SSD Not booting

Hi willdloy,

Kindly try to boot the system by pressing F12 key at the start up to and selecting SSD on one time boot menu. Also, disable the internal HDD and then try to boot with the SSD only.

Then, let us know if you receive any error message. Please perform these steps and let us know the results, so we can advise you further.

Thanks and Regards
Sandeep P
#iworkfordell

Hello:

I did as you instructed and here are the results:

F12 at start – selected SSD as boot device Result received message “BOOTMGR is missing”

After disabling the HDD result - “BOOTMGR is missing”

I hooked the HDD back up selected it as boot and it then booted as normal.

Will

Thank you both for your replies. It seems that you both were right as I recloned the drive and it booted up as it should have. The only problem is that I do not have the option in the settings to use AHCI instead of raid. I tried setting to ATA and it would not boot. If I install a SATA 3 card will that give me to AHCI option in settings which is recommended?

Any way I am now booting in 35 second instead of 2 mins and 35 seconds as before. I am quite happy with the speed of the computer but may get a new SATA3 card if I can find one that is inexpensive and recommended.

Thanks for your help.

Will

Wildly, so found this post with what seems to be theway you end up moving ahead. So: SDD as OS drive, kept data using cloning sw (assumed provided by Samsung), no OS reinstall required, no need to get ACHI (as our XPS 8100 does not support) and all working well and you're getting faster PC. Correct? Any further advice before I start doing the same?

Planning on getting Samsung 840 Pro, top of the line (better than 840 EVO) and maybe overkill without SATAIII but maybe worthwhile given the higher supposed reliability and warranty. Planning on also getting a SATA III controller card so at least my data drives can get 6Gb speed. thought about getting a controller card supporting SATAIII and RAID 1 to stripe and use for some video editing but I think the PC will still have bottlenecks so may just rely on a single fast drive for video.

Any other feedback for me?

On a separate topic, since we share the same underlying computer guts, I wonder if you have experienced the same oddity when hooking up external eSATA docks. I tried two docks, various cables and various drives and diagnostication sw - SMART short test always shows as failed but it is because somehow the sw cannot read the SMART data from the drives. If connect dock via USB, shows fine. I find it weird that sw cannot seem to access the drive via eSATA for the SMART test even though I am able to perform other operations like browse and move files from the connected drives. Either there is something odd about the XPS eSATA connection or I have some malfunction... Have you experienced this?

Thanks!

PS - same thing happens when using the software from Seagate or Western Digital on the INTERNAL SATA drive - SMART test fails because it cannot read it from the drive. This happens for any drive I connect through SATA/eSATA on my XPS 8100. I know the drives are OK because I extensively tested them outside of this configuration.

Thanks for the assistance.  I have the Poweredge T320.  I used the Todo backup tool. Here is the link : https://www.easeus.com/backup-software/tb-server.html The clone trial feature is good for 30 days.  I also had to remove the original raid drives temporarily.  This caused the windows 2012 to go into repair mode and then rebooted cleanly.  I then re added the original raid drives later.  Voila!!!  The performance boost is incredible!

Hi,

I have a Dell E5470 laptop with pre installed 500GB HDD on it. I recently buy a SSD which is Transcend 230S 1TB for my regular driver and storage. However i have cloned the operating system Windows 10 by Transcend SSD Scope software and operation goes fine. but after installing the SSD my windows doesn't booting up and showing critical error massage. I've tried by creating new partition with clear windows 10 installation with GPT format, but found the same result as well.

I have tried so many ways to fix this error (blue screen) along with start up boot diagnosis but failed every time.

please help me out of this issue earlier possible.

Make sure your SSD is plugged into the same SATA slot the old HHD drive was in.  Plug the old HHD drive into any other SATA slot.  Btw, the plugs are staggered so you may have to rotate it 180 degrees and then plug it in.

For my dell latitude e6530, my win 10 hdd died and I was not able to clone due to 270 bad sectors. No easeus programs were useful. 

So I had my dell computer with no working hard drive to boot from, and my ssd, although perfectly formatted on another computer via usb sata using disk management, it was not being seen at all when trying to install windows 7 or 10 with disk or iso boot usb.

This is my solve:

I found the problem.

Please advise computer users to update their bios, before their old hardrive dies! This is the main issue.

