Alienware Aurora R5 Long Boot Time with Legacy Bios

Question

I had to replace the SSD on my Aurora R5 and the only way I was able to reinstall Windows 10 was with a USB from the media creation tool. In UEFI mode the operating system would not load and the bios would just reset indefinitely. When I switched to legacy mode bios I was able to install Win 10 after reformatting the drive using diskpart to NTFS file system. Now when I power on the PC the Alienware logo comes up twice with a blinking cursor black screen in between. The operating system eventually loads but it just takes a very long time. Any help would be highly appreciated. Thanks!

PS

With the new drive I no longer have the recovery partitions that originally came with the system for backup and recovery. Any way to get those back?

JO1010 · Accepted Answer

I disconnected the secondary 7200RMP 1TB drive and the issue went away.  There must have been an issue with that drive as the diagnostic suggested.  My computer now boots into Win10 in under 15 seconds even using legacy bios.  Thank you all for your help!

Alienware - Rodrigo · Answer

Hi,

Try running an ePSA/Diagnostic test from the Boot menu to make sure the Hard Drive is not reporting any errors. You can follow the steps on the video below to run this test. All of the Alienware applications and system drivers can be downloaded from the Dell support site.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69YxkmdLwrk

JO1010 · Answer

I got the error code shown above.&#xa0; Thanks for your prompt reply. &#xa0;

Tesla1856 · Answer

@JO1010wrote:

1. When I switched to legacy mode bios I was able to install Win 10 after reformatting the drive using diskpart to NTFS file system.

2. Now when I power on the PC the Alienware logo comes up twice with a blinking cursor black screen in between. The operating system eventually loads but it just takes a very long time. Any help would be highly appreciated. Thanks!

PS

3. With the new drive I no longer have the recovery partitions that originally came with the system for backup and recovery. Any way to get those back?

1. Old-school Legacy-BIOS should work, but so should UEFI. I would tend to want UEFI/SecureBoot to work on a newer system like this. Was the SATA SSD blank/raw and showing in BIOS when you tried as UEFI?

2. We tend to forget how slow Legacy-BIOS Posting/Initializing was compared to UEFI. You can lose a minute or so.

3. No. All you need is the Microsoft.com ISO on USB . Well, and http://support.dell.com

and maybe nvidia.com .

ewe3 · Answer

Have the same error:Embarrassed: but works now

JO1010 · Answer

2. The drive was recognized in UEFI when formatted as GPT but the operating system never loaded.  The drive is M.2 by the way.   Thanks!

Alienware - Rodrigo · Answer

Ok, please send me your Service Tag in a PM, so we can look further into this.

Alienware - Rodrigo · Answer

Hi, Thank you for confirming this.

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Alienware Aurora R5 Long Boot Time with Legacy Bios

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