Laptop refuses to boot from new SSD

BlueWidow

Commendable
Mar 8, 2016
2
0
1,510
I'm trying to boot from a new ssd. My laptop is an acer aspire with a 5200u and a 940m. I bought an 850 evo ssd and a 9.5mm to 2.5" adapter to add it to my machine. After installing the drive, it is recognized by windows. I used cloning software to clone my existing drive to the ssd, however when I try to change boot order within the uefi bios the ssd does not appear. When messing around and trying to force a boot from a CD-ROM option (through windows advanced startup), it threw a message saying that it was unable to boot from that, however I was given two identical boot drive options (same drive names). I chose the second one and booted into windows to discover that I was on the ssd. All reboots afterwards resulted in booting off of the hard drive, even if I put it last in boot priority.
 
Solution
OK, I understand your setup better now.

I have almost the exact same solution on my 10-year-old ThinkPad T61. Here are a few thoughts:
a) You have to make sure that your machine in fact supports putting an OS in the HDD tray - this isn't always the case. This is a limitation imposed by the laptop manufacturer, in my case Lenovo, and possibly also Microsoft. You are, effectively, putting Windows on a removable drive.

b) In my BIOS menu, under the Boot tab, there's a section containing disabled drives. I first had to disable my Optical option and then scroll down to the Disabled drives section and activate different options (basically trial-and-error) until I hit upon the one that contained my tray-OS.

c) I assume the old HDD will be...
I've lost track of where your hard disks are located:

- Where is the (new) SSD hard disk located? On the inside?
- Is the existing/old hard disk a mechanical HDD, and where is that located? On the outside?
- You're not trying to run Windows from an external hard disk that connects via USB, are you?
 

BlueWidow

Commendable
Mar 8, 2016
2
0
1,510


The laptop has a bay that would usually be used for something like a DVD drive or such (website calls it a 9.5mm optical bay), however you can purchase caddies for the bay that are meant for 2.5" hard drives. That's where the SSD is located. It's connected via an adapter on the caddy that is connected to the 9.5 optical connector (don't know what to call it). The hdd is in its standard spot, it came with the laptop. They're both internal.
 
OK, I understand your setup better now.

I have almost the exact same solution on my 10-year-old ThinkPad T61. Here are a few thoughts:
a) You have to make sure that your machine in fact supports putting an OS in the HDD tray - this isn't always the case. This is a limitation imposed by the laptop manufacturer, in my case Lenovo, and possibly also Microsoft. You are, effectively, putting Windows on a removable drive.

b) In my BIOS menu, under the Boot tab, there's a section containing disabled drives. I first had to disable my Optical option and then scroll down to the Disabled drives section and activate different options (basically trial-and-error) until I hit upon the one that contained my tray-OS.

c) I assume the old HDD will be used for storage. Have you clean-formatted the old HDD? If not, the system may be confused because it detects 2 active and identical operating systems.

On the T61, I'm running Win10 and Win7 so the cloning process wasn't relevant. Have you tried swapping the disks, i.e. moving the old HDD to the tray and putting the SSD in the 'system' spot? If nothing else, you might get a boot-up menu that makes more sense.

Also, I removed my SSD after a few weeks because the main board only supports SATA 1 - through some weird BIOS upgrade it now supports SATA 2 - so the inherent advantage of an SSD, which requires SATA 3, is basically lost with a machine this old.
 
Solution