Dell Technicians Suck!

[Purpletalon55]

I seriously dont know how the windbag that managed this is still employed at dell as its caused me a huge headache.

And is certainly not what I asked them to do when I sent it in for a quick repair.

http/imgur.com/a/kZPgW

yes that is the 256gb nvme ssd on the right and the 1tb hdd on the left.

 

[Rogue Leader]

get some cloning software (Ease US partition Master is good) clone C to D, reboot and set the SSD as your boot drive, then when in Windows format the hard drive and set it up as D.

And yes I agree. Idiots.

 

[Purpletalon55]

I will probably do that, it just causes a headache cause now i have to spend 3 hours plus installing windows which i paid for them to get it right so i wouldnt lol and i lose the recovery partition probably. It just frustrates me to no end i noticed it as the boot took a long time during setup and kept kinda stuttering so i looked and behold the 7200rpm drive is the boot drive, which is what i wanted for my games obv as its plenty for that and well its storage, instead of the promised 256gb windows os drive it is designated storage. Sigh, Dell has offered me a free windows key, so im going to take it and possibly just reinstall i told them the first time i ordered from them and the last if they dont fix it cause i was promised that the ssd would be my boot drive.

 

[Rogue Leader]

Oh if they give you a free key then yeah I would just disconnect the HDD and re-install windows to the SSD. Fresh install is always best, just in case.

 

[faalin]

use macrium reflect, clone the HDD to the SSD will take all of 30min if that. Shut down, boot into bios and tell it to boot from the SSD. Get into windows and format the HDD, done within an hour topps.

There is no need to reinstall widows when im sure that is a brand new install.

 

[Purpletalon55]

It is a new install lol. Has only drivers on it. Which I just don't need or want the headache of dealing with this right now. I mean I'll just clone it and hope I get recovery part too so I can go ahead and have it for later. And I can get games installed as I'm taking it with me out of town.

 

[Purpletalon55]

The power adapter for this thing weighs 6 pounds. It's a literal brick in every way says 320 watts on it. That's a lot of energy. My laptop is officially more powerful than my desktop.

 

[faalin]

macrium reflect will clone all of the drive. Boot manager, recovery partition, and the OS. Its just little check boxes as to what you want to clone.

 

[Purpletalon55]

I'm going to try it out

 

[Purpletalon55]

Problem I cannot change boot as this pc doesn't tell me what I'm booting from I'm super stuck and confused.

 

[Rogue Leader]

Problem I cannot change boot as this pc doesn't tell me what I'm booting from I'm super stuck and confused.

WHats the exact model? you should be able to go into the bios during startup by hitting del or F12 or something.

 

[Purpletalon55]

I'm in the bios but it says windows boot manager it doesn't tell me 1tb hdd or ssd etc so I cannot tell it to boot from ssd I'm so confused alienware 17 r3

 

[Rogue Leader]

I'm in the bios but it says windows boot manager it doesn't tell me 1tb hdd or ssd etc so I cannot tell it to boot from ssd I'm so confused alienware 17 r3

unplug the HDD and then see what it shows.

 

[Purpletalon55]

I csnt unplug as I can't get to the drive is under keyboard.

 

[Purpletalon55]

Let me send you a screenshot of what I see and maybe you can help me.

Because I'm mad
http/imgur.com/R4TN6v0

 

[Rogue Leader]

Let me send you a screenshot of what I see and maybe you can help me.

Because I'm mad
http/imgur.com/R4TN6v0

So you did do the cloning? why don't you try the second Windows Boot Manager, that likely is your SSD. Check your drives when you do it. If thats not it, try the first one. Once you know you have booted from your SSD, format the hard drive and then the Boot manager option will be gone from it.

 

[Purpletalon55]

Let me send you a screenshot of what I see and maybe you can help me.

Because I'm mad
http/imgur.com/R4TN6v0

So you did do the cloning? why don't you try the second Windows Boot Manager, that likely is your SSD. Check your drives when you do it. If thats not it, try the first one. Once you know you have booted from your SSD, format the hard drive and then the Boot manager option will be gone from it.

it took 5 hours but i got it and its perfect super fast and the laptop performs as it should have, i downloaded all the new drivers while at it, and the upgraded bios fixed the harddrives being labeled stupidly.

 

[Rogue Leader]

Ok great glad it worked out

 

[Purpletalon55]

i build computers for a living and ive never had such a shitty bios pardon my language it should say samsung ssd like all otehrs do instead of what it does it takes a []einstein to figure this stuff out lol.

 

[faalin]

Im guessing all the dell bios's are laid out the same. So if you go into the bios, go to settings -> general->Boot Sequence. On the right hand side will be all the boot devices. you should be able to figure out which drive is the SSD and move it to the top of the list.

So my list contains

Internal HDD
P5: ST500LM000-1EJ162
CD/DVD/CD-RW DRIVE

So I know the SSD is the internal HDD and the larger platter drive is the P5: So I list the internal HDD as the first thing on the list and that's what it boots from first. If I wanted to boot from the DVD drive I would just move it to the top of the list, it will scan that drive first for something bootable before moving on to the next thing in the list which would be the SSD with the OS on it.

Your list will have the larger Platter drive as the first HDD to boot from, so just click on the other drive and use the up arrow next to the list and move the SSD above the platter drive. Click apply at the bottom, boot into windows and make sure the SSD is now your C: drive.

If you can or want to try I would see if you could pull the larger platter HDD from the computer and try to boot up just to make sure you have the Master Boot Record copied to the SSD. This will insure that 1 your SSD is truly set up right in the bios to boot first. 2 that you can get into widows properly. If you can do both of those then you can format the HDD and be good to go.