Making SSD the boot/OS drive and HDD the storage drive

Ah thank you. I'm on an xps 8900, 6th gen I7 (6700). Perhaps that is causing the issue - because it is NOT sata?

Do you think @RoHe 's advice could work? Earlier in the week when I would F2/F12 the SSD WAS showing up in the boot sections of the bios. I would select and it would still boot to the old HDD. Now it isn't even showing up if I F12.

I'm thinking if I can get rid of SATA0 as a bootable device it would then go to the SSD. Maybe?

So I have been dealing with this for several days. And am going to try again after posting this.

I got a Samsung NVME EVO 500 GB drive to boot from. Installed it using a PCIe x4 conversion card to get the most out of it (instead of the onboard NVME slot.

Installed SSD - booted up - cloned using Samsung cloning tool - shut down - disconnected original HDD (I read some forums here first) - then booted straight up to the new Samsung SSD. I've never used an SSD and it was a beautiful, almost metaphysical experience. OK that wasn't necessary. Everything worked wonderfully.

NOW - I wanted to reformat the old HDD to use for data. Shut down. F12, select EVO SSD, and it boots to old HDD. **bleep**. Shut down, F2 and change boot order to EVO SSD first, apply (save), and BOOM... boots to old HDD. Go through the same process - uncheck the old SATA drive in bios, delete old SATA HDD from boot manager, change boot order to EVO SSD first and BOOM... boots to old HDD. 

Do it again... F12 to boot from SSD... and BOOM... the SSD is not listed. What? Boot to old HDD. Shut down F2 this time and BOOM... no SSD listed in boot manager of bios. What? Boots to old HDD and the EVO SSD isn't listed in Windows Explorer. Run Samsung Magician and it's "not mounted" or something like that. Panic starts to set in (been using the SSD with HDD disconnected for over a week). Shut down. Disconnect old HDD and BOOM... boots beautifully to  new SSD.

I really, really, really want to use the old HDD for data. By the way - I have been through the processes listed above many times. But I just cannot get my machine to boot from the new SSD if the old HD is connected. But I'm going to try and F12 a couple more times to see if I can get it to boot from SSD.

But after all that - here is my question. If I just boot to the old HDD - can I just "format C:" like in the old days? I have a full clone backup on an external USB HDD, AND a rescue USB stick, AND a copy of windows on a USB stick... is there a way to just "get rid" of this computer wanting to boot to the old HDD if I just reformat it while booted from it?

Thanks - If anyone has any questions for me, please ask. BOOM!

Well I'm back on the old HDD now - wow this is slow. The SSD did not even show up in the bios F12 or F2. 

I want to make sure I understand this completely.

1) You do NOT think I reformat this drive since I'm booted from it.
2) Create a bootable USB stick using Rufus. Then also put DBAN on the bootable stick as well?
3) Shut down. Disconnect power. Pull out the SSD drive. Why? I'm curious why this is necessary.
4) When you say "connect to a USB2 port - why USB2 instead of USB3? Is the USB2 the "white" ports?

I'm gonna give this a shot. Thank you for the advice.

Greg

EDIT: Everything is backed up TWICE! Yes, I'm **bleep** about that. Thank you.

I'm not sure I can use any of the methods in that article. They keep talking about "drivers" from the manufacturer. I never loaded any drivers. Plus, the drive is already installed. The only time I have any issues is when the original HDD is connected. If it is NOT connected, the SSD boots and works just fine.

I'm going to give the other method a shot and see if that works. If not, I'll circle back and see if I can figure out a way change the bios settings to work. Thank you for your help!

I think @RoHe advice will work as far as nuking the HDD, but I think he is skeptical (otherwise he would not have said "hopefully") about your computer booting from the SSD when you connect both the SSD and the HDD. Instead, I would read the article that I had linked to and try one or all of the three methods listed to try to solve the boot issue before doing anything to the HDD.What I am afraid may happen, although I am not sure, is that if you nuke the HDD and connect it with the SSD, your computer will still try to boot from the HDD and not see the SSD.

OK, if you decide to try the methods in the article there is a driver here: https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/download/tools/. Be sure to read the installation guide.

