initiate a device detection routine that will lead to your required storage controller being registered with the correct startup type going forward from this point.

To do this when you get into the recovery console, click on Troubleshoot -> Advanced options -> Startup Settings -> Restart. When prompted select Safe Mode.

When Windows reboots into Safe Mode, just let it boot up and give it a few minutes to finish the device detection process, then reboot. Windows should now boot up normally.

If for any reason the system is still stuck in Safe Mode, open "msconfig" and then uncheck Safe Mode in the Boot tab, then click OK and restart when prompted.

If you still don't get anywhere with this approach you may need to inject the required storage driver into the Windows installation using DISM to inject a driver package from a USB drive... There are guides out there on how to do this but I'm afraid this is getting into more advanced territory, and DISM isn't forgiving of any mistakes made in telling it what to do.. You would need to get the proper storage driver from Dell, extract the contents, and put the driver files onto a thumb drive. Almost all Dell driver packages have a hidden command line switch that will just dump out the driver contents into a folder - you can get the drivers from Dell support site for your model, which typically are in the "Storage" category of drivers, download it, and run the driver file with a /? switch at the command line - typically Dell drivers are something like /e:"foldername" to extract the driver contents to a specified folder. Copy the driver files to a thumb drive. Then follow one of the many guides that cover injecting a storage driver into a working installation of Windows using DISM. To do all of this though you do need a decent understanding of Windows command line operations, drive letter assignments - e.g. in recovery console your Windows installation will have a unique drive letter assignment that's not typically C: and so will your USB thumb drive. No GUI to help you with any of it in recovery console.

Since W10 is at EOL for security patching, if you want to stick with Windows, it's probably best to plan to do a fresh W11 install. Then you can decrapify/debloat it afterwards (lots of guides on this) to get rid of all the junk and telemetry.

I have access to a corporate W11 LTSC license but I still run regular W11 on home PCs. With the proper debloat, Home/Pro W11 is almost indistinguishable from LTSC.

Originally Posted By FALARAK:

I love windows 11.  It is better than 10 in every way.   I don't get the hate, unless you are just a general windows hater.