Are you using UEFI or legacy boot option in R10?

inside bios, do you have legacy oprom enabled or disabled?

Load Legacy OPROM

Allows you to enable or disable the Legacy Option ROM.

Re: I put the SATA 3 SSD (Intel) in and tried to boot from it, but the boot menu had nothing but the NVMe drive as available in the BIOS

I presume the SATA 3 ssd contains a clone of the OS originally installed on the Dell NVMe ssd.

you may try change BIOS>sata operation from RAID (Dell default) to AHCI (then save change and exit bios).

SATA Operation

Allows you to configure the operating mode of the integrated SATA hard drive cont

if you do not trust the Dell nvme while waiting for your own new NVMe, you might as well remove the Dell nvme from pc.

as a last resort, you may do a fresh clean install of Win 10 on the sata 3 ssd (and remove the Dell nvme ssd). 

 

It said it was in AHCI already in the BIOS.  It was the first thing I checked.  maybe I will set it AHCI manually, maybe it just says AHCI as it is in order, but raid-on may be actually checked?

I haven't removed the NVMe drive yet, because the system still isn't functioning properly.

I will also double check UEFI.

And yes, I cloned the SSD from within the R10 to SSD directly with Macrium Reflect clone ability.  So that it would be setup properly for the Dell.

If it is UEFI, this may work to fix error in file winload.efi

• With Windows 10 installation/recovery media (such as USB) open the command prompt in advanced tools

• Diskpart

• list volume (take note of boot partition volume and windows partition letter)

• select volume # (replace # with the partition responsible for booting the system, hidden partition in fat32)

• assign letter w (to be able to recover the boot files)

• exit (exit diskpart)

• bcdboot X:\Windows /s w: /f UEFI (replace X with the partition letter that contains the Windows folder)

• reboot the system (select the new boot option if more than one)

• msconfig (Boot - delete the \Windows options and leave only the c:\Windows option)

nice. Hope your father likes it now.

PS Dell moderator will probably remove your private service tag in discussion.

Well, my dad will be back in an hour or so.  I will see what he wants at this point, then I can hopefully get this figured out.

The Micron NVMe is installed and working fine.  It is just empty, besides a few apps he installed until the new drive arrives.

But I found no way to change it out of UEFI, not even a dual UEFI/Legacy options than seems fairly standard.

I also tried RAID-ON and AHCI in different combinations in case I might have missed something and it still doesn't show any SATA drives.  I may try removing the nvme and test, but I hate taking it apart as that side panel is janky as can be and frail.  I bent one once on my old Alienware and could never get it to snap back on all of the way.  It worked one-time and game over.

Also, do you know what the, "Boot Option List UEFI" is for.  It seems like some drive access feature to disable drives.  It was on always, except internal, and then I set it to never, hoping it will trigger legacy mode and give me back my sata drives.  but no luck.

Well, I can't get to the BIOS as on first launch of sata drive, it booted to a black screen.  I tap the power button and it shuts off gracefully, it seems anyway.

I turn it back on and no splash screen nor options to get into the BIOS.

I blindly restart it while holding F2 and still no video.

Did you want me to use the BIOS for factory BIOS reset?  Or do I need to set jumpers on the motherboard?

re: Boot Option List UEFI

Boot List Option

Displays the available boot devices.

 

try reset bios to factory default if you have changed too many things in bios.  save changes then exit.  you can keep the Dell nvme ssd in system as long as it has been wiped clean.

it sounds like you are in UEFI boot mode.  try the command prompt steps I sent in last reply.  as I said the last resort is to do fresh clean install if your father agrees.  there is not much data to lose on the new sata ssd.

OK, here's my 

I still got nothing with resetting bios from motherboard.  The video seems to engage, it just shows a blank screen.  I already tried the F2 and F12 keys without success.  I even unplugged video cable and reconnected with no luck.

EDIT:

I marked removing the NVMe as solution, as that seemed to do the trick, outside of the video cable.

Now we'll see how the Samsung Pro works when it arrives.

OK, I unplugged the video cable and plugged it back in and tried F12 and it went straight to the boot menu and it booted to desktop without issue.

I hope it's fine now.  lol