Let's install Windows 11 on incompatible hardware

Hazel123 · Aug 24, 2025

siliconbeaver said:
I was using and have disposed many Lenovo computers (laptop, desktop). from Windows 7 to 10/11.

Lenovo has a standard procedure to do this. How to erase secured lenovo ssd 11.60.3

Erase secure-enabled drive | System Manager 11.60.3 | Lenovo Docs

You can erase a secure-enabled drive so it can be reused in another volume group, pool, SSD cache, or in another storage array. This procedure resets the drive's security attributes and ensures that the data cannot be read again.

pubs.lenovo.com

Either you didn't do it right or got the easy thing too complex. I didn't run into the problem.

Thank you for that - I hadnt seen that tutorial before. At the start when it says - select hardware - where is that exactly? In bios?

spapakons · Aug 24, 2025

Hazel123 said:
Thank you for that - I hadnt seen that tutorial before. At the start when it says - select hardware - where is that exactly? In bios?

Probably refers to a Lenovo utility that manages the whole computer. Go to support, input your part number (P/N) or serial number (S/N, aka Service Tag) and look at the utilities section. If there is one, download it and copy it to the WinPE USB flash drive, see my previous post.

Hazel123 · Aug 24, 2025

spapakons said:
Just curious. You said the relevant tool is missing from the BIOS. You can only delete the drive using this utility? Isn't there a Lenovo Windows utility to do the same from Windows? In that case all you need is Windows live USB such as Sergei Strelec WinPE. Create a bootable USB from the Strelec ISO using Rufus and copy the Lenovo utility in as well. Boot from that, select Windows 11 or 10 and wait to load. Open File Explorer, access the utility and erase the disk.

Would that work? The download erasing utility only works for earlier models apparently. When I put in my serial number it says it may not work on this model. From 2019 they had it within the bios - but mine isn't there. According to AI it's common for enterprises to use firmware to remove it from bios - although I can't see why because you can't read anything on the drive during the erasure process.

Hazel123 · Aug 24, 2025

siliconbeaver said:
I was using and have disposed many Lenovo computers (laptop, desktop). from Windows 7 to 10/11.

Lenovo has a standard procedure to do this. How to erase secured lenovo ssd 11.60.3

Erase secure-enabled drive | System Manager 11.60.3 | Lenovo Docs

You can erase a secure-enabled drive so it can be reused in another volume group, pool, SSD cache, or in another storage array. This procedure resets the drive's security attributes and ensures that the data cannot be read again.

pubs.lenovo.com

Either you didn't do it right or got the easy thing too complex. I didn't run into the problem.

I'm just wondering - are these instructions for using Thinkshield? Because it's the Thinkshield that's missing from the bios.

Hazel123 · Aug 24, 2025

Ok I've done it - erased the drive

I had another go at burning a new cd with the Lenovo erasing utility download. This time it worked. Took about 3 seconds. So I guess my first cd wasn't burned properly. It's not in the bios because it's not meant to be. But it didn't help that Lenovo info said my serial number wasn't suitable for the erasing utility download. It's almost impossible to get it to work with usb (there is a lot of info about that online) so I dug out my usb cd drive.

spapakons · Aug 24, 2025

Whatever works. Glad that you finally did it

Hazel123 · Aug 24, 2025

That should have worked in the first place. But neither usb nor cd worked the first time. Then Lenovo said it "might not" work with my serial number and info for that model said from 2019 it should be in bios.

It is an extremely fiddly way to have to erase a drive. But at least now I can sell it saying - drive erased and clean install. Maybe I should add a note how to erase the drive in future.

