17 R4, SSD won't appear in BIOS boot priority?

Question

Hello! I'm Mike and I've been working for the past 4 days on attempting to copy my files to my newly installed M.2 Solid state drive, and then setting that drive as the boot drive to enhance the performance of my Dell Alienware 17 R4 laptop. I've done an array of things, which so far has not led me to getting the SSD as an actual bootable drive. I'm not extremely tech savvy however I've learned quite a lot through YouTube tutorials.

To be clear, bios recognizes my SSD and so does everywhere else on my laptop

Here's what i've tried to do so far:
- Changed my BIOS boot mode from UEFI to Legacy and back etc.
- Changed secure boot on and off (tried loading up and checking the options in boot priority, still no luck)
- Changed from RAID to ACHI and back (no luck either)
- Cloned my disk (seemed obvious but that didn't make it a possible option)
- switching the SSD from the 2nd slot to the 3rd slot in my laptop
- Installing a copy of windows onto the SSD, wiping it, doing it again, trying with and without the added cloned data from my HDD
- Taking it out, putting it back in
- trying my f2 quick boot options and my f12 (bios menu)
- checked here at the forums

- looked at at least a dozen YouTube videos (I can list them if need be)
- Unplugging my HDD and testing just the SSD itself

and so far, to no avail. I'd like to think that the SSD is in good condition as I just received it several days ago and it had no visible damage, along with no hardware failures coming back when I run test. Also important to note, I've updated my bios to the latest version through the dell support website.

The main issue I've been having with this whole process is that every source has either a different bios, or a different device making this difficult since I haven't seen a bios remotely similar to mine yet. My bios is Aptio Setup Utility, but the ones I've seen look different so I'm guessing they're either old or even newer than the one I'm able to have.

As of right now I'm willing to try anything possible, just to have my SSD as a selectable drive. If anyone has any help, it'd be deeply appreciated.

Ps. I asked this on Microsoft Forum however they suggested I come here since it could be a more dell specific issue.

Sincerely - Mike

ejn63 · Answer

Simple copying will not work. You either do a clean install on the new drive (with the original drive removed from the system) or you image (clone) the existing drive over to the new one (making sure not to do the first post-image reboot until you've removed the original drive from the system).

You haven't mentioned how you cloned the drive, but some utilities are better than others. The pre-eminent one is Macrium Reflect (the free for home use version does a fine job).

You must not boot the system with both the image and imaged drives in the system - you must remove the original drive before the first bootup.

MikenIke_747 · Answer

Ah I see, and Yes I actually used Macrium for the cloning. I'll wipe the SSD and try this again, and most likely get back in the next 24hrs. Hopefully this will work. I'll keep you updated.

For reference, I used this tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTiPVR6szCA

A51-06 · Answer

Hi @MikenIke_747 , how did it go?

MikenIke_747 · Answer

All was going well, I had taken out my HDD and booted my computer,

originally saw this

which I ignored since I’ve seen it before, went to the f12 menu and was ecstatic to see my SSD there

but when I clicked on it to boot it send me to windows recovery

pressing enter just gives the same thing

esc brings me to bios setup, I’ll try the other two but yeah, this is my current issue.

f8 just flashes my screen black in a strange way

and f1 turns off my computer and launches back to the same black screen with the white text

MikenIke_747 · Answer

Tried going through this tutorial, however when I got to command prompt the commands could only seem to recognize my external hard drive (the one I used to try and fix the SSD)

https://youtu.be/apRYfUJwHFo

A51-06 · Answer

Go to the BIOS and reset all values to default. Make sure the SSD is the only thing that is on the computer and then add the USB. Run these commands: sfc /scannow chkdsk /f chkdsk /r

MikenIke_747 · Answer

I ran those and these were the outputs

MikenIke_747 · Answer

Here once again, I kinda gave up and plugged my HDD back in hoping to maybe find further fixes, however now it’s giving the same error that my SSD was giving, rendering my Alienware laptop unusable.

even when I try to boot using my USB I get this and can’t even get the windows installation menu to try and fix the issues. Really at my wits end here and I’m hoping I won’t have to get rid of the laptop due to it not being able to be used right now. Really loved using this thing, and idk what I’m gonna do without it.

Alienware

17 R4, SSD won't appear in BIOS boot priority?

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