Dell Optiplex 7000 Series (7010) SFF - Total Mystery

Question

If you like mysteries you'll love this one. This machine was running great until I replaced the original M.2 256 drive with a new 1 TB drive and cloned that drive to another 1 TB SSD drive for backup. When I decided to use the cloned drive and delete the M.2 drive for another machine the troubles started. the machine would not boot off the clone. So, I started over with a fresh M.2 drive and a Windows 11 Media installation USB. the machine would not boot off the USB even though the Media drive appears in the boot List and the M.2 drive is listed in the Storage Section. Hardware tests all show no problems.
Support Assist is no help ( seems like they haven't got a clue) they tell me they can't help because I didn't get the new drive from Dell. So, I install the original drive and have the same problem. I get no answer from support.

I even adjusted the machine to the default settings without results. The Support Assist that runs in the BIOS is absolutely no help - just keeps checking the hardware which is fine.

Can anyone solve this mystery so I can get this machine up and running?

Thanks

Rom1946 · Accepted Answer

@Tesla1856​  Support Finally came up with the answer - all I had to do was turn off Secure Boot.

anne_droid · Answer

Hi

Dunno.

I put an NVMe thingy in this and it seemed to be recognised, but still Windows would not install.

So I put a minimal Linux install on.

THEN windows was happy to install any and every where, including wiping the linux area.

So now they co-exist, quite happily.

Tesla1856 · Answer

1. I decided to use the cloned drive and delete the M.2 drive for another machine the troubles started. the machine would not boot off the clone.

2. So, I started over with a fresh M.2 drive and a Windows 11 Media installation USB. the machine would not boot off the USB even though the Media drive appears in the boot List and the M.2 drive is listed in the Storage Section. Hardware tests all show no problems.

3. Support Assist is no help ( seems like they haven't got a clue)

1. I'm not much into Cloning these days. I'm more into Imaging to a file.

2. But this should have worked.

So, try this:

NVMe-SSD should be "DiskPart cleaned" back to un-initialized/raw.

BIOS set to UEFI/SecureBoot/AHCI

Only that one SSD installed for now

F12 to boot to boot USB-FlashDrive from microsoft.com

Install Windows to unpartitioned space (it will initialize as NVMe-SSD as GPT)

3. I don't use SupportAssist for anything other than ePSA-Diagnostics.

Optiplex Desktops

Dell Optiplex 7000 Series (7010) SFF - Total Mystery

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