Latitude e6520 - boot from ExpressCard or SD slots?

Yet another question from a new E6520 owner:

Can I boot from either the PCIExpress or SD slots?

I want to buy either a PCIExpress SSD card (that uses the PCIE bus, not the USB bus) or an SD card for an OS installation. Obviously I'd much prefer the ExpressCard as the SD card would probably be rather slow (it's on the USB bus, right?)

Thus, I would be booting from those devices and running the OS and use my hard drive as the data drive.

Is this possible? I wanted to avoid using the E-module for a data drive (and thus put an SSD in the primary HD slot) because I want to keep my extra battery in there...

Thoughts?

Ran

 

In another post, I told how I made an attempt at installing a Super Talent CoreStore MV 64GB SSD mini PCIe card in my new E6520. This is what I found:

1) With the card installed, the E6520 BIOS shows another selection for a bootable device - Flash SATA - which can be moved up and down in the device boot-order list (in addition to USB, internal hard drive, CD/DVD, etc.) however, I was unable to get it to work. The system would hang with a flashing cursor in the upper left-hand corner of the screen. Also, normally if no bootable devices are found in a system, the BIOS will display a message stating such. I did not get a message with the CoreStore installed.
2) I tried installing the full-length card in the half-length slot (even though it doesn't sit flat inside the E6520, the pins all make contact). I got the same results as with the full-length slot: flashing cursor.
3) The SSD's BIOS messages did in fact show up on the screen during the system's boot process, and I could press Ctrl-M to enter the SSD's (Marvell) BIOS. That was the extent of what I could do with the SSD.
4) After *much" experimentation, the best I could do was be able to have the SSD card in the slot, and be able to boot Windows 7 a tiny little bit - it would hang on the message "Starting Windows" ... from the internal traditional hard disk drive. The trick was to reset the E6520 BIOS by selecting the BIOS defaults option.

In the end, I was unable to get it to work. I know this is a roundabout way of answering your question: Is the mini PCIe slot bootable? I think Dell intends it to be (otherwise, why would a device in a mini PCIe slot show up in the bootable devices list in the BIOS?). But as of this writing there exists an incompatibility with the Marvell controller and/or the E6520 BIOS that, for this particular SSD, doesn't allow it.

But who knows what future BIOS updates may bring.

I also wish Dell would release a compatibility listing of flash SATA devices for this computer.

 

thanks so much for the reply! I saw your post in the other thread, and responded... (I think...).

This would be awesome and a fantastic upgrade option as opposed to using the 2.5" HDD slot... *if* it works...

I wonder what options currently exist. Do you think something like this would work? It looks a little wide to fit in that internal FLASH SATA slot...

 

You might find this thread about mini-SATA to be of relevance.

John

 

Thanks for the link! I'll check it out now...

 

I found another interesting tidbit re: my new E6520. I have a StarTech ECESATA254 dual-eSATA Express Card. It works fine in my Latitude D830. However, it's not recognized when I insert it into my E6520, and if I try to either shut down or boot up with the card in the slot, the system hangs.

Since the issue occurs when trying to boot, I know it's not an OS issue.

I haven't reported this one to Dell yet, I will when I have the time. I was on the phone with Dell for 2 hours yesterday afternoon regarding the CoreStore MV issue, I just wanted to make certain it gets logged in their system in the hopes of speeding up a BIOS update.

 

Thanks for the update - I sure hope we can find a semi-affordable >=32GB solution for the mSATA or ExpressCard slot (preferably the former).

I guess we're at a stage of having the technology and waiting for the media to catch up...

 

mini pci-e SATA and mSATA SSDs have different pinouts as explained in http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...sf1222-msata-ssd-user-review.html#post7389868 . Worth looking at the 40GB Intel 310 at newegg for $100.

 

Hiya Nando, thanks so much for those links and info! I'll probably be getting an mSATA sometime this summer...I hope prices continue to fall while performance continues to rise!

R

 

Anyone try booting from a SD Card?