Reflashing my bios without a hard drive was next to impossible but with 5 days work with no sleep and 1000 restarts, I finally hacked my bios via dddpm boot usb by dropping the new downloaded bios exe directly into the dddpm boot files. "Dell diagnostic deployment package" follow instructions to create bootable usb using this program. 

See instructions:

https://www.dell.com/support/article/en-ca/sln143196/how-to-create-a-bootable-usb-flash-drive-using-dell-diagnostic-deployment-package-dddp?lang=en

This was a serious pain in the bum as some of the steps were obviously omitted. Nobody on the entire internet had this solve for my dell. I manually accomplished this through a weeks worth of trial and error.

This is the solve for future dell complaints.

Bios update to version a22 or a24 for dell latitude notebooks (specific bios update for machine from dell website). Place downloaded bios exe on desktop after downloading it from dell website and keep it handy. This was my version! Use the dell drivers and downloads webpage to find the specific and newest ones for your machine!

Create bootable usb using the "dddpm" dell download tool but dont hit execute yet (dont actually create the boot usb yet). Add the exe bios file into the dddpm files on the dddpm partition on the usb. Follow dells instructions and delete unnecessary dddpm files as shown. Then now finally hit execute.

Now the new bootable usb has the new bios in program and booting it can finally read it.

Using ufei or legacy boot to usb from bios:

Command prompt should come up if you deleted the diagostic files as suggested in dell instructions.

Enter exact name of exe file into prompt. Eg "123455a22.exe"

Hit enter.

*must have >10% battery and functioning adapter. This was another issue I ran into because my adapter is only suppliying run power and it is not charging batteries. I had to switch batteries to get bios update to run.

So I had these main issues that prevented easy switch to ssd

1). Bios wasnt updated
2). No working harddrive to update bios easily.

3) Dddpm instructions did not specific WHERE to put bios file. (It must be dropped into the correct partition of usb so it is visible via adding it to the file dddpm file cluster before creating the bootable usb in dddpm.) 
3). Bad adapter and low battery warning.

These are the solves for my specific case with dell latitude e6530 with old bios and no bootable hard drive.

Now everyone knows.

I should also mention that older laptops need to manually run factory image disks with win 7 first on new ssd in order to upgrade via windows media creation tool later unless they just buy new license.

I would imagine that most people run into bios issues and this should always be the first go to solve for older computers.

Thanks everyone and I hope this info helps the next person. Paying it forward. 

Download and upgrade while you can folks. 

similar problem: trying to replace the old HDD in my old inspiron 3551 with a samsung EVO870 SSD. I think the inspiron shipped with windows 7 at the time, but all the upgrades to W10 had been done. The BIOS doesn't look like the one in the movie above. I have something called Aptio Setup utility -American Megatrends Inc. I am not going to list the endless reboot efforts and bios settings/boot settings options that i experimented with. None worked. Eventually i just gave up on the plan to migrate data from the old HDD to the new SSD, and i went for a clean W10 install. this is how i eventually got there. A SATA to USB converter cable and a second computer ( a PC in my case) are required.

1. plug the SSD with the USB adaptor in the PC.

2. run the microsoft Windows 10 installation Media tool and put the windows installation stuff on your new SSD as if it were a USB flash drive. This just works.

3. now plug the SSD in the laptop. Unplug all other storage devices.

4. BIOS settings: Fast boot: disabled; Boot list option: LEGACY ; secure boot:disabled; load legacy option rom:enabled; boot priority 1: Hard drive. 

good luck

Hello Sandeep, i have replaced my Laptop with an SSD and downloaded the recovery media from Dell and placed this onto a botable USB.

I complete the installation and windows loads fine and after the 1st reboot, the DELL logo with the spinning wheel appears, and does not load the OS.

I have had a look at your above post and checked the Secure boot options as is.

Nothing works for me at the moment.

#desperate

I know this is an old thread, but the solutions presented didn't fully work for me so I found another solution that works:

System: Dell Optiplex 7440

SSD: Samsung SSD 850 Evo 500GB

Boot the system by pressing F12 key at the start up to go to boot options. Change boot mode settings, change to legacy, secure boot off. Then the SATA SSD appeared on one time boot menu!

To make the changes permanent, you needed to go to the BIOS (F2), settings, general, advanced boot options, enable legacy options roms. Then go to boot sequence, then boot list option, then choose legacy. Afterwards make sure that the drive is at the top of the boot sequence. 

Done!