Struggling to set up Windows 11 or 10 on an Intel i5 660 processor?
Struggling to set up Windows 11 or 10 on an Intel i5 660 processor?
I've been attempting to set up Windows 11 on this outdated machine that's mainly used for printing. It has Windows 8.1 installed, but I got an SSD and tried installing Windows 11 to give it a chance. I used Rufus, chose MBR, and selected the option to create extra partitions so the system could detect it as bootable (as described). It was always in NTFS format with a 4000-byte allocation. I also bypassed the system requirements for Windows 11 in the Rufus tool. It worked fine on my other i7 3770 PC, but now it doesn't work at all on this old PC (i5 660). It won't even boot from it. I tried connecting it to a laptop with a 4th-gen Intel i3 and switched it to BIOS for compatibility. That worked. But on the original machine (PC1), it still doesn’t boot. After Windows 8.1 started, the USB appears in File Explorer—how is that possible? The drive is listed as MBR after checking in Disk Management. Yet there are no other partitions besides the main Windows partition. I unplugged all other drives so only the SSD showed up. There was an option to boot from another media, which was enabled by default, and BOOT SECURITY was turned off. I suspect something is missing. I thought I was skilled at troubleshooting, but some of the options or labels might not be accurate. If that’s the case, I’ll take pictures and post them here. Thanks a lot!
I experienced a comparable problem with my i3-540 as well. Connecting the USB to a USB port on the laptop helped, along with removing the CMOS battery for a BIOS reset. Occasionally, restarting multiple times without booting into Windows (no detect-kill PC-reboot after plugging it in another port) also provided relief. I don’t remember doing the extra partition step, but it might help to try it once disabled. Also, make sure TPM is turned off while writing the pendrive—Windows is running smoothly on my i3 with Win11.
For those looking for a solution later: I quit trying to boot from the USB to install Windows on that machine, thinking maybe only DVD and HDD support booting... I installed Windows 11 on an SSD using another computer, enabled legacy BIOS on that PC, created a bootable Windows USB (chose MBR and BIOS settings in Rufus), and after setup, connected the SSD to this Intel i5 660 PC. It worked. The BIOS version listed is 2.4.0 (reportedly 2.67 inside BIOS) — it's a Dell model. Enjoy staying curious! 2 024-07-14 sunday. :>