adding SSD as a secondary (no-boot) drive to existing HDD based WIn7 and Win8 machines

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vlad01

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Tried to add SSD as a secondary (no-boot) drive to my two HDD based Dell desktops. One is running Win 8.1 and another is running Win 7. In both cases i have the *requirement* to keep existing HDDs as boot drives and *avoid* re-installing Windows on those HDD drives in case Windows does not see the new SSD. So, the scenario a was hoping to see was this: i plug the new SSD to the SATA connector and to the power supply, boot the machine from its HDD as usual, and boom - Windows sees the new SSD. The SSD would be not yet formatted, of course, but visible in Windows and ready for formatting. No such luck in both cases!
Both cases failed in a similar way: EUFI/BIOS sees the new SSD, but Win 8.1 and Win7 respectively do not boot at all. Recommendations which i'm getting from Dell's Support and from the Internet are basically to re-install Windows on both machines, on their respective HDDs, and in that case there is a "chance" (no guarantee) that Windows (8.1 and & respectively) might start seeing the new SSD. Is that the only option, really? To me this is not an option, as I can't afford re-installing all the stuff i have already installed on both machines, just absolutely no time for that. Should i kiss the idea of having SSDs as secondarily, no-boot, drives on those machines goodbye? My desire was to run VMware virtual machines from those secondary SSDs... Looked very promising performance wise... If it only worked! Any help would be highly appreciated!
Here some tech details:
SSD - AMD Radeon 7 120GB
Machine 1: Dell Inspiron 3847 i7 Win 8.1
Machine 2: Dell XPS 8100 i7 Win 7
 
popatim

popatim

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Uefi is a secure firmware, it naturally doesnt allow hardware changes. With the drive installed, enter the bios and try adding it to the boot order. Otherwise you may need to disable secure boot or enable CSM.
 
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vlad01

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Folks, thanks for the responses so far! How about the Win7 machine though, which does not have UEFI but just a good old BIOS... That machine exhibits exact same behavior as the Win8.1 one: when i'm adding the SSD as secondary the BIOS sees the SDD but Win7 just won't boot. Also, as I did't touch the boot order at all, i would expect it to remain intact which is boot from the original, pre-existing HDD... Am i missing something? any further help is highly appreciated...
 
Werkrat

Werkrat

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The only problem I can see is if you installed the secondary to a lower sata port and the system automatically tries to boot from that. It's easy enough to double check the boot order though, if just to rule that out...

Do you get an error message or anything more specific than "it doesn't boot"?
 
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vlad01

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Yup, i'm checking the boot order as we speak, and will report back. Need to re-open the box and plug the SSD back in... On this Win 7 box i plugged the SSD to the only SATA port left available. The other 3 are already taken by the DVD and the 2 HDDs.
 
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vlad01

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Plugged the SSD back into the Win7 box and did some experiments with the boot order in the BIOS. Here is what i got:

1. If the SSD is present in *any* position in the boot order (including being positioned after the original boot HDD) then Win7 won't boot. It sits forever on the "Starting Windows" screen. No error messages dispelled.
2. If the SSD is removed form the boot order then Win7 starts fine, but does not see the SSD. There is no sign of the SSD in the Disk Management, no prompt to initialize the disk, no nothing.

Any further advice will be much appreciated!
 
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vlad01

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Nope, they are not configured as RAID. Both HDDs are listed in as NO-RAID volumes in the RAID Util on that Win7 box.

Here is some additional data form my latest experiments on the Win7 box:
When i booted that machine form the Win7 Recovery Disk and then went to Command Prompt and did

>diskpart

>list disk

it listed just my 2 HDDs, no SSD - just like after the regular Win7 start on that same box...

So, the SSD is visible in the BIOS but completely invisible in Win7.
The SSD is removed from the boot order, as, like i mentioned earlier, Win7 wouldn't ever go past the "Starting Windows" screen if otherwise...
 
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vlad01

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Werkrat, thanks for pointing to that thread, i'll definitely take a look at what people are suggesting there! I noticed mentioned the need of setting BIOS to the AHCI mode, but the BIOS on my Win7 machine does not seem to have that option listed under any of the BIOS items... There is a SATA Mode though, with has the following 2 options: RAID and ATA. It is now set to RAID... Not sure if this is relevant... So, should i worry about that AHCI setting which i do not seem to have?
 
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vlad01

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The RAID Utility is showing my 2 HDDs and the SSD as NO-RAID volumes... Do i need to configure something else there?
 
popatim

popatim

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If it has a listing of unassigned drives you may find the ssd in their.
You may have the option to set it as passthru, single drive, raid ready... see how the other drives are setup for a clue on what you need to do.
You may have to partition & format the drive in the raid utility.
 
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vlad01

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Intel Rapid Storage Technology (RST) Configuration Utility which my Win7 box has does not provide any such options... It operates sorta like another BIOS on its own. It prompts you to do Ctrl+I during the boot and opens a BIOS-like UI... Though it shows the SSD on the prompt screen, when inside the Utility there is no sign of the SSD drive to be found...
 
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vlad01

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Update: he solution for my problem turned out to be just use a different SSD brand. Samsung EVO worked like a charm, in a plug-and-play fashion. AMD Radeon, though it had a decent price/performance ratio, just didn't work at all in my case. Thanks everyone for your help and support! With your great pointers i learned a lot about using SSDs as secondary drives on Windows!
 
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