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Unsuccessful installation of SSD in Inspiron 15 3251
I installed a 7 mm Blast Patriot 500 GB SSD in a Dell Inspiron 15 3521 laptop. I backed up the old 500 GB HDD onto an external hard drive using the free version of Macrium.
Upon trying to boot up, I saw - "Checking Media -Failed" (very close to those words). I checked the Bios which told me that the new SSD was not detected. I re-checked the seating of the SSD into its socket, and it felt snug. The old HDD was also 7 mm, and had a brace that I used for the new SSD.
I assume that the new SSD was blank and had no formatting (could be incorrect on that). If so, would the failure be that the new SSD was blank? I.e., would the bios theoretically detect the SSD if it had an OS, or any formatting done to it?
I'm not sure if this SSD is compatible or not. I also wonder if the SATA control circuitry on the motherboard have a problem with the new SSD, or it might not be working at all. I really don't know if the old HDD is bad or not. I'm just assuming that it failed. When whatever started to fail, my computer got hung up on the Internet after viewing only a couple of pages. That happened once again, and the third time I tried using it, there was media failure.
Macrium has an option for restoring to a new media, if you upgrage to the premium service. This problem is turning into an opportunity for learning an awful lot!
Thank you for any insights anyone can offer. No matter what you know, there is always someone who knows more.
Weather-Tech
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June 30th, 2016 23:00
Found the problem. The SSD unit was not connected correctly to the motherboard connector. The SSD's connector pins were firmly lodged underneath the motherboard connector, thus not making contact. The thing felt so right when I "connected" it wrongly. I had to lift up the SSD to get the pins to mate with the counterparts.
Right now, I'm using Macrium (free version 6.1) to restore the old HDD's contents to the new SSD. It takes a while to get used to using Macrium. At first, the software said the image was too large for the new SSD. I dragged and dropped everything I could onto the rectangle representing the SSD. I had to leave a few things out. If I included the right files to restore, I guess I should be up and running. If not, I'll fiddle with it some more.
What an education!!