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2nd Disk Drive Install Goes Poorly
We have a Dell 8700 desktop with a single 1TB hard drive. We purchased a higher-performance WD "black" drive. I had assumed we could just plug it into the motherboard, power it up, format it and copy the image of the old drive to the new one.
I plugged in the new drive and started up the machine. The BIOS saw both drives: the original on SATA 1 and the new one on SATA 3. I downloaded WD's imaging/backup software and unzipped it and installed it. In order to run the software it said to restart. I restarted and the machine will not boot from the old drive anymore. It tries to repair itself and fails. No options to recover or restore work. When I go to a command prompt I can see the drive is fine and I can see all of the files on it.
Using Dell's Restore & Recovery key tool nets the same results. The tool does not find any issue with the drive, but cannot get it to boot. The only option is to wipe it clean after backing it up to a USB-hard-drive (which I do not possess). Any ideas in getting this drive to boot again? I guess worst case is I can install the OS on the new drive and install the old drive as the second drive, but I'll lose all of my configurations and installations.
RoHe
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December 14th, 2017 16:00
Reboot and *immediately* press F12. Look for options to run the Diagnostics and run the extended hard drive tests on the old HDD. Copy error messages, if any.
You can go to the Microsoft site and download a free ISO file for your version of Windows and use those tools to create a bootable USB. Here's the link for Win 10, and you can google for the ISO for Win 7 or Win 8.1, if that's what you use now.
www.microsoft.com/.../windows10
Use the bootable USB to install Windows on your new drive after it's connected to SATA1. Then install all the drivers from Dell's site and your apps.
Did you actually wipe and try to reinstall the OS on the old drive? If not, you can install it as a secondary drive after you load everything on the new HDD, and see if you can rescue your files, if they're not already backed up on external media.
RoHe
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December 15th, 2017 15:00
Go to the MS site and download the Win 10 ISO file and tools. You should be able to update to Win 10 (or clean install Win 10) easily by booting from the USB. Since you already had Win 10 on this PC, it should activate Win 10 automatically because the product key is stored in BIOS.
RoHe
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December 14th, 2017 10:00
Have you tried disconnecting the new drive?
Do you have a RAID setup between the original 1T HDD and a small SSD cache drive?
jestoltz
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December 14th, 2017 11:00
Yes, I disconnected the new drive. It's apparently booting the troubleshooting stuff from the existing drive but none of the options presented work (even a full wipe and reload of the OS). I do not have a RAID set up. I had hoped to just image the old drive to the new and reformat the old drive as a backup.
I messed around with the Dell Recovery all day and it's just not working. I partitioned the new drive and assigned a drive letter. The Recovery fails when it asks me to back up my existing files and I say "continue anyway"
I tried to get a bootable USB with the OS on it from Dell, but when I enter my service tag it says no OS is available. So I'm thinking I'm hosed.
jestoltz
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December 15th, 2017 03:00
Thanks I'll try all of that. I am using Windows 10. I did try to wipe and reinstall the OS on the old drive using the recovery software that now automatically comes up when I turn the machine on. But, it wouldn't let me - it encountered an error and could not proceed. None of the options work except going to a command prompt.
The Dell Restore & Recovery tool that I downloaded does not find any problems with the drive. It, too, wants to wipe the drive but I didn't let it since I want to try to save the data. It won't install the OS on the new drive, either. It fails and the details say it couldn't find the "SMART" information on the new drive.
I online chatted with Dell and they said I need to restore it with Windows 8, which they happily sold me for $20. I'd rather recover/restore my current configuration if I can, though.
Thanks for your help! I"ll goof around with it some more today.
RoHe
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December 15th, 2017 11:00
Regardless of whether you install Win 10 or Win 8.1 on that old drive, you're probably going to lose your files! The more you mess with it, the more likely you will lose your files.
BTW: you could have downloaded the Win 8.1 ISO from Microsoft for free to create your own install media. If it were me, I'd cancel that order and get the money back.
Disconnect the old drive and connect the new one to SATA1. Create a bootable Win 10 USB using the tools at the link I posted and install Win 10 directly on the new drive.
If you install Win 8.1, you'll have to upgrade to Win 10 anyway so go directly to Win 10 with a nice clean install on the new drive, that won't have lots of Win 8.1 leftovers.
After you get the PC booting from Win 10 on the new drive, connect the old one to an available SATA port and see if you can rescue your files.
jestoltz
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December 15th, 2017 14:00
Okay it's fixed. Thank you Ron for your help!
Here's the run down:
The Dell Restore & Recovery that I downloaded from Dell ultimately worked. It kept failing at the very end. The problem, though it doesn't tell you, is that you have to back up your files. Even if you tell it to continue without backing up, and agree to losing all your data, it fails anyway. I bought a 1TB USB drive today and let the Restore & Recovery software back up my files. Once it finished, it then reinstalled Windows 8.1. Again, there was no indication that it was failing because I didn't back up my files. So now I have a new USB drive. Handy to have around I guess.
I am going to see if I can return the $20 Windows 8 disc to Dell. I feel like I was misled by them on that.
I put the newly restored, old drive back in SATA 1 and the newly purchased blank drive in SATA 3 . I used DISKPART to partition the new drive and assign a volume and drive letter to it. Now we're back where I was 2 days ago.
I downloaded Western Digital's cloning software (again). This time it cloned the drive flawlessly. I removed the old drive, put it in SATA 1 and we're back in business with the new drive.
Now I have to figure out how to get Windows 10 back. I hate Windows 8.
jestoltz
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December 15th, 2017 16:00
Okay - so back to Windows 10 now. I was afraid that it wouldn't recognize the device but it did. I didn't realize the key was stored in BIOS.
We'll give this new drive a little time to soak before adding the old one as a second drive. I think it was failing, which is why we replaced it. Write speed was getting slower and slower. It got to be unbearable. The PC seems much faster now - which is either because of the new drive or the elimination of the junk that had accumulated over the years. Time will tell!
Thanks again!
RoHe
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December 16th, 2017 10:00