Adding a hard drive to optiplex 7070

Question

I purchased a refurbished optiplex 7070. It worked fine. I wanted to add another HDD to it apart from the SSD it came with. I opened the cover and added the HDD. Now when I try to boot, I get error that no boot device found. When I go to BIOS, under the drives, I see that both the HDD (SATA-0) and the SDD (M.2 PCIe SSD-0) are listed accurately. When I go to boot sequence and switch to legacy external drives, I only see options 'Diskette Drive', 'USB storage device' and 'Onboard NIC'. I do not see the SSD mentioned. So how do I boot from the SSD? Please help.

akhiljain1 · Accepted Answer

I braved it and installed the hard drive to SATA-0.   This time it worked.   Did not have to make any changes.   My guess is that it is the AHCI that might have done the magic.   Thanks.

Chino de Oro · Answer

First off, changing boot mode will render your current boot drive becoming unbootable, so you need to change it back to UEFI and verify that Windows Boot Manager is the first boot option, but do not alter anything further. Second, what was the intention to switch to legacy external drives after you added an internal HDD?

Anyway, did you change SATA mode from RAID to AHCI?

akhiljain1 · Answer

I changed it back to UEFI. Windows boot manager is the only boot option.  Changed the SATA mode to AHCI. Now when I am booting, i am getting the blue screen of death.  Even after unplugging the hard drive, i am getting the blue screen.

akhiljain1 · Answer

I removed the hard drive and did a reset of the computer. Now it is OK. Before I put in the hard drive again in SATA-0, what should I do. Last time I had done this, I was getting the "no bootable drive" and that is why I had gone to BIOS.

BTW, the hard drive I have is from another computer and it is a bootable hard drive for that computer. Does that make a difference? Do I need to do something before I add that drive to the new computer?

Chino de Oro · Answer

I guess my earlier post was not clear enough when I ask not to alter anything further. But it's okay. If your SATA mode is in RAID, you will need to change it to AHCI before adding another SATA drive into the system. To do so, you can change SATA mode to AHCI. Your computer will go into BSOD 2 times and on the 3rd time, it will automatically boot into the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE). You then can boot to Safe Mode to allow proper AHCI driver installed. Follow these steps to enter Safe Mode from the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE):

At the Choose an option screen, select Troubleshoot.
At the Troubleshoot screen, select Advanced Options.
At the Advanced Options screen, select Advanced Startup Options.
Select Startup Settings.
Select Restart.
The computer restarts and enters the Startup Settings menu. Select 4 or F4 to start the computer in Safe Mode.
Once you are in Safe Mode. Restart your machine again. You will be booting into Windows with AHCI mode.

You can then shutdown and adding the second drive into system. Upon booting up, keep tapping F12 for one time boot and select to boot with your original system drive. You should be able to boot into Windows again. Then you can access to the 2nd drive for data or use elevated command to clean the newly added drive and prepare it for intended usage.

Optiplex Desktops

Adding a hard drive to optiplex 7070

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