Impossible to install Win 7, 10 on Medion with eMMC drive

DumperZ · 15 Jan 2017

Hello all

Laptop Model: Medion Akoya S4219
Medion serial n° MSN: 30020606
Hard disk: eMMC memory card 64GB

After a windows crash i deleted all partitions to cleanly reinstall a win 7or win 10 on this machine originally equipped with win 10, but when arriving to the partition selection I see a warning icon " Windows can't be installed in this hard drive" clicking on details is see something like " Windows can't boot on this type of media ...."
I tried to find a eMMC drivers for windows installer, and tried to install in terminal mode using Shift+F10 without any luck.
The priority would be to install a win 7 otherwise win 10 will be OK

Please how to success on it , thank you for your great help

Barman58 · 15 Jan 2017

I've worked with similar devices and also found them difficult to maintain, the price that they are sold at could be seen to place them in the disposable category. What I have found is that to replace the OS you need to use specific recovery software from the manufacturer.

The chance of a Windows Seven option is I think highly unlikely.

I have looked on their UK site but cannot locate the actual model you quote and my lack of language skills means that I cannot check their Belgian site

I would suggest you check the service links here ... Medion laptops, PC's & Tablets | Medion.com for a specialist install image for the actual model

DumperZ · 15 Jan 2017

Hello thank you for your quick reply, do you mean , it needs to be installed by flashing a rom such a tablet or a phone ?

Barman58 · 15 Jan 2017

A similar Image transfer system rather than an install in the traditional way. The storage is Flash memory so installation is by flashing the chip with a working copy of the OS. I have seen 32Gig models of similar devices cease to operate, (due to updates installing), without an external Flash memory stick to act as overflow

DumperZ · 15 Jan 2017

Is it any external mirrors for Medion roms ? I could not find any matching roms or informations.

I could find drivers for this specific model but nothing more, in fact Medion assistance is never very useful about support on their products, computer or hi-fi video, no service manuals or spare parts out of their services ...

DumperZ · 17 Jan 2017

I am a bit out of ideas now, I have been searching a lot since now without any luck, and of course I could not find any flashable roms if existing any for this model. That computer is now completely unusable.

Barman58 · 17 Jan 2017

All the devices I've been involved with have been from Dell or other major manufacturers so restore media was available "off the shelf" so to speak

Only thing I can think of now is can you access the BIOS ?

If so, see if there is a drive type setting that has such things as AHCI/IDE/Raid if so try changing that, reboot and see how the system behaves. Options of legacy or UEFI Settings may also be an issue

If you can switch any bios settings relating to the drive it may be, Especially as there does not appear to be suitable recovery media available, that a setting is leading to your error message and a correct setting may allow a conventional install

Another option is to create your install media using Rufus with the EUFI option on or off (opposite to what you tried the first time) Rufus - Create bootable USB drives the easy way

NavyLCDR · 17 Jan 2017

Barman58 said:

Another option is to create your install media using Rufus with the EUFI option on or off (opposite to what you tried the first time) Rufus - Create bootable USB drives the easy way

A properly created USB flash drive will boot under both UEFI and legacy BIOS (CSM) modes. Rufus rarely creates a proper USB flash drive that will boot under both. The key is that the USB flash drive be formatted as FAT32 and the partition on the flash drive be marked as Active. If it is formatted as NTFS, it will not boot in UEFI mode. If the partition is not marked as Active, it will not boot under legacy BIOS.

TrustMe · 18 Jan 2017

Barman58, NavyLCDR,
Do you think applying the image with DISM would work? I'm not familiar with a eMMC drive or this type of computer so I don't want to waste DumperZ's time if you don't think so. It was just a thought.

NavyLCDR · 18 Jan 2017

The only problem with applying the image with DISM is that the System Reserved or EFI System partition the computer would boot from would not be created.

What @DumperZ could do is do a clean install on another computer onto a temporary hard drive. It would have to be installed in the same mode (legacy BIOS or UEFI) that the eMMC device uses. It would also have to be the same version of Windows 10, home or pro, N edition or Single Language Edition maybe, if that is what was on it before. Compact the OS using the appropriate command in Command Prompt (Admin). Then you would boot the eMMC device from something like Kyhi's recovery drive, connect the temporary drive with the clean Windows install on it and clone all the partitions over to the eMMC memory drive.

I believe Kyhi's recovery tools also has showkey plus on it, that can be used to read the blank computer's UEFI/BIOS to determine if there is a product key stored on it and what version of Windows would need to be loaded to match it.