Hazel123 · Aug 26, 2025

Decided to keep the Lenovo Thinkpad 11e yoga - now I can wipe drives

. It's not the netbook replacement I was looking for as it's bigger and heavier, but it's nice to use - good keyboard and touchpad. Not sluggish with 8gb ram and it runs Windows 11. At least now I can always sell it on at some point if I want. I might put a bigger drive in it. It would still be good to be able to have the drive wiping utility on usb stick instead of having to dig out my usb cd drive - but could not get it to work. I even found a tutorial on creating it in Linux - which most people found worked when Rufus didn't - but couldn't get that to work either. The instructions say create the usb stick as DOS and then copy the files into the root of the drive.

spapakons · Aug 26, 2025

When using good old Digiwiz MiniPE, there was an option to boot to DOS with USB and NTFS support. However I am sure you did something wrong with Rufus and the USB flash drive didn't work. In worst case, if standard creating method doesn't boot, you can use DD mode (disk duplicate mode), at least for some Linux based ISOs. This makes the USB behave exactly like a DVD-ROM disc and bootable in both UEFI mode and Legacy BIOS mode. This should work.

Hazel123 · Aug 26, 2025

I used Rufus to make the drive freedos bootable. Doesn't seem to work. Unless I was copying DrvErase.exe in the wrong location on the drive, but I tried every permutation.

barreleye · Aug 26, 2025

Success story (August 2025): This weekend, I updated my last Windows 10 system to Windows 11 so that I could use the 6 GHz WiFi band with its AX210 and my new router, as I had grown tired of getting bumped off 5 GHz DFS by radar and having to disable/enable the radio or reboot the router to get my router to use it again. It's an i5 4670 system and built circa 2014. It uses MBR, lacks a TPM, and BitLocker is enabled on all drives. I tend to avoid unsupported procedures, and this machine is my file server so I've especially resisted trying this; I only broke down after buying a new router and finding Windows 10 wouldn't do one of the things I bought it for. I could always restore from Image for Windows backup if something went wrong, but I never had incentive before now. Anyway, I downloaded the 24H2 installation media and used Rufus to create the USB and bypass the Windows 11 restrictions. I first booted the USB drive and found I could only install Windows anew, so I investigated and found I needed to boot into Windows 10 and run setup.exe from the USB. Once I did that, everything went without a hitch. No problems with MBR, BitLocker boots and auto-unlocks data drives like it always did, the OS is still activated, and so forth. Windows 11 did complain about a couple of drivers like a part of Intel PROSet from 2019, but uninstalling them tidied everything up. Windows Update is working fine, though it's my understanding feature updates will require an update install that may not be possible depending on Microsoft whims and/or technical changes like utilizing CPU instructions my i5 4670 doesn't support.

About the 6 GHz WiFi, I'm now getting 210 MB/sec file transfers, so that's pretty nice. Using 5 GHz and DFS, I'd top out at 1 Gbps speeds, around 110 MB/sec. Best of all, I shouldn't randomly experience persistent degradations to 30-40 MB/sec like when radar reared its ugly head.

spapakons · Aug 26, 2025

barreleye said:
Success story (August 2025): This weekend, I updated my last Windows 10 system to Windows 11 so that I could use the 6 GHz WiFi band with its AX210 and my new router, as I had grown tired of getting bumped off 5 GHz DFS by radar and having to disable/enable the radio or reboot the router to get my router to use it again. It's an i5 4670 system and built circa 2014. It uses MBR, lacks a TPM, and BitLocker is enabled on all drives. I tend to avoid unsupported procedures, and this machine is my file server so I've especially resisted trying this; I only broke down after buying a new router and finding Windows 10 wouldn't do one of the things I bought it for. I could always restore from Image for Windows backup if something went wrong, but I never had incentive before now. Anyway, I downloaded the 24H2 installation media and used Rufus to create the USB and bypass the Windows 11 restrictions. I first booted the USB drive and found I could only install Windows anew, so I investigated and found I needed to boot into Windows 10 and run setup.exe from the USB. Once I did that, everything went without a hitch. No problems with MBR, BitLocker boots and auto-unlocks data drives like it always did, the OS is still activated, and so forth. Windows 11 did complain about a couple of drivers like a part of Intel PROSet from 2019, but uninstalling them tidied everything up. Windows Update is working fine, though it's my understanding feature updates will require an update install that may not be possible depending on Microsoft whims and/or technical changes like utilizing CPU instructions my i5 4670 doesn't support.

About the 6 GHz WiFi, I'm now getting 210 MB/sec file transfers, so that's pretty nice. Using 5 GHz and DFS, I'd top out at 1 Gbps speeds, around 110 MB/sec. Best of all, I shouldn't randomly experience persistent degradations to 30-40 MB/sec like when radar reared its ugly head.

