M6600 Owners Thread

I assume you put the Samsung in the secondary slot? If so try removing it.

Also Boot into repair mode and open a command prompt, type diskpart, in diskpart type select disk 0 then type detail disk. The path should say 0, location should be C00T00L00

 

No I did not put the samsung in the second slot.

I've reverted back to my original configuration, which works fine, so I cant really do the diskpart deal ATM.

 

Ok good. If you ever get there you'll need to verify that.

Kind of short on info - do you have a factory image or a reimage with Dell Windows or Generic Windows?

You're in AHCI mode or Raid On?

Can't help much further without knowing.

 

Pretty sure it's a reimage as the machine is a refurb and Raid is on (that's where it was when I purchased the system)

Thanks for the quick replies

 

Did you ever consider just putting on a new clean image?

This Dell SSD problem is not amusing. It might not be do-able with cloning.

Since it seems to assign itself its own path they might be conflicting.

I know it doesn't make much sense.

 

I cloned disks on my M4400 and M4500 half a dozen times without issue, strange how this is rearing it's ugly head now. Of course I'm trying to avoid a fresh install for obvious reasons, but it's probably inevitable and with the time spent on the problem I certainly would have had it done and all my goodies re-installed many times over.

What do you mean by assigning it's own path? the disk is visible with the correct disk number (0) and drive letter in the computer management console. Shows up correctly in the BIOS as well. Even the Intel RST interface hs the drive in the correct spot,

 

If you put the samsung in the secondary SATA slot and a dif. mfr SSD in primary slot the samsung actually switches the path in the SATA controller to make itself Path 0 Channel 0 which it should not be.

Disk 0 should be Path 0; Channel 0, Target 0, Lun 0 (C00T00L00)
Disk 1 should be Path 1; Channel 1, Target 0, Lun 0 (C01T00L00) Not absolute if T & L will change to 1. (Can't Remember)

This during a clean install or in repair mode before OS install not after.


Addendum:

Using the top line scenario if the OS destination is forced onto disk 1 because you know that it is the primary bay SSD (because it switched) then at the end it will put the boot files onto the other disk during install.

There is only one alternative mentioned earlier: put it in Raid On mode and use a Dell Windows 7 reinstall DVD for a clean install. This combination will report them correctly.

 

This visual might help:

Install any drive except a OEM Dell SSD into the Primary bay, right side. (For this we'll say an Intel 520)
Put nothing into the secondary drive bay.
Set BIOS to AHCI, Install Windows normally. (It will automaticallly go onto disk 0, SATA 0, Path and Channel 0)
Shutdown and install the OEM Dell SSD (to the secondary bay next to battery and lid latch)
Install Windows again. At the drive configuration screen your old OS is now on disk 1. Disk 0 is empty.

The OEM Dell SSD has made itself disk 0 occupying SATA 0, Path and Channel 0.

Yeah, , me too.



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sgrinavi,

Re: about maybe within BIOS?

Well maybe. During all this though I tried going back to BIOS A12 and there was no difference. After putting the PM830 OEM Dell SSD back into the Primary bay and reimaging, I then just updated it back up to A13. No difference with either of those two regarding operation for this.

It would be nice if that is all it took. But a SSD firmware update would probably be better focused.

 

sgrinavi,

If you have the OEM and Recovery partitions it is probably the factory image, otherwise it's reimaged.

You could try running startup repair, run three separate times.

Edit:

If it doesn't have a System Reserved partition you could try making one and marking it as active. Run startup repair three times again and it should put the boot files there.



Edit 2:

You'll need to delete the OEM and Recovery partitions though if it is the factory image.

 

The 100 MB partition isn't necessary to get the boot files on a drive though, just running a repair will put the boot files on the system drive, you might need to run the system repair multiple times though. If you wipe the system partition, the boot files will be lost with that kind of setup.