Cannot Select SSD as primary BOOT device

[Frank Read]

Hi Anyone: Need help if you have a solution or can point me in the right direction. . . Recently installed OCZ Vertex4 SSD to my Dell Aurora R4 and cloned existing boot drive to new SSD drive BUT do not know how to set SSD as primary boot drive. Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[mrjimphelps]

On the UEFI Boot / Legacy Boot screen, can you scroll down to the Legacy Boot list , highlight OCZ Vertex4, then hit ENTER?

Also, on the screen with Set Boot Priority, scroll to Boot Mode, hit ENTER, and see if it will let you select BIOS. If it will, then that should allow you to select your SSD as the primary boot device.

 

[Frank Read]

On the UEFI Boot / Legacy Boot screen, can you scroll down to the Legacy Boot list , highlight OCZ Vertex4, then hit ENTER?

Also, on the screen with Set Boot Priority, scroll to Boot Mode, hit ENTER, and see if it will let you select BIOS. If it will, then that should allow you to select your SSD as the primary boot device.

Hi mrjimphelps: Just got home. Long day. I did what you told me ( if I have the right screens ) and result was not encouraging...
Black screen with white letters " PC says reboot and select proper boot device "

Rebooted and went to next screen SET BOOT PRIORITY scrolled to boot mode, hit enter and I saw nothing about selecting bios other than changing from UEFI to LEGACY which I did and got WARNING: Changing boot modes will require that your boot storage device be partitioned to match the boot mode compatibility. Changing boot modes could result in an incompatible boot storage device which may prevent the original OS boot. Restoring the boot mode may resolve this failure.

Black screen white letters "PC says reboot and select proper boot device "

So I rebooted and all is good but boot time was consistent at 80 seconds - - - much slower than an SSD.

I feel retarded

Frank Read

See screens:

 

[mrjimphelps]

Not sure what to tell you, but I would not allow it to repartition my hard drive. You may end up losing all of your data, programs, etc., if the hard drive is repartitioned.

 

[Frank Read]

Not sure what to tell you, but I would not allow it to repartition my hard drive. You may end up losing all of your data, programs, etc., if the hard drive is repartitioned.

Thanks. . . You have been helpful . . . Could repartition as separate GPT drive with cloned Windows 8 on it. Will keep researching for answer . . . If you get a lightbulb let me know. Checked with Dell and they charge $175 hr but NO guarantees that I can see. Way too much and AMI don't acept emails from Gmail, Yahoo etc. . . so I may play some more with it after some more research. Likely something simple I am missing. . . your pointers were helpful. Thanks again Frank Read

 

[mrjimphelps]

If you first get a good backup of your hard drive, and are sure that you can restore it to the hard drive, you could try different things. If things go wrong, you can always restore the backup.

 

[Frank Read]

If you first get a good backup of your hard drive, and are sure that you can restore it to the hard drive, you could try different things. If things go wrong, you can always restore the backup.

Hi Jim: Not sure what I did BUT I tried to do a full format of my OCX SSD but it stalled at around 98% so I did a quick format and tried a fresh install of Windows 7 and it partially stopped asking me to re-install windows which I cancelled. PC rebooted and continued the fresh install and to my amazement it rebooted i to Windows 7 or Windows 8 {my choice}.
Chose7 and reloaded programs and drivers which took awhile but it now boots in 20 seconds rather than 80 seconds and super quiet and about 10% faster on bench. So all is good. Guy from OCZ - TOSHIBA said SSD's do not like full format but I doubt that was issue.
Certainly the cloned image did NOT work so the fresh install was the trick.

Little nervous about deleting Windows 8 and reclaiming drive space. Maybe later... I think it would be safe to do so.

Frank Read

 

[mrjimphelps]

Fresh installs always give you the best result in terms of bug-free performance. Over time, Windows will develop issues here and there; you can get rid of all of those issues by doing a clean, fresh install. But you will lose everything that was on the hard drive, so you have to consider that before proceeding.

Make sure that TRIM is active on your SSD. That's about all there is still to do for you. Here's how to do this:
How to Check if TRIM Is Enabled for Your SSD (and Enable It if It Isn’t)

Little nervous about deleting Windows 8 and reclaiming drive space. Maybe later... I think it would be safe to do so.

No hurry. If everything is working fine, enjoy your success for a while. At some point in the future you can worry about deleting Windows 8.

You may want to keep Windows 8 (that is, 8.1), because it will be supported by Microsoft until January 2023, whereas Windows 7 will be supported only until January 2020. If you install Classic Shell in Windows 8.1, you can configure it to make Windows 8.1 look and feel just like Windows 7; it will be like having Windows 7 until January 2023. That's what I am doing.

 

[Old Master]

OP, your first screen shown is the 'quick select menu' for selecting alternative boot drives. Nothing you do there is saved past one restart. To set BIOS boot device you need to move your hard drive to first place in HDD boot priority, then move HDDs to first priority.

Your cloning problem is down to MBR/GPT conflicts. Basically theres a big blob of data at the start of your HDD that the computer reads to start windows. That data is not part of the 'files' on your hard drive, so when you clone a drive they are not copied and Windows does not start as there is nothing to direct your PC to the 'first' file to load on the hard drive that's starts Windows.

In the future, if you wish to clone Windows, format your disk, install a fresh Windows of the same version to that disk so that your 'boot data' can be created. Make sure that you use the same format type that the data came from when creating this, so if your Windows install is from an MBR partition, you need to install fresh windows to an MBR formatted disk and so on for GPT.