Upgrading an unsupported computer to the next Windows 11 version usually involves downloading the new ISO and use Rufus or otherwise to bypass compatibility check. However 25H2 uses most of 24H2 system files with the 25H2 features disabled. This means we don't have to worry about compatibility, it is the same as 24H2. Also this means we don't have to download the full 25H2 ISO to upgrade, there is a special update called 25H2 Enablement Package that enables the 25H2 in seconds and switches the version to 25H2. This also means there is no compatibility check involved during this process! If course don't expect the 25H2 Enablement Package to be offered to unsupported computers via Windows Update. We will have to manually download it when available from Microsoft Update Catalogue. There might also be a relevant thread with the download link.

barreleye · Aug 26, 2025

spapakons said:
Upgrading an unsupported computer to the next Windows 11 version usually involves downloading the new ISO and use Rufus or otherwise to bypass compatibility check. However 25H2 uses most of 24H2 system files with the 25H2 features disabled. This means we don't have to worry about compatibility, it is the same as 24H2. Also this means we don't have to download the full 25H2 ISO to upgrade, there is a special update called 25H2 Enablement Package that enables the 25H2 in seconds and switches the version to 25H2. This also means there is no compatibility check involved during this process! If course don't expect the 25H2 Enablement Package to be offered to unsupported computers via Windows Update. We will have to manually download it when available from Microsoft Update Catalogue. There might also be a relevant thread with the download link.

That's great. I feel like I'm on a roll! lol

Hazel123 · Aug 26, 2025

Sounds good! And yes the next big update should be easier. No need to reinstall.

HarleyQuinn · Sep 12, 2025

hello guys any update for incompatible pcs running windows 25h2?

Should we avoid update?

Should we edit any reg file?

Is there any setting we should change before preparing update?

Please keep us informed here for potential problems, thank you.

Hazel123 · Sep 12, 2025

Apparently it's only a small update and an enablement package so should be fine and no need to reinstall I believe. Others know more than me

noquiexis · Sep 12, 2025

My system is a Dell XPS 8920, purchased and delivered 7/25/2017. I am running dual-boot with Windows 10 on one SSD and Windows 11 on another SSD. I just installed Windows Update for build 26100.6584, but it took five tries over two days to get it successfully applied.

Bree · Sep 12, 2025

HarleyQuinn said:
hello guys any update for incompatible pcs running windows 25h2?

Should we avoid update?

No reason to avoid. 25H2 and 24H2 share a common set of system files, the 25H2 features are already in the 24H2 code but in a dormant state - waiting for the enablement package to turn them on.

I already have the Insider Dev build of 25H2 running on my unsupported System Two.

spapakons · Sep 12, 2025

HarleyQuinn said:
hello guys any update for incompatible pcs running windows 25h2?

Should we avoid update?

Should we edit any reg file?

Is there any setting we should change before preparing update?

Please keep us informed here for potential problems, thank you.

It depends what version you are currently running. For Windows 11 24H2, there will be a 25H2 Enablement Package. We will have to manually download it (not offered in Windows Update for an unsupported computer). For earlier Windows 11 versions or Windows 10 we can update directly downloading the 25H2 ISO. No need to upgrade to an older Windows 11 version first. If you have to use the ISO you must bypass compatibility check (see older posts in this thread).

mccmw · Sep 17, 2025

My apologies if I missed it in this thread earlier...popular/active thread for obvious reasons! On my older machine I did the manual command to update my secure boot certificates...follow-on powershell commands says it was effective. However, my motherboard is quite old...there hasn't been a BIOS update in years:) I'm definitely not a "secure boot" expert or navigating keys. It's an old Asus Z270 so I can see the following (PK/886/1/Default, KEK/3573/3/Default/DB/7820/11/Mixed, DBX/23332/482/Mixed). Are there other specific actions I need to take with respect to BIOS, or was the command I entered (and apparently worked) in Windows all that is necessary? If the prior, is there a good reference on how to do it without "messing something up?" Thanks.

Let's install Windows 11 on incompatible hardware

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