T420s & Windows 8: startup problems in legacy bios mode (and workaround)

a heads up for anyone looking to install windows 8 on a t420s. after my inplace-upgrade from windows 7 to windows 8, the os would only boot every 10-15 tries. most of the time it was stuck on the blue windows bootloader logo.
after being annoyed too much by this, i went ahead and manually converted the MBR to GPT with the help of gparted/gdisk . then i switched to UEFI-only mode in the bios and used a UEFI-enabled windows 8 boot stick to use the win 8 recovery tool to make the disk bootable again.
since then, no more boot problems.
TL;DR: if you plan a fresh installation of windows 8 x64, make sure to switch to UEFI only mode in bios before running setup.

Hi,
i got my new T420 in may this year. As I am a student i get the new Windows 8 out of Dreamspark one month ago. Before I installed Windows 8 x64 I made all bios and firmware updates i can get.
After the successfull installation I got some startup hangs, not regular, but most of the boots. A few days ago a new bios was available, so I hope this one will get me rid of the problem. But the same thing happens, well I think it is the powermanagement, because the hang always happens at this point, when the display is going to dim. If I have the power plugged in, I don't get this problem.
Hope this will be fixed in later versions of bios / powermanagement.
Best Regards

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Hi,
i got my new T420 in may this year. As I am a student i get the new Windows 8 out of Dreamspark one month ago. Before I installed Windows 8 x64 I made all bios and firmware updates i can get.
After the successfull installation I got some startup hangs, not regular, but most of the boots. A few days ago a new bios was available, so I hope this one will get me rid of the problem. But the same thing happens, well I think it is the powermanagement, because the hang always happens at this point, when the display is going to dim. If I have the power plugged in, I don't get this problem.
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S205 & Win8 - How to force legacy BIOS mode?

Hi,
as far as I know the S205 has got two different interfaces:
UEFI and legacy BIOS.
Windows 8 supports both.
Using UEFI, Windows will partition the drive with GPT.
Using BIOS, it will be done with MBR.
The main problem is that - probably due to malfunctioning drivers - there are some major problems when using GPT with this netbook. You can find numerous threads about not working WiFi cards for instance.
What I'm looking for is an option to boot the Windows 8 installation through the BIOS interface from a thumb drive.
The S205 hasn't got an optical drive and I haven't got one either.
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PS: As this is not a driver issue, I'm not posting this in the Windows 8 forum.
Solved!
Go to Solution.

After doing some research, this is how to successfully use the Ralink Wifi with Windows 8 on the s205 - clean USB install.
You must install Windows 8 in legacy mode (choose "IDE" in the BIOS).
BUT - you must *also* remove "bootmgr.efi" and \efi\ from the USB, before you install. If you don't, the USB will still install in EFI!
If you already installed Windows 8 in IDE mode from USB, you must check if your install is IDE/legacy or EFI - open this log file:
\Windows\Panther\setupact.log
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(This information is from http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=209045)
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Windows 7 Startup Problem - Error code 0x490

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T420s & Windows 8: startup problems in legacy bios mode (and workaround​)

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T420s & Windows 8: startup problems in legacy bios mode (and workaround)