Vostro 3360: unable to boot from mSATA SSD

Hi,

I'm new here, so I want to say hallo to everyone

And now my story...
I got a new Dell Vostro 3360 i7-3517U/16GB/320 and separatelly I bought a ssd drive: OCZ Nocti 120 GB mSATA.

I try to install Windows 7 x64 and everything seems to work fine until first restart during installation.
The computer doesn't boot from ssd.
The SSD is visible in the computer's bios (latest version), under mSata device, but I cannot find it in Boot Manager, my currently settings:
1. Removable devices
2. USB
3. HDD

Dell's ePSA sees the ssd as a "drive 1".

Please be so kind and help me!
Thank you in advance!

Best regards,
Karol

 

Hi Karol. I have a Vostro 3460 and I seem to be having a similar problem. It seems like the BIOS of the 3x60 series isn't set up to boot from the mSATA device.

Could you describe what you've done in a bit more detail? Particularly what you did to reinstall Windows.

What I've found to be a useable workaround is to bootstrap off of the HDD. The simplest way to do this is to install Windows onto the SSD while there is a bootable Windows installation on the HDD. Windows will simply update the existing bootloader on the HDD so it can boot off the mSATA SSD. What will happen is that when the BIOS POSTs, it will load the bootloader off the HDD, which will then boot the SSD. Unfortunately this means you will always need the HDD in order to boot.

You should also email Dell support about this. If we get enough people complaining perhaps this will release a BIOS fix for this issue.

 

Thank you for your response!

My config is without windows OS, there was ubuntu preinstalled.
I installed mSata disc and started system installation. I created new partition on the ssd and installed prompted for system partition.
First step of installation went well, the computer restarted, in the meantime I plugged out USB stick with windows. But instead of windows, I get ubuntu starting..

Next thing I've done was removing ubuntu and installation of win7 on a hdd. It was completed successfully.
Then I tried to install win7 on the ssd but still without a bit of luck.
So my current status is:
Working installation on HDD, not finalized installation on SSD.

Now, how I'm able to update HDD's MBR to make it see SSD installation?

 

It sounds like it's as I expected; the BIOS will only load the MBR from the HDD.

When you installed win7 the second time, did you wipe the SSD? If not the old MBR would still be there and Win7 would not have updated the HDD's MBR. In that case wipe the SSD and try the installation again (this time with an active Win7 install instead of Ubuntu.

If you're good with linux, there are ways to modify GRUB so that it can boot OS's on other drives.

 

I formatted the SSD from HDD's Windows 7 installation. I formatted it also with windows installer. It's still the same situation. Unable to boot from SSD.

 

Hmmm. I'm not sure what to do then. Are you sure you completely wiped the SSD including all system partitions? Try wiping the drive instead of formatting it.

If all else fails, you could install GRUB and configure it to boot the SSD. This is beyond my expertise though, but perhaps someone in the Linux forum can help.

You can also try using Bootrec.exe to modify the windows bootloader manually, but once again this is beyond my expertise.

 

OK, I managed to install system on both hdd and ssd and create boot menu. But what to do next? Can I remove hdd's partition? Each installation overrides drive letters and I cannot specify correct boot menu - I'm not sure which instance I'm going to launch even if names are different. What did you do with it?

[edit]
Success!!! Using EasyBCD was the best solution for fixing MBR.
I still have hdd's installation and I think it needs to stay, but I can live with it

Thank you for your support!

 

That's great news! Would you mind posting instructions for what you did in case someone else has the same issue?

 

Ok, so below are steps to install and boot Windows 7 from mSATA SSD in Dell Vostro 3360:

1. Do not insert mSATA SSD, if it's inside remove it.
2. Install your copy of windows on the internal HDD - make sure the installer is going to create system reserved partition (there is MBR)
3. Finalize HDD installation
4. Download & install EasyBCD
5. Insert mSATA SSD drive. (the computer needs to be turned off)
6. Run new installation, install new copy of the system on the SSD drive
7. After first installation restart, the computer will boot HDD's instalation of your system - that's ok
8. Start "My Computer" - notice drive letter of the SSD installation
9. Run EasyBCD, installed in 4.
9.1 Make a backup of current settings BCD Backup/Repair -> Backup Settings
9.2 Go to Add NewEntries and add new entry for your system, set name, and for Drive select a partition with letter from above point.
10. Restart your computer (in EasyBCD->Tools->Restart) to see boot menu while launching the computer.


Now I wander... Is it possible to use EasyBCD's neoGrub instead of Windows 7 MBR? Does anyone tried to do such a thing, to have 2 hard drives: one with boot partition and second with system installed, and make this working?

@superparamagnetic
Do you know what's the best way to encourage Dell to update BIOS in our notebooks? Any bugtrack or something like that?

 

I'm not sure. I think if we bug tech support enough they might put one out. Unless they think this is a "feature"...