Newer PC wont recognise my old SSD drive?

ferry

Hi all 
I recently picked up a higher spec PC to the really old one - Acer Aspire T-280 but I cant get it to recognise my old SSD drive? I have done a BIOS reset to factory settings,swapped cables and disabling the HD in there but nothing has worked and I cant seem to find anything specific online   
Any ideas on how to fix this please?

Thanks as always

[Deleted User]

Sounds possibly like a legacy BIOS / UEFI incompatibility issue.

Does the BIOS recognise the SSD is present but then fail to boot from it?

If the disk was set up with legacy BIOS on the old machine with MBR, then it won't boot in UEFI mode which I expect is enabled on the new PC as that requires a GPT mode disk.

You can try enabling legacy BIOS in the new machine and see if that works?

Either way it is probably better to pop a clean install of Windows on the SSD anyway using a USB bootable media and that will put the correct EFI partitions on the disk and it should boot ok.

You can then reinstall your software and restore your data from your backup and you are good to go.

ferry

Thanks. I guess I could upgrade the HDD at the same time this way.
Will I still need to do something with the BIOS or will a Win10 instal auto detect the new drive?

Thank you

[Deleted User]

ferry said:

Thanks. I guess I could upgrade the HDD at the same time this way.
Will I still need to do something with the BIOS or will a Win10 instal auto detect the new drive?

Thank you

I'm confused now, where did the HDD come from? Is it a boot device? If not UEFI should be able to read it just fine and it won't need updating, the info I provided above is for boot drives only.

You won't need to do anything in the BIOS to install Windows 10 but before jumping ahead with the reinstall, just check those setting I mentioned and see if it boots in legacy BIOS mode ok just to confirm we are on the right track.

cx6

what do you mean 'wont recognise your drive'. How are you connecting it, is it the boot(OS) drive or a secondary drive? do you mean you can't see a drive letter in windows? or something else? 

ferry

I am simply just using my SSD HDD taken from my old Dell PC (which it worked fine in ) and putting into my newer pc. plugged into the normal SATA lead and power lead.I had hoped it would just plug and play but it does bot show in BIOS boot list of options so I am unable to get the BIOS to boot from it

cx6

ok so it is not recognised as a bootable drive

if, however, you go into setup (or the equivalent) is the drive shown in sata 1 slot ? 

ferry

Thanks . No, its not on the boot up list at all. It has a full install of W10 on it but I cant boot into it to see whats going on if that makes sense!

Withbellson

It is as tallmansix suggests; firstly a Legacy BIOS/UEFI issue. There may be other issues, but that is the first one you will notice.
You'll need to change that in the BIOS setting to Legacy and perhaps change a couple of other settings to get it to boot(if it does at all).

You can copy the contents of the SSD on to the 2 TB HDD and then run a clean install of Windows 10 on the SSD(changing nothing within the BIOS) or just buy a new SSD. You can connect the old SSD as a storage drive and move any data you need on to the new SSD.

Though best to grab your Bookmarks/Favourites etc from the SSD whilst it is still connected to the DELL.

cx6

ferry said:

Thanks . No, its not on the boot up list at all. It has a full install of W10 on it but I cant boot into it to see whats going on if that makes sense!

Hi I wasn't asking if it was on the boot list, I was asking if it shows up as a SATA drive when you go into 'setup' (or the equivalent). 

Not being on the boot list means it is not seeing it as a bootable drive. Looking at 'setup' shows if it is recognised as a drive at all (bootable or not)

googler

If you're connecting the old SSD as a secondary drive, and you already have a boot drive in the PC as supplied, then I experienced the same symptom recently; I found the solution buried in an obscure Windows forum, and will post it here when I find it again...