Area-51m R1, trying to boot from SSD after replacing HDD

Question

Searched all over and can't find an answer to this. Information I have an R1 and made the mistake of going without an SSD until a few days ago when my HDD began failing and could no longer boot Windows. I purchased an SSD (Samsung 970 PRO) and installed Windows from a USB onto it. Got it up and running again and it works perfectly. BUT... Problem Today I received the warranty replacement for the HDD that was failing. I installed it, booted up and was forced into an hour-long Windows install and Alienware software initialization process. With this new HDD installed, I am forced to boot from the windows installation on there with seemingly no option whatsoever to boot from SSD. I went into BIOS setup. Under boot order I am only given options for Windows Boot Manager, IPv4 and IPv6. Selecting Windows Boot Manager will always go straight to the version of Windows installed on the HDD. There seems to be no way to switch to Legacy instead of UEFI, with or without Secure Boot enabled. The PC ALWAYS boots from this new HDD, and options to acknowledge the installation on the SSD are now either heavily, heavily obfuscated or disabled completely. Undesired, temporary solution I took the HDD back out, powering on with no HDD plugged in at all, and the PC would not boot, instead scanning for issues from Alienware Support Assist and finding no bootable device. I put the old, failing HDD back in, and am once again given the option to boot from HDD or SSD. From here I can boot from SSD again no problem. However, I obviously don't really want this ticking time bomb HDD with reallocated sectors in there just so I can use my computer. It causes noticeable slow down just accessing the files on that drive now. My goal was to continue using the new installation of Windows on the new SSD I put in, but replace the failing HDD and just use the new one as a fresh 1TB of storage space for videos and stuff. Does anyone know how this can be done without being forced to boot from HDD?

51MR1 Gnome · Answer

Did you ever figure this out or find answer on different forum? Thanks in advance.

A51-06 · Answer

Hi @brickhead77 @51MR1 Gnome ,

For this issue I recommend you guys send a screenshot of your BIOS screen with the New HDD and SSD so I can see what you see. I also recommend you guys try to setup in the BIOS the way the drives should boot with all of them unplugged so it doesn't detect anything.

In summary,

Unplug all devices

adjust settings in BIOS.

Plug devices back in.

AirForceOne1 · Answer

So I followed this thread:

https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware/Area-51m-R1-possible-to-migrate-OS-from-HDD-to-SSD/td-p/7652777

i got my ssd to work( yes I unplugged the HDD trying that)

but now i want to erase the HDD and make it secondary. I used Macrium Reflect per the advice given in the thread mentioned. I have a pic w HDD unplugged and plugged. Any thoughts?

Alienware

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