Solved Is it possible to install Win 11 on a 64-bit processor but a 32-bit BIOS

Bree · Oct 19, 2023

starchase said:
Hmmmmm. That doesn't look like RAM, it looks like a drive! The link Bree copied brings me to a Crucial page that says they don't have any Memory upgrades but they do have a Storage upgrade. but they do have a Storage upgrade. An SSD for $209.99!!! Eeeek!!

While that Crucial link has no RAM available, it does say how many slots the 1025C has, and what RAM it would take (if they had any).

Yes, that Youtube video shows the HDD being removed. You have to, that is one step along the way to removing the motherboard, which has to be taken out and turned over to find the RAM slot on its underside. These netbooks were really not designed for ease of servicing.

Both my RAM and SSD upgrade were used items, cost me £33 ($40) in total. In fact for RAM of that age/type 'used' is probably all you'll be able find these days.

Bree said:
I've checked out the stocks at my nearest CeX, they have a 4GB one for £5. If I decide to undertake this lengthy dismantling then it would make sense to upgrade to an SSD at the same time. They also have a Samsung 850 EVO 256GB at £28.

starchase · Oct 19, 2023

That video showing the disassembly of the Eeepc looks cool! I think I may try it if I can find the memory module to give the netbook 4GB. I'll start looking.

starchase · Oct 20, 2023

Just to close the loop on the Eepc Flare upgrade discussion, I did buy a 4GB stick of memory and a 480GB SSD in order to make my 1024C usable. These should arrive tomorrow (Saturday). I looking for more videos concentrating on memory and drive upgrades for this unit I found the best one here. It is a clear, and detailed production that leaves no issue unturned. And as I love a good tech. project (not bad for someone who came a hair's breadth of failing high school), and this looks like an easy one. I know now that with Windows 7 Starter only 2GB can be utilized, but it is reported that with the full 7, and with Windows 10 which I'm using on it, that 2.9GB of the stick will be used - and that reportedly makes the netbook quite snappy!! So Saturday I'll enjoy breaking into this netbook.

Bree · Oct 20, 2023

starchase said:
... I love a good tech. project (not bad for someone who came a hair's breadth of failing high school), and this looks like an easy one. I know now that with Windows 7 Starter only 2GB can be utilized, but it is reported that with the full 7, and with Windows 10 which I'm using on it, that 2.9GB of the stick will be used - and that reportedly makes the netbook quite snappy!! So Saturday I'll enjoy breaking into this netbook.

'Easy' was not the first word that sprang to mind when I did mine

These netbooks are really fiddly to get inside, for mine the instructions started with 'first remove the keyboard'....

Bree said:
To get to the RAM, first remove the keyboard. Only then can you access the 14 screws that hold the back plate on. Seems rather excessive over-engineering for a 10" netbook !!!

Good luck. Allow plenty of time for the work, but it's worth it in the end. Mine now dual boots 32-bit Win10 and Windows 11.

starchase · Oct 21, 2023

Bree said:
'Easy' was not the first word that sprang to mind when I did mine
These netbooks are really fiddly to get inside, for mine the instructions started with 'first remove the keyboard'....

Good luck. Allow plenty of time for the work, but it's worth it in the end. Mine now dual boots 32-bit Win10 and Windows 11.

I got the HP 480GB SSD and a "Samsung" 4G memory stick today so I began the surgery. Actually I performed the disassembly yesterday and that went well, so all I had to do was make the swaps and reassemble. You're right, it is a bit of a bear o open the case, but things went smoothly after that. Today replacing the parts went fine though when I followed the video suggesting plugging in the cord to check to see if the memory was recognized I didn't get a signal to the monitor. I tried reseating (probably 5 times) the monitor ribbon cable and the trackpad ribbon but nothing! I decided to check the RAM, I wouldn't have thought this would have this kind of effect, but I went ahead and removed the main board and removed the RAM and reinserted it. And wouldn't you know the monitor now had a signal! Since the SSD I put in the netbook was brand new and blank, unformatted I couldn't get into the BIOS, which seemed strange o me, but the 1024C Eepc would only tell me to insert a bootable drive and reboot. Fortunately the machine would recognize the Macrium Reflect Rescue Disk and I proceeded to install the last Win10 image I had made, and I was good t go from there. After updating and making a fresh image I tried the Win11 repair upgrade thing but the machine said it would not install this software and to find other software to run. So I'll leave Win10 22H2 alone, and call it a blessing.

