I am using my Lenovo T420S now since more than four years. This notebook is still comparable to current machines that are now on sale. It is equipped with a I7 processor and 16GB of RAM. In addition I added two Samsung SSDs during the years. I haven´t found any significant better notebook of that quality level since I started to look for a new one in this summer. So I decided to still stay with the T420 since there is a lot better one on the market that is worth its price. Best on that decision I had to trying to get Windows 10 working on that machine.
After several (> 10) tries I was finally able to upgrade to Windows 10. Me was confronted with an always occuring 0xC1900101 – 0x20017 error, after the system rebooted for the first time during installation (before the actual upgrade starts). In my case, the T420 rebooted and a start up screen with the Windows logo is shown. After a couple of seconds a single white dot was shown in the lower middle of the screen (should have been a loading spinner). After rebooting, Windows 7 is restored and the following error code is shown:
To avoid a long try and error marathon for you, you just might have to follow the steps I am listing below. It might be, that not all of the steps are necessary to perform. I am sorry, but I tried several steps with each installation attempt. So, you can just check, if a subset helps you.
- Use the windows media creation tool to download the Windows 10 upgrade directly to an USB stick from which the installation can start later on.
- When installation starts and you are asked if you would like to update the installation software, you should do it.
- Finally I went to change some BIOS settings and those are the ones that enabled me to install Windows 10.
- Config > Display
- Boot Display Device: Thinkpad LCD
- Graphics Device: Discrete Graphics
- OS Detection for NVIDIA Optimus: Disabled
- Config > Power
- Intel Speedstep technology: Disabled
- CPU Power Management: Disabled
- PCI Express Power Management: Disabled
- Config > CPU
- Core Multi-Processing: Disabled
- Intel Hyper-Threading Technology: Disabled
- Security > Memory Protection
- Execution Prevention: Disabled
- Security > Virtualization
- Intel Virtualization Technology: Disabled
- Intel VT-d Feature: Disabled
- Security > I/O Port Access
- All to disabled, expect of Ethernet LAN and eSATA Port to update the Windows installation software before the update
- Startup
- UEFI/Legacy Boot: Both
- UEFI/Legacy Boot Priority: UEFI First
- Reserve memory for UEFI Boot Manager: Enabled
- Config > Display
With theses settings in the BIOS I was now able to install Windows 10 to my machine. After the installation finished, you can set back all settings to their original state, expect the Config > CPU > Core Multi-Processing that needs to stay in the state „Disabled“.
From my current point of knowledge, the Core Multi-Processing is not effecting the actual active cores of the CPU, but is just some kind of „combining“ multiple cores to process a single thread. On my notebook this isn´t affecting the speed of the machine at all.
After installing Windows 10 I recommend to install software updates from Lenovo to your system. There are for instance new drivers for the NVIDIA Optimus.
Hello, I was trying to upgrade my T420s to W10 as well and ran into the same error. Just one question, if you enable Core Multi-Processing after the upgrade the laptop won’t boot at all?
Thanks for the article.
Tomas
Currently I have the Core Multi-Processing disabled as any of the settings regarding the CPU or virtualizing led to not booting anymore.
Yes!!! Yes!!! I got the same problem over and over again. Tried a lot of things but nothing worked for me. Now upgrade is done.My T420s is working well under WIN 10. Thanks a lot for the BIOS settings. You absolutly made my day. :-).
You are Welcome
Regarding this part:
Core Multi-Processing: Disabled
Intel Hyper-Threading Technology: Disabled
If you leave the Hyper-Threading disabled it works with Core Multi-Processing. (Tried and tested on T420s)
This is after the Windows 10 upgrade is completed.
Hey Eirrik,
is it still working even after some reboots?
I will give it a try again, but in my case the system wasn´t booting anymore after I enabled the core multi-processing.
It might be, that one of the comprehensive Windows 10 updates in the last month fixed the error?
BR and thank you for your feedback
Sven
Thank you so much for giving the hint about disabling various functions in the BIOS. This not only saved the day, but also the week :-).
After finally succeeding with the installation of Win 10 on the T420 (with almost everything disabled) I re-enabled the features set by set. In the end I found that only enabling the Intel VT-d feature prevents the system from booting. On my machine with BIOS 83ET76WW, version 1.46, also Core Multi-Processing is now enabled and does not interfere.
Strangely enough on one of my other machines (a Lenovo X201 Tablet) Win 10 boots without problems even with Intel VT-d enabled.
Thank your for the feedback. It is great to hear, that until now some of the issues seem to be solved with Windows updates.
I will check again, if I can re-enable VT-d and Core Multi-Processing, as Eirik mentioned.
For me it’s the same on the W520. When I switch VT-d back on, Win10 gets stuck during boot, much like the Win10 installer did. It turns out that it works fine for others on the W520 and it looks as though this might be down to them having a different CPU. Mine is an i7-2720QM, it worked fine e.g. on a i7-2760QM with reset-to-standard BIOS settings (including VT-d on), see discussion of this here: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=73&t=118556&start=30#p772287.
I’d be interested to hear what CPUs with VT-d on have shown the „0xC1900101 – 0x20017 error“ and which didn’t. Bernard, Sven, what CPUs have you got?
This is part of the output of msinfo32, showing the T420 model, processor type and properties:
System Model 4180P74
System Type x64-based PC
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2620M CPU @ 2.70GHz, 2701 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date LENOVO 83ET76WW (1.46 ), 05.07.2013
Thanks so much, Sven. I have been trying and failing for a while to install Windows 10 on a Thinkpad W520 and although your instructions are for a T420s I figured they are probably similar enough that this will work for me, too, and indeed it did.
You are welcome. I thought that there might be others dealing with this error for a while, so I decided to write it down.
Good one Thomas very helpful. I have got my T420 up and running on W10 using the above. Many thanks!
Most appreciated.
On an early reboot during the upgrade, I received an „operating system missing“ message with a „hosed‘ upgrade.
The OS had been destroyed!
I then restored the original W7 installation and followed your BIOS changes, and the upgrade went through fully this time.
J
Had exactly the same issue with my T420s. After reading this article, I noticed i was still running on an old BIOS version (1.33) and after upgrading to 1.41, dated 4.3.2016 (from the official Lenovo Support site) Windows 10 setup finally completed fine.
Great to here there is a fix now 🙂