Laptop M.2 SSD Install Issues

DR_Pingu · 9 Mar 2016 at 21:32

Just got my new laptop and actually installing the hardware is easy enough... the issues arise when the BIOS decides to not let me choose a priority drive, instead this stupid Windows Boot Manager does that for me... without actually cycling.

Basically, I can't clone my C: until I get into Windows, but I can't get into Windows with the SSD installed, because of the priority selection.

Any help is greatly appreciated as this is doing my absolute nut in. I've looked about online but can't find anything of help.

PooKer · 10 Mar 2016 at 10:40

What is the laptop and what software are you using to clone it with?

Personally I've used Macrium Reflect Free off a external USB3 hard drive to take a snap shot of a hard drive then deploy that to new hard drive (it may have cloning as well but I've not looked.

DR_Pingu · 10 Mar 2016 at 11:49

Laptop is Dell Inspiron 15 7559

SSD is Samsung 850 EVO, so using their Data Migration Software. Well, I will be, when I can boot with both drives in

PooKer · 10 Mar 2016 at 11:59

You might need to swap the BIOS into legacy mode in order to select the boot drives.

DR_Pingu · 11 Mar 2016 at 14:24

Tried that, didn't work. Regardless of what drive I selected as first drive :/

TWiNKLeT0Es · 11 Mar 2016 at 16:02

Have you tried disabling secure boot?

Dixon272 · 12 Mar 2016 at 12:33

Is there two Sata bays in the laptop?

Did you try swapping the physical drives to see if you can trick it to boot, since you only need to do it once

Dixon272 · 12 Mar 2016 at 12:33

Also Sata is hot pluggable, so boot into windows then attach the SSD, you should be fine

wildman_33 · 13 Mar 2016 at 15:47

Dixon272 said:
Also Sata is hot pluggable, so boot into windows then attach the SSD, you should be fine

It isn't usually hot pluggable by default. Some motherboards have it as an option to enable in bios, most laptops wont be hot-pluggable apart from those with hot-swap bays.

DR_Pingu · 17 Mar 2016 at 11:59

That said, I did have the laptop in sleep when I first 'installed' it and it was recognised on waking up, though I tried the migration using the Samsung software but it didn't work. There was no error message giving info why it wasn't working, or at least I wasn't able to understand why it wasn't working, basically. I'll try again and get a screenshot up here, once I've finished these assignments I've got to do.

TWiNKLeT0Es said:
Have you tried disabling secure boot?

Yeah, also didn't work.

Possibly the worst BIOS I've ever seen!