I have a XPS 17 laptop and I installed a SSD and cloned my HDD to it. I can’t take my old HDD out since the laptop isn’t easy to disassemble. I tried going into the BIOS but it’s not letting me change the boot order for the drives.
Is there a way for me to change the boot order so I can boot from my SSD? If I reformat my HDD, would that solve my problem?
First off, when installing a SSD the recommended method is to remove the HDD so that only the SSD is connected and a clean install is used. Cloning a SSD to a SSD is no problem, but when you clone a HDD to a SSD you need to edit the registry to enable TRIM also most likely the OS on the SSD will not have an aligned OS partition.
If the Bios does not allow boot priority to be selected then as Hawkeye22 stated, you MAY have to swap HDD/SSD position. While you can not see the “Boot prioity” in the Bios it is there (just not sure 2nd Disk drive is listed) and formatting the HDD (AFTER SAVING YOUR DATA) may do the trick (Don’t you just hate the Ulock/limited Bios functions in laptops). PROVIDED both drives are the standard SATA connector. I know some have started to mix mSata with SATA for daul drive laptops.
Also have a 17″laptop with daul HDD bays, But mine are easily accessable as each bay has a screw to release the cover over each bay.
Bottom Line – My recommendation is to 10 Remove HDD, install SSD in that sata port (2) reinstall windows, clean install. (3) when installation is completed reconnect your HDD where you now have the SSD (4) then save all your data from the HDD, reformat and put your data back on the HDD. Envolved, Yes – Hard, quess so, Worth the time and effort, in the long run – YES