Need assistance with reducing Windows 10 to a newer version on your new Windows 11 laptop?
Need assistance with reducing Windows 10 to a newer version on your new Windows 11 laptop?
I bought a Lenovo IdeaPad 3i 15ITL6 with Intel i5 11th gen, 8GB RAM, and 256 NVMe SSD. I need to switch it to Windows 10 but the laptop only has a Win 11 setup with no downgrade option. After trying a clean install of Windows 10, it shows up with a drivers screen, a blank page, and no HDD detected. I’ve checked everything to get it back to Windows 10, but now it crashes with a "boot drive not found" error and I’m stuck. Any advice would be great!
Can you connect to the BIOS? You may have to adjust certain settings there to eliminate manufacturer-imposed restrictions. Keep in mind that a Win11 license cannot be upgraded to a Win10 license unless it's explicitly offered for that version. You'll need a different license type.
I figured it out. Had to add the RST driver through the same USB used during Windows 10 installation so the drive would appear on the install screen. The BIOS on this laptop is very basic—only I could disable TPM and secure boot, besides a few other settings that didn’t help. I almost forgot to turn off BitLocker. That would definitely have caused problems. On a positive side, the Windows 11 key downgraded to let me activate Windows 10. Thanks for the feedback!