Issues with the Dell Latitude e6420 include strange BIOS, EFI problems, and potential shell bricking.
Issues with the Dell Latitude e6420 include strange BIOS, EFI problems, and potential shell bricking.
Hey there! I hope everyone is well. It's been quite some time since my last visit here, but just like before, I'm struggling to find a solution and have turned to this forum for help. I've been wanting to write this post for a while now, though I never had the chance. So, a bit of information might be a bit uncertain, but I'll try to be as clear as possible.
I recently got a Latitude e6420 2nd-gen i5 a few months ago. I started using it as a testing ground to experiment with various operating systems and software, especially Linux since I've always relied on Windows. While trying out different distributions, I landed on Fedora and ZorinOS—ZorinOS Lite worked best for my older laptops. I frequently switched between them, uninstalling and reinstalling each one as I explored new options.
One day, while booting into ZorinOS, my BIOS randomly changed to MBR mode (I didn't think much of it at first, considering my Latitude e6430 i5 board resets the BIOS when power drops because the battery doesn't hold). When I tried to start again, I saw the standard "not supported" message. After changing from Legacy to UEFI in BIOS, I noticed four boot options appeared even though I had only one drive.
I managed to replicate this issue on my e6430 board (see attached picture). Not sure what was happening, so I assumed the BIOS might be skipping installed OSes since none were present. I changed the settings and restarted the machine. From then on, whenever I powered on—whether with a drive or not—the computer would briefly POST, flash the Dell logo, and then freeze. It sometimes froze directly on the logo.
I tried rebooting repeatedly and pressing F2 to enter BIOS, but it always froze before I could progress. The machine seemed to boot normally otherwise—it wouldn't shut down or force a restart. It felt like it had fully loaded into something else. I'm not very familiar with hardware, so my guess is that the USB boot drive might have created a kind of shell in the BIOS (Windows Boot Manager), causing it to load into that environment instead of the OS I expected.
I don't know much beyond what I can tell, but I'm hoping someone here can shed some light. This issue happened months ago, and now I'm considering fixing it without spending money on a BIOS update. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks for taking the time to read my post.
It appears remnants of old operating system installations remain. Can you confirm if you can remove unused boot selections and ensure the entire storage is cleared? (Including fresh partition setup and reset.)
I used a WD 250gb Blue SATA SSD during setup, and each time I updated the operating system I would clear all partitions and begin fresh (I never reset the drive for accuracy). The device doesn’t allow deleting alternative boot selections—only removing them on my e6430 board, but it still affects the e6420 even without a drive installed (SATA, USB, SD card or MSATA), leaving only the ROM available. I’m unsure what else might be causing the problem. Additionally, the computer freezes before reaching the data request stage, stopping me from entering BIOS.