I said "hopefully" boots from the SSD because I can't guarantee it will boot from the SSD after nuking the HDD with DBAN. My suspicion is that it should, but we won't know that until it's tried.

As for the SSD not showing up in BIOS, have you tried clearing BIOS?

1. Power off, unplug
2. Press/hold power button for ~15 sec
3. Open case and remove motherboard battery (check Service Manual for details)
4. Press/hold power button for ~30 sec
5. Reinstall the battery (Time for a fresh CR2032 3-volt coin cell battery?)
6. Close up and connect mouse, monitor and keyboard
7. Reboot and see if SSD is shown in BIOS now

And, after nuking the HDD with DBAN, you might want to clear BIOS again after reconnecting the SSD to make sure it's being seen.

I really appreciate your advice. I might give the battery a shot - but will I have to update the bios again after doing so?

I've tried everything - and nothing worked. I also tried some of the bios changes @Vic384 suggested and still nothing.

I tried the Dban but couldn't get the machine to boot from the USB. I might have formatted it NTFS when I installed DBAN with Rufus - and I read somewhere NOT to do that. So I'll try that again with FAT32 before the battery reset. 

So right now I'm still stuck with a lump of metal in my machine not doing anything - that I really could use. But I appreciate both of your suggestions very much.

Greg

The Dell article,"What are PCIe SSDs and how to use them as a boot drive for a Dell PC?", is about methods to install Windows to PCIe SSDs  and make it a boot drive. I am not sure you can just make the BIOS changes and have a PCIe SSD that had been cloned to work. The article also indicated that the manufacturer's driver needed to be installed.

Perhaps it would be simpler just to use a standard 2.5" SATA SSD in your system.

@Greg Royse  Next time, start your own new thread because I'm totally confused between your problems vs BillySea86's

I looked back over this thread and I see you installed the SSD in the x4 slot with a NVME>PCI-e adapter.  Could that be your problem? Maybe you need to put it directly into the NVME slot, and probably do clean Win 10 install...  

I could not determine exactly what type of M.2 SSD slot the XPS 8900 has, the specifications say only "One M.2 card slot for SSD". Based upon parts and accessories compatibility for the XPS 8900 it appears that the slot supports M.2 2280 SATA and not NVMe.

PROBLEM SOLVED. And although I didn't use both of yours and @Vic384s methods directly, they did indirectly help solve the problem. And perhaps I should have started a new thread - I've just always been under the impression to jump onto an existing thread addressing similar issues instead of starting a new one. I do apologize.

Ultimately the problem was with conflicting disk signatures from the cloning process. Had I properly executed the DBAN I think I could have solved the problem. Had I properly loaded the SSD disk drivers into the bios that may have solved the problem. But - this is what I did.

1) I successfully booted to a Windows 10 install USB stick using F12. I used a USB 2.0 port instead of a 3.0 port. I am NOT sure if that made the difference or not (I had tried that before).
2) Instead of install I went to "repair" then opened a dos prompt.
3) I listed the drives and the HDD was C:. I literally did a "Format c:"
4) After the format I was able to F12 and select the SSD successfully. Booted to SSD.
5) The HDD was not mounted due to signature conflict. Forced it "online" under the "Action" drop down in Disk Management.
6) I deleted the EFI partition on the HDD (although I'm not sure I needed to if "forcing" it online changed the signature) using DiskPart from the command line -> list partition -> sel partition X -> delete partition override. BAM - that deleted the EFI partition. I also deleted the OEM and recovery partitions on the HDD.
7) Extended the HDD partition using Disk Manager (although that turned out weird).
Rebooted and BAM - instant and beautiful SSD boot and here I am.

THANK YOU GUYS FOR THE HELP!

PS - now I need to figure out why I have three partitions for the HDD (Drive I)

I am glad you have it working. You should go back and look at the DiskPart procedure to re-initialize the HDD. That procedure may clean up those extra partitions. Here is the procedure: https://macrorit.com/partition-magic-manager/initialize-disk-gpt-mbr-from-cmd-diskpart.html