M4800 problems with MSATA as boot drive

Question

Hi

I just bought a refurbished Precision M4800 that came with a WD 7200 black drive in the main bay, and then quickly added a Samsung 850 250G MSATA SSD in the WWAN port. Running Windows 8.1.

I've loaded the OS on the SSD and the installed the HDD. It works ok until I format the HDD, at which point it won't boot. All this is happening in legacy mode, because it won't boot at all in UEFI and Secure boot. I've been on the phone with Dell support for hours. They're telling me that 8.1 has to run in legacy (even though it shipped and ran in UEFI when the OS was on the HDD.

In the brief period I've used it, I'm not thrilled with 8.1, and am ready to go back to 7. It seems like 8 is just layered on top of 7. But maybe that for a different discussion

Any suggestions?

Thanks

Don

I've also read conflicting posts throughout the Internet as to whether the mSATA wil run in SATA3 or just SATA 2.

Does the community have any new information.

Donskee · Answer

After finally getting some help from Dell's upper tier support, the problem has been resolved.

FoxControls · Answer

Any chance you can elaborate on the fix? I am considering installing OS on Msata and would like to know if you were able to fix the issue, or decided against it altogether.

Also, is the Msata performing at Sata3?

thanks,

Sam.

Donskee · Answer

I don't know how to check for Sata3, but most of the discussions online say it is. The discussion has been beaten to death

The problem I had is that 1st tier support had me format the Msata SSD in Bios, and the HDD was formatted in UEFI.

Sequence was to remove the HDD, Install the OS on the formatted SSD in UEFI, and then install the reformatted the HDD in UEFI. It worked great. Machine boots in about 12 seconds.

Don

Ratnesh1 · Answer

I have Dell M4800 laptop but it boots very slow. I have got a MSATA 256 GB drive and want to transfer my original mechanical hard drive to MSATA drive. I installed MSATA drive and it can be seen there but not in windows explorer. Let me know if anyone has step by step suggestion here. Thank You

Ratnesh1 · Answer

I have Dell M4800 laptop but it boots very slow. I have got a MSATA 256 GB drive and want to transfer my original mechanical hard drive to MSATA drive. I installed MSATA drive and it can be seen there but not in windows explorer. Let me know if anyone has step by step suggestion here. Thank You

Storage, Drives & Media

M4800 problems with MSATA as boot drive

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