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February 21st, 2023 04:00
Inspiron 3650 Boot Sequence
Inspiron 3650
I added an SSD to my Inspiron 3650 and cloned my HDD to it. I can boot from the SSD just fine but I can’t figure out how to change the boot sequence in UEFI to put the SSD first. Is this procedure documented somewhere? Thanks in advance.
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Chino de Oro
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February 23rd, 2023 18:00
Except for RAID 1, a computer wasn't design to boot with 2 drives with the same OS. While you can insist and keeping both drives in your system, you can temporarily select to boot using F12 boot menu, you can swap SATA cable to change the port order in the controller, or you can change boot order in BIOS by deleting windows boot manager and manually set SSD as first boot, these change don't work permanently. A Windows update will make change to your system files and your computer won't boot normal anymore. There is other concern, a spinning hard drive will fail eventually, so keep you data backup to external source, do not rely solely on the HDD, especially when it's over 5 years old.
To setup your computer properly, you will need to set a permanent process for your system to work the way you want. While I can assist with sharing my knowledge, providing instructions, it doesn't reflect my choice of settings or how I would want on my own system.
There are different ways to change and set your boot order but always keep backup. Use Macrium to make a backup of your EFI partition (the 100 MB partition) in case you change your mind, or need to boot the HDD later on.
It's very simple to edit from BIOS, boot your machine up, tap F2 for BIOS settings and go to UEFI boot order, select to delete the HDD from the list. Save and restart machine. It will boot with SSD from now on and HDD is still accessible for data.
To edit boot order from Windows, open elevated command prompt, type bcdedit /enum firmware, you'll see a list, type bcdedit delete identifier, select and type the identifier of HDD you want to remove inside brackets { }. Hit enter, that should remove the EFI partition on the HDD. Exit and reboot machine. It will boot with the SSD from now on.
JOcean
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February 21st, 2023 04:00
After you cloned the drive did you power down the system, disconnect the old drive, then power the system up with only the new drive connected? If the system boots properly then you can power down and reconnect the old drive. Also in the Boot menu Windows Boot Manager should be first.
Jim595
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February 21st, 2023 05:00
I did disconnect the HDD and everything worked ok. When I reconnected the HDD it went to the top of the list again. Windows boot manager is last on the list. How do I move it?
Chino de Oro
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February 21st, 2023 17:00
When you reconnected the HDD, you must use F12, keep tapping on it until you get a one time boot menu, you then select to boot with the SSD. Once you are in Windows, use elevated command and run diskpart tool to clean the HDD. After reboot, Windows boot manager should be on top of the list again.
Jim595
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February 22nd, 2023 05:00
I was hoping to keep the HDD intact for a while as a backup in case I discover problems with the cloning process. My plan is to wait and see if anything surfaces but in the meantime it would be nice to have this all set up to work without manual intervention.
Chino de Oro
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February 22nd, 2023 13:00
Then you must keep the HDD outside the case until needed. When introduce 2 "live" bootable drives into the computer without manual intervention, how would the computer guess and know your mind. Windows boot must decide which one to boot and perform repair to the remaining drive, rendering it non-bootable.
You can keep the HDD inside computer but unplug the cables.
Jim595
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February 22nd, 2023 14:00
This may be wishful thinking but I assumed that putting the SSD ahead of the HDD in the boot sequence would give the result I was looking for. Also, the PC doesn’t seem to have a problem with 2 bootable drives being present, which is what I have now. It’s just picking the HDD instead of the SSD to boot from.
Chino de Oro
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February 22nd, 2023 15:00
While you can actually set the boot order in BIOS to make it work, a proper solution of preserving the HDD as backup is to unplugging it from system. What benefit do you gain by running the HDD at every boot?
Jim595
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February 22nd, 2023 17:00
The HDD is partitioned into a Windows drive and a data drive. If I disconnect it I can’t access my data.
Chino de Oro
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February 22nd, 2023 17:00
I thought the SSD was cloned from the HDD. I must have been confused with other threads I am helping on. You can keep the HDD plugged in to access all your data. Just swap the SATA cable between the SSD and the HDD.
Jim595
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February 23rd, 2023 05:00
You said in a previous response that the boot order could be set in the BIOS to resolve this issue. I’ve been trying to find out how to do that on my PC but have not been able to do so. If you know how to do that, please let me know.
Jim595
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February 24th, 2023 05:00
OK. Thanks for all your help.