XPS 8500, boot help

Question

Let me start by thanking everyone in advance for any help with this matter. I have an 11 year old Dell XPS 8500 I have owned since 2012 that I decided to make a few upgrades on. My main goal was to speed up the machine a little by adding more memory and replacing the HDD with a SSD to boot from to speed up boot time and performance. My original goal was to add a SSD to the M.2 sata slot and boot from that but I couldn't get the computer to boot from it so I went and purchased a Samsung 1 TB SSD and cloned my HDD to it. But when I unplug it and plug in the SSD the computer won't boot. "It will only boot with the original HDD plugged in". I have tried going into BIOS and changing the boot order but it just won't work. I have read that it is possible online but am at a standstill. Now I have a 1TB SSD and a 256mb M.2 sata SSD installed with the computer only willing to boot from the old dinosaur HDD. Super frustrating. All drives are recognized by the PC but only one is set to "Boot" which is the original "C" drive HDD. How to I change the "D" drive to boot? Or is it possible to boot from the M.2 sata SSD with the XPS 8500? I even reinstalled windows 10. I tried booting from a USB but it wouldn't boot from that either. Even when I changed it in BIOS to boot from USB. So I had to re plug the HDD to boot, re install Windows from the USB, clone the newly re installed windows to my Samsung SSD, unplug the HDD and connect SSD and still no Boot!

I thought I would be able to achieve this without help but I cannot.

Thank you again in advance for any advice and guidance.

Jason

JOcean · Answer

I am surprised that you were able to install an M.2 SSD. According to the specs the 8500 is only compatible with an mSATA SSD. And that would be the reason that you cannot boot from that drive. An mSATA drive can be found at Amazon here.

If you are clean installing then disconnect all the drives in the system so only the mSATA drive is the only connected drive in the system. If you are installing on a 2.5" SSD then the same holds true. Also keep in mind that the speed of an mSATA drive and a 2.5" SATA drive are identical.

floosher · Answer

More info that may be important is that I don't have a windows 10 install disc nor is my optical drive operational at the moment. So my only option was to purchase a USB with windows 10 on it which I did (and failed to be able to get it to boot from USB) so I plugged in the old HDD and connected my SSD to the sata and power cable that were plugged into my non operational optical drive. I then proceeded to clone the SSD using Macrium reflect free version. Clone went well but couldn't boot from SSD even after disconnecting HDD and plugging SSD into it's connectors.

floosher · Answer

I'll have to check the BIOS and maybe add a screenshot later when I get home from work but the only way to disconnect all drives except msata would be to install from USB which I could not get to work. No matter what I changed in BIOS it wouldn't load OS from USB.

RoHe · Answer

@floosher - Was there a 32-GB mSATA SSD in that slot before you installed the new one?

To add to the good question @JOcean asked about BIOS being set to RAID or AHCI, just report the setting here but don't change it.

While you're checking the RAID/AHCI setting, also tell us if USB Boot Support is enabled and if Boot Mode is set to UEFI or Legacy.

Don't know why you had to buy a USB with the Windows installer on it. You could create your own bootable Win 10 USB for free, using Microsoft's Media Creation Tool.

You have to plug any bootable USB into PC with power fully off. Then power on and tap F12, When the menu opens, select the option to boot from USB...

JOcean · Answer

Is the first choice in the BIOS boot settings Windows Boot Manager? Do you have AHCI enabled in the BIOS and have you tried a clean install on the mSATA drive with all other drives disconnected?

floosher · Answer

I may be confusing MSata with M.2 Sata. Whatever I installed, (MSata) I'm guessing is being recognized by the computer as being installed and operating successfully. However I never put my OS on it. My OS (Windows 10) was cloned to my 2.5' Samsung SSD (1TB). After cloning I did disconnect the HDD and connected the SSD to the cables that were previously connected to the HDD. Restarted but could not boot OS.

floosher · Answer

No, there was no msata card in the slot. Just an empty slot. I added a 256gb msata card. I believe Bios is set to AHCI and legacy but I will check when I get home and take a screenshot to share. USB boot support also unknown setting at this time. Thank you much for the help, I will update later when I am able. I also have the day off work tomorrow so more time to sit in front of it while communicating.

Chino de Oro · Answer

For storage specs, some information to note:

mSATA is performing as SATA 3 protocols, good for OS and programs (apps).
System board provides only one of SATA 3 port, the remaining ports are SATA 2 with slower transfer speed.

For new Windows installation:

A properly created Windows installation USB drive can boot with both UEFI and Legacy mode.
SATA operating mode set to AHCI will allow Windows installation to recognize all drives without the use of F6 driver.
If there are other drives in system, they must be removed or cables must be detached to ensure a proper installation to the OS drive.

For upgraded or cloned Windows drive:

Existing OS drive settings needs to match with current BIOS settings (UEFI vs. Legacy, RAID vs. AHCI) for a straight forward boot.
Otherwise, using Windows Recovery Environment to select start up repair and booting cloned drive into safe mode. This will allow proper AHCI driver installing to the cloned drive. Also using mbr2gpt tools for existing partition conversion.

In all instances, system and data backup is a must.

XPS Desktops

XPS 8500, boot help

Was this post helpful?