The machine is running like a brand new PC, so much faster it really is usable. So I'm happy.

Bree · Oct 21, 2023

starchase said:
After updating and making a fresh image I tried the Win11 repair upgrade thing but the machine said it would not install this software and to find other software to run. So I'll leave Win10 22H2 alone, and call it a blessing.

Windows 11 is only available as 64 bit. It sounds like you were trying to run its Setup from within 32 bit Windows 10. As you have an image of your Windows 10, you could try a clean install of Windows 11. Here's how I did it on my little netbook.

Let's install Windows 11 on incompatible hardware - post #1.386

To dual boot 10 and 11 I restored my Reflect image of 32 bit Win10, then used Disk Management to create a vhdx file for a 64GB dynamically expanding virtual disk. I mounted the vhdx, restored an image of the Win11 install to this virtual disk using Reflect (resizing the C: partition on the way), then set it up to native boot.

Create and Set Up New VHD or VHDX File in Windows 10

How to Create and Set Up New VHD or VHDX File in Windows 10

www.tenforums.com

Native Boot Windows 11 Virtual Hard Disk (VHDX)

This tutorial will show you how to boot a Windows 11 VHDX file natively to dual boot with Windows 10 or Windows 11. Native Boot allows you to create a virtual hard disk (VHDX), install Windows to it, and then boot it up, either on your PC side-by-side with your existing installation, or on a...

www.elevenforum.com

starchase · Oct 22, 2023

Thanks Bree. This will require me to regenerate some long dormant brain cells to grasp. But I "think" I see the concept. Except you say "I mounted the vhdx, restored an image of the Win11 install to this virtual disk using Reflect," where did you got the Win11 vhdx image? Or is this the regular Windows.iso obtained from the Media Creation Tool download? This has me puzzled.

One other thing, you mention you restored an image of a Win 10 install, but since I have mine running now this doesn't apply?

EDIT: I just thought, regarding my 1st question, I do have a folder with the Windows 11 instal files that I got from the MCT downlad and mounted and modified the appraiserres.dll. To get an iso file I can use a program to create an ISO from these files. Hmm, but how to get this ISO into a Reflect image to insert into the vhdx partition?

jimbo45 · Oct 22, 2023

kelper said:
My standby laptop has a 32-bit BIOS and this prevents me from installing Windows eleven, even though its processor is 64-bit.

Is there a workaround?

You can do it via a VM -- although performance won't be that great -- you need though to ensure that the hardware Bios has VT-X (INTEL) virtualisation or equivalent if an AMD processor enabled. Remember though if you do it that way both Guest and HOST can only address up to a maximum of 4GB Ram so you might need to use a 1GB 32 bit W7 version as the host and then run W11 as a VM.

You CAN run a 64 bit OS as a VM on a 32 bit host OS subject to conditions and of course the HOST must be 64 bit capable.

If you need this I'd suggest running a small LINUX version on your host laptop and then creating a standard W11 install VM as you can set the vm to sec boot, virtual TPM, efi partition, alter virtual cpu topology etc. With KVM/QEMU on a Linux host the OS overhead (Host) is quite small and it will work far better.

No problem in cloning a real W11 install to a VM -- process is called P2V (physical to Virtual) conversion -- just use Macrium or similar to create the image and restore to the VM. Simple as that.

Whether it's worthwhile or not is up to you but could be an interesting exercise if you want to have a go.

cheers
jimbo

SlicEnDicE · Oct 22, 2023

You DON'T want to run emulation or virtualization on a netbook.

jimbo45 · Oct 22, 2023

SlicEnDicE said:
You DON'T want to run emulation or virtualization on a netbook.

I can't disagree there. But some older laptops could do this.

