Adding an extra hard drive to a Dell Inspiron 3030 i7-14700

I wanted to loop back on this issue since I had some questions regarding the process of moving a data hard drive from my old Dell Inspiron to my new Inspiron (and received some excellent feedback).  However, after even more research, I opted to use a different, more simple process and was successful.  Now - be aware, this worked in my particular situation and Dell model. YMMV...

Here's my situation:

I have an older Dell Inspiron i7-7700 running Windows 10 Home that contained a SATA 2.5" hard drive (using AHCI configuration). This drive is used strictly as data drive (D:); no boot partition or OS. I wanted to remove it and install it into my new Dell Inspiron i7-14700 which contains only an M.2 SSD (C:) running Windows 11 Pro.  I had seen many opinions as to how to do this; most stated the need to change the Dell BIOS storage configuration from "RAID" to "AHCI" before adding the older drive.  This process involves a 'safe mode boot trick' that seemed a lot more involved than Dell would normally include in a component adding process. (A lot of room for error and angry customers.) However, because normal RAID configuration would require reformatting of drives, this process appeared necessary to me.  But it was during a discussion with folks here in the community that I began to have different thoughts.

Along the way, I had seen commentary that stated that I shouldn't have to switch the Dell BIOS' storage configuration from RAID to AHCI when adding the drive.  The reasoning being that the RAID protocol was built on AHCI protocol, and Dell used RAID as a default in order to use Intel's Rapid Storage Tech drivers. Could it be that AHCI and RAID live together under the RAID protocol? So, I decided to once again read through the Dell manual since they cover removal and installation of components.  This is where I stumbled upon two very important points that I had missed before:

1.  Even though the new Inspiron's BIOS is defaulted to "RAID" configuration, the installed DVD-RW deck is SATA AHCI.  That seemed to indicate that an AHCI drive can live in harmony with the RAID configuration. 

2.  The RAID configuration in the BIOS does NOT have RAID functionality(!).  So the drives aren't configured as true RAID redundant drives and thus should NOT need to be reformatted. Again, this seemed to indicate that an AHCI drive can function under the RAID configuration.

It thus became obvious to me that, at least in the case of this Dell Inspiron, I would not need to change the BIOS setting from "RAID" to "AHCI", and frankly, it should be pretty much plug-n-play.

With this in mind, I backed up all of my data, created a Recovery drive (just in case), and removed the hard drive from my older Dell. (I rebooted the older machine afterwards and it ran properly without the data drive installed.) So far, so good.

Then, using the basic steps in the user manual, I installed the HD in my new Dell without booting into safe mode OR changing the BIOS.  Just shut down, open the case, mount and connect the additional drive (SATA and power cables are included in the case), closed the case, and restarted normally.

And presto!  The Dell started normally and my newly installed drive Data E: was visible and accessible! Everything worked properly.  (I did go into Disk Management and change the drive designator to D: ... mostly because I'm stuck in my ways.) So, it was plug-n-play after all.

Again, I want to thank everyone who helped even though I went a different direction.  I hope this helps anyone who has a similar question in the future.

Melsman