With the SSD connected, press F2 at powerup. Under drives, be sure the hardware (the SSD) shows up. That's the first step.
Since this is a UEFI-only system, you will almost certainly need to reload Linux on the drive once you've installed the hardware. Also note that if your plans include reinstalling the M.2 drive, that on most recent Dell systems, when you have both an M.2 NVMe and a 2.5" SATA drive in the system, the M.2 drive must be the boot drive.
> Was the transferred drive a 2.5" SATA drive, or M.2?
The new drive with the linux OS is the one on the 2.5" SATA SSD. I removed/unplugged the M.2 which has the Win 10 OS and installed the 2.5" SATA SSD drive and tried to boot up.
> If it's a 2.5" drive, does the system setup see it? And if it does, is the Linux install UEFI-compliant? This system has no legacy OS support.
Not sure what you mean by "does system setup see it"? I don't think it does because there is a small text at the top left of the screen on startup saying something to the effect of 'no media' or 'media failed'.
Is the linux install UEFI compliant? Not sure, I'll have to check.
If there is no legacy support and the linux install was not UEFI compliant then I suppose, I'd have to either re-install on the 2.5" SATA SSD or dual-boot on the M.2 with Windows 10.
> With the SSD connected, press F2 at powerup. Under drives, be sure the hardware (the SSD) shows up. That's the first step.
Thanks. F2 brings up BIOS. Where exactly within BIOS menu should I be looking to see if the hardware (SSD) shows up?
> Since this is a UEFI-only system, you will almost certainly need to reload Linux on the drive once you've installed the hardware.
Unless I'm misunderstanding you, I've already installed the 2.5" SATA SSD (which has my linux OS on it) and removed the M.2 SSD (which came with the laptop and has Win 10 OS)
> Also note that if your plans include reinstalling the M.2 drive, that on most recent Dell systems, when you have both an M.2 NVMe and a 2.5" SATA drive in the system, the M.2 drive must be the boot drive.
Thanks. Ideally I'd only have one drive just to keep things simple. I'll check to see if my linux OS install was UEFI compliant and if not, one option would be to simply dual-boot with Win 10 and my linux OS by having it installed on the M.2 SSD.
That would give me the most optimal scenario IMHO as I'd still have my 2.5" SATA SSD drive intact and would also have Win 10 as well as the linux install that I would have transferred to the M.2 drive.
Do you by any chance know what it is referring to within BIOS when it has a menu option to "add boot option"? Clicking on it opens up a new dialogue 'window' which asks for the name of the new boot option. Don't know if this is helpful in my case but since I'm looking at every option out there this stood out for me.
Look in the "Drives" or "Storage" section for the hardware. It may also be labeled SATA.
Adding a boot option to the UEFI setup first requires that the system recognize the drive, since part of the UEFI setup routine resides on the drive itself. That's what is set up on installation of the OS to the drive - and very likely missing from this system, since the OS was installed on another system.
You CAN manually add boot entries, but to verify whether or not the disc is bootable, press F12 at powerup. If there's a UEFI-bootable partition on the drive, you will see it in the boot list that appears (using F12 the list is populated dynamically, vs. setting it manually by altering the list you see in setup).
ejn63
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January 6th, 2021 13:00
With the SSD connected, press F2 at powerup. Under drives, be sure the hardware (the SSD) shows up. That's the first step.
Since this is a UEFI-only system, you will almost certainly need to reload Linux on the drive once you've installed the hardware. Also note that if your plans include reinstalling the M.2 drive, that on most recent Dell systems, when you have both an M.2 NVMe and a 2.5" SATA drive in the system, the M.2 drive must be the boot drive.
ejn63
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January 6th, 2021 13:00
Was the transferred drive a 2.5" SATA drive, or M.2? Note that this system supports only NVMe M.2 drives - it does not support SATA M.2.
Documentation here:
https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/product-support/product/inspiron-15-3505-laptop/docs
If it's a 2.5" drive, does the system setup see it? And if it does, is the Linux install UEFI-compliant? This system has no legacy OS support.
lingben
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January 6th, 2021 13:00
> Was the transferred drive a 2.5" SATA drive, or M.2?
The new drive with the linux OS is the one on the 2.5" SATA SSD. I removed/unplugged the M.2 which has the Win 10 OS and installed the 2.5" SATA SSD drive and tried to boot up.
> If it's a 2.5" drive, does the system setup see it? And if it does, is the Linux install UEFI-compliant? This system has no legacy OS support.
Not sure what you mean by "does system setup see it"? I don't think it does because there is a small text at the top left of the screen on startup saying something to the effect of 'no media' or 'media failed'.
Is the linux install UEFI compliant? Not sure, I'll have to check.
If there is no legacy support and the linux install was not UEFI compliant then I suppose, I'd have to either re-install on the 2.5" SATA SSD or dual-boot on the M.2 with Windows 10.
lingben
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January 6th, 2021 13:00
> With the SSD connected, press F2 at powerup. Under drives, be sure the hardware (the SSD) shows up. That's the first step.
Thanks. F2 brings up BIOS. Where exactly within BIOS menu should I be looking to see if the hardware (SSD) shows up?
> Since this is a UEFI-only system, you will almost certainly need to reload Linux on the drive once you've installed the hardware.
Unless I'm misunderstanding you, I've already installed the 2.5" SATA SSD (which has my linux OS on it) and removed the M.2 SSD (which came with the laptop and has Win 10 OS)
> Also note that if your plans include reinstalling the M.2 drive, that on most recent Dell systems, when you have both an M.2 NVMe and a 2.5" SATA drive in the system, the M.2 drive must be the boot drive.
Thanks. Ideally I'd only have one drive just to keep things simple. I'll check to see if my linux OS install was UEFI compliant and if not, one option would be to simply dual-boot with Win 10 and my linux OS by having it installed on the M.2 SSD.
That would give me the most optimal scenario IMHO as I'd still have my 2.5" SATA SSD drive intact and would also have Win 10 as well as the linux install that I would have transferred to the M.2 drive.
Do you by any chance know what it is referring to within BIOS when it has a menu option to "add boot option"? Clicking on it opens up a new dialogue 'window' which asks for the name of the new boot option. Don't know if this is helpful in my case but since I'm looking at every option out there this stood out for me.
Thanks!
ejn63
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January 6th, 2021 14:00
Look in the "Drives" or "Storage" section for the hardware. It may also be labeled SATA.
Adding a boot option to the UEFI setup first requires that the system recognize the drive, since part of the UEFI setup routine resides on the drive itself. That's what is set up on installation of the OS to the drive - and very likely missing from this system, since the OS was installed on another system.
You CAN manually add boot entries, but to verify whether or not the disc is bootable, press F12 at powerup. If there's a UEFI-bootable partition on the drive, you will see it in the boot list that appears (using F12 the list is populated dynamically, vs. setting it manually by altering the list you see in setup).
lingben
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January 6th, 2021 17:00
> Look in the "Drives" or "Storage" section for the hardware. It may also be labeled SATA.
Are you referring to BIOS or within Windows 10?
ejn63
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January 6th, 2021 18:00
Under Setup, not Windows.
The first step to this is making sure the system sees the physical presence of the drive. Press F2 a few times after the power button to enter.
If the drive isn't seen, it's a hardware issue.
If it is seen, next step: F12 at powerup with the drive connected to see if it's bootable.
Bear in mind the system likely shipped with IRST (RAID) ON if it came with Windows; you may want to turn that off.