I remember back in XP days running 64 bit W7 as a VM on a 32 bit XP SP2 system on a Sony Vaio laptop. It didn't run too horribly as the XP system was quite efficient but of the 8GB RAM 4GB was wasted as one could only address 4GB RAM. It worked better with XP64 as the Host !!!.

Cheers
jimbo

Bree · Oct 22, 2023

starchase said:
I "think" I see the concept. Except you say "I mounted the vhdx, restored an image of the Win11 install to this virtual disk using Reflect," where did you got the Win11 vhdx image? Or is this the regular Windows.iso obtained from the Media Creation Tool download? This has me puzzled.

One other thing, you mention you restored an image of a Win 10 install, but since I have mine running now this doesn't apply?

I booted from a Win 11 installer usb to do the clean install of Win 11. When choosing where to install I deleted all existing partitions then installed to the unallocated space (see Step 11 here: Clean Install Windows 11 Tutorial ).

Before restoring my Reflect image of its Windows 10 I made a Reflect image of the Windows 11 that I had just installed. It was this that I later restored to the vhdx.

Bree · Oct 22, 2023

SlicEnDicE said:
You DON'T want to run emulation or virtualization on a netbook.

Who's running an emulation or virtualisation? Native booting a vhdx runs the OS directly on the hardware, same as a normal boot does. See the tutorial.

Bree · Oct 22, 2023

starchase said:
I just thought, regarding my 1st question, I do have a folder with the Windows 11 instal files that I got from the MCT downlad and mounted and modified the appraiserres.dll. To get an iso file I can use a program to create an ISO from these files. Hmm, but how to get this ISO into a Reflect image to insert into the vhdx partition?

You need a bootable usb to do a clean install. You can make one from an ISO downloaded by the MCT by mounting it then copying all its files and folders to a Fat32 usb. Then mark the usb's partition as Active so that it will boot on a Legacy bios machine.

SlicEnDicE · Oct 22, 2023

Bree said:
Who's running an emulation or virtualisation? Native booting a vhdx runs the OS directly on the hardware, same as a normal boot does. See the tutorial.

I was referring to jimbos post above

johnlgalt · Oct 22, 2023

jimbo45 said:
I can't disagree there. But some older laptops could do this.

I remember back in XP days running 64 bit W7 as a VM on a 32 bit XP SP2 system on a Sony Vaio laptop. It didn't run too horribly as the XP system was quite efficient but of the 8GB RAM 4GB was wasted as one could only address 4GB RAM. It worked better with XP64 as the Host !!!.

Cheers
jimbo

Some laptops being able to do it does not make the suggestion germane to this topic, in which the user is asking about his specific device.

bobkn · Oct 22, 2023

1GB of RAM?

That's a hard no.

kelper · Oct 22, 2023

My laptop came with 1GB but I was able to double it! It's very, very slow and virtualisation is not going to speed it up!

starchase · Oct 22, 2023

bobkn said:
1GB of RAM?

That's a hard no.

If you are referring to my Asus 1024C netbook (and I may be wrong abut who you are replying to) I added a 4GB stick in my EeePC Flare and Windows is reporting 2.99GB usable. I am delighted.

Berton · Oct 22, 2023

I have on the bench a Toshiba Notebook with Vista, had 2GB RAM [2 x 1GB] but I found a 2GB module in my parts cabinet and it now has 3GB, it can take 4GB if I come across another 2GB. It's 2.16GHz so decent machine and I probably will end up with it [lady inherited from sister] so now looking for a version of Linux to put on it if I do get it, it will run Faren and Voyager from USB Thumb drive but slow. It has Wireless 802.11g so Internet is a bit slow but no Bluetooth, I've got 802.11n, 802.11ac and BT USB dongles.

More: forgot to mention it has a Pentium Dual-Core 64-bit CPU.

Ghot · Oct 22, 2023

kelper said:
My laptop came with 1GB but I was able to double it! It's very, very slow and virtualisation is not going to speed it up!

Yep. Crucial memory upgrade finder says your HP won't take more than 2GB.

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