Dell OptiPlex 9020 All in One must press F1 after new SSD and BIOS

[timeshifter]

OptiPlex 9020 All in One

Installed SSD to replace spinning disk. Clean install of Windows 10. Everything working. Upgrade the BIOS to latest (yeah, should have done that first). Everything OK but, on startup no boot device found. See this message:

No bootable devices found.
Press F1 key to retry boot.
Press F2 key for setup utility.
Press F5 key to run onboard diagnostics.

Pressing F1 works and the system will boot.

Tried various combinations of BIOS settings, Secure Boot, Legacy, etc. Wiped the drive and reinstalled Windows again. Nothing I tried seemed to work.

I made an attempt to update the firmware on the drive, a Crucial MX500. But their download looked like a small Linux ISO, which I booted to only a prompt. Didn't pursue that further.

 

[Porthos]

Do you have the SSD first in the boot order? Turn off the other devices in boot as well to test.

 

[mikeroq]

How is your drive setup? MBR or GPT?
If MBR set the BIOS to Legacy boot, disable UEFI, make sure your SSD is listed as top in boot order.
If GPT set the BIOS to UEFI only, make sure Windows Boot Manager is top in boot order.

Pretty much I just set all to UEFI boot only and then install Windows.

 

[Computer Bloke]

You can quickly make the problem space much smaller with two questions:

1. What happens when you pop the original HDD back in?

2. What happens when you downgrade to the original BIOS?

 

[GreyWolf]

Does F12 give you the drive as a boot option?

Else wise parted magic a quick nuke or partition check to see if the drive will reset whatever flags got messed up on the boot partition.

 

[timeshifter]

Do you have the SSD first in the boot order? Turn off the other devices in boot as well to test.

I'm in Secure Boot / UEFI mode. The only choice in the BIOS for boot devices is "Windows Boot Manager".

How is your drive setup? MBR or GPT?
If MBR set the BIOS to Legacy boot, disable UEFI, make sure your SSD is listed as top in boot order.
If GPT set the BIOS to UEFI only, make sure Windows Boot Manager is top in boot order.

Pretty much I just set all to UEFI boot only and then install Windows.

Embarrassingly I'm not sure if it's MBR or GPT.

You can quickly make the problem space much smaller with two questions:

1. What happens when you pop the original HDD back in?

2. What happens when you downgrade to the original BIOS?

Popping the original drive back in isn't really an option since this is an All in One PC. Downgrading the BIOS might be a choice.

We have about 10 more machines just like this that are running Windows 7 on spinning drives. They're all going to be upgraded or replaced before January. This is a bit of a trial run for upgrades. Two of those machines are running SSDs with Windows 7. I could try upgrading the BIOS on one of them maybe.

Does F12 give you the drive as a boot option?

Else wise parted magic a quick nuke or partition check to see if the drive will reset whatever flags got messed up on the boot partition.

Yes, I believe it says "Windows Boot Manager" as an option in addition to BIOS setup, etc., typical Dell choices.

 

[Computer Bloke]

Two of those machines are running SSDs with Windows 7. I could try upgrading the BIOS on one of them maybe.

You can call me over-cautious but breaking another one before you're sure you can fix the first one might not be your best choice.

 

[GreyWolf]

https://www.dell.com/community/Desk...ex-9020-BIOS-update-does-not-run/td-p/5098108

Possible Bios build with a bad setup they recommend trying the others.

Also if you boot with something like parted magic or any linux build can you see the drive from there?

 

[timeshifter]

You can call me over-cautious but breaking another one before you're sure you can fix the first one might not be your best choice.

Yeah, as I wrote that I was thinking “nah, probably not going to actually try that”.

 

[Porthos]

IF you did not adjust ANY BIOS settings before your clean install. You need to turn off UEFI and Secure Boot. The original bios settings when you installed were the default Win & settings. Which is MBR and no UEFI or secure boot.

 

[timeshifter]

If GPT set the BIOS to UEFI only, make sure Windows Boot Manager is top in boot order.

Drive partition is GPT.

 

[Porthos]

When it does boot? Look a disk Mgr does it look like this?

 

[timeshifter]

Looks like this:

 

[timeshifter]

Looks like it's resolved.

http://triplescomputers.com/blog/ca...vices-found-on-dell-laptops-ssd-not-detected/
http://triplescomputers.com/blog/un...ch-windows-10-from-raidide-to-ahci-operation/

tldr version of above... Intel RAID drivers in play. Disable that and uses AHCI instead. Followed instructions in 2nd link.

Note all settings are Secure Boot and UEFI, no Legacy ROMs or options.

 

[HCHTech]

Glad you got it sorted. I've seen lots of Dells with single drives have the SATA mode set to RAID in the BIOS. Never understood that, but it comes from the factory that way so Dell must have a reason (probably a bad one).

Edit: It occurs to me that I never really looked for the answer to this question - one google search later, here is an excerpt from a post on the Dell forums:

===
Re: AHCI or RAID config for EVO 970 upgrade?
If it helps reassure you, I can confirm that ejn63 is correct. If you'll be doing a clean install, then AHCI is the way to go. The only exception would be if you planned to install Windows 7, in which case you'd want to go with RAID because Windows 7 doesn't natively support NVMe, and using RAID mode allows the Intel RST controller to abstract the physical storage interface from the OS, which means that by installing the Intel RST driver in that configuration, you can run Windows 7 from an NVMe device. That's partly why Dell has historically defaulted to RAID mode on systems in the past, but now that Windows 7 is going away, I suspect this may change.

===

 

[Porthos]

Disable that and uses AHCI instead.

That would have been my next suggestion. I always use ACHI and not raid.