Need to make M.2 SSD Primary Boot Dell 5575

you could try going through the UEFI/BIOS and make sure the search order is such that the M.2 is first. as Kimputer mnetioned it is possible that the boot record is stored on the mechanical drive.

you could adjust the boot order.
then on three sequential failures run the bcdedit/bootrec to configure/install the boot record on the m.2

you posted :  "I tried removing the mechanical drive but then the laptop refuses to boot at all. " what exactly happens?  you can post a pic
that is what i would do first : remove the old drive ( you can connect it later) and make the pc boot properly first
steps you can take :
open bios and set correct drive option
change options to uefi/Legacy
this can help :  Inspiron 5575 en Inspiron 5775 kunnen de harde schijf af en toe niet detecteren bij het opstarten | Dell België 

I cloned the mechanical drive to the SSD using an AOMEI utility. This put in all the partitions on the SSD whereas the clean install did not. Notably the EFI partition was missing on the SSD.

@Kimputer - I was able to find another File system in BIOS UEFI settings so assume that was from the SSD. I deleted the other one which presumably was the mechanical drive. I can run diskpart while the system is booted and it shows the booted drive (M.2 500G) as drive 1. Disk 0 is the 1TB mechanical drive. I am assuming that the EFI partition on the mechanical drive should be formatted to ensure there are no conflicts.

@arnold The Dell BIOS doesn't show any boot order which is problematic.

@nobus The BIOS are up to date. The mechanical drive has been really slow which is why I installed the M.2. After the clean boot, I physically removed the mechanical drive but apparently that was where the boot manager was located.I didn't get a screenshot but it was the typical boot failure message of something like your drive needs to be repaired.

I still had intermittent issues rebooting but using the boot loader (F12) did list all the drives. Strangely enough the SSD was listed twice and failed to run on one of the instances. The next time I tried the boot loader it did work fine and subsequent reboots seem fine so far.

Thanks for all the help. 

oh- because you did not install windows  yet - that's normal
you should have proceeded with a clean install there - from usb stick
i do NOT recommend cloning old systems over - you keep all the problems...

Here's what I see with diskpart. It looks like I have 2 ESP partitions on disk 0 (1TB - mechanical). I assume I should assign drive letters to both & format, correct?

I am running this from CMD prompt of the booted SSD (Disk 1 - 500 GB)so no danger of erasing the boot partition of the OS.

@nobus I did do a clean install initially but it would not boot since it didn't have the hidden boot partition.  Frankly I would have preferred removing the mechanical drive since it is suspect. as a last resort, I cloned the entire drive so it would boot.
At this juncture, it is running fine other than some issues with Windows updates but wary that it might not reboot someday.

The issue commonly when transitioning from the SSD reference to the M.2 is that the two are different versus an SSD switch from a spinning drive which has the same reference in the UEFI menu. I think the cloning is one thing, the second part deals with the UEFI setting to point to the correct reference for the device.
Your issue occurs, when the spinning drive is reattached?

@arnold I didn't have any luck with booting without the mechanical drive. Currently both drives are in place and the SSD is booting fine. UEFI doesn't list drives but I do have 2 entries for Windows boot manager & two file systems.

Difficult to tell which boot manager points to where but the choices for file system have telling entries in the path: SATA or NVME. I am tempted to add one and label as NVMe, select the appropriate path and delete the other. Sound reasonable?

• \efi\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi -  new entry 
• \EFI\Boot\bootx64.efi - original

At this juncture, I will be satisfied for the SSD to boot reliably with no chance of booting off the mechanical drive.

I did have an issue once where I had to use the boot loader (F12) to select the SSD but that has no re-occurred. 

the issue when using F12 you are bypassing the UEFI's preference settings.

you have to look at the device manager and see what the path is reflected for the M.2 versus the SSD.

your m.2 is the 495 GIG?


see if the following is helpful/

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/devtest/adding-boot-entries

to use BCEDIT to update the UEFI entry when using F12 with only the M.2 installed

Seems you didn't format the EFI volume yet, it IS necessary. If you follow all the steps I posted, you don't need to figure out bcd entries, it just works.

Yes the m.2 is 500 GB lists as 465 GB in diskpart. I understand that F12 bypasses UEFI which is why I am concerned my client could have issues in the future.

The M.2 is the NVMe SSD drive - wdc wds500g2b0c-00pxh0. The other drive is mechanical (1 TB) st1000lm035-1rk172. Unfortunately BIOS UEFI doesn't list drives but rather boot managers path. Inspecting the available driver for the boot manager does havetelling entries in the path: SATA or NVME.  The entire driver path is rather cryptic & long.

bcdedit is very useful. The path I suspected as boot manager for the NVMe SSD is   \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi.

I should be able to delete the original Boot loader - \EFI\Boot\bootx64.efi
That would keep the drive from trying to boot off the mechanical drive, right?

No need for bcdedit and trying to figure it out, if you follow the steps I posted.

@Kimputer I am not making any changes with bcdedit, just wanted to establish which path in the UEFI Bootloader is being utilized. Currently there are two. The steps you posted suggested naming and formatting the partitions on the mechanical drive. I assume that this would take the entry out of BIOS UEFI too.

Wouldn't removing the Boot Manager path from UEFI be safer than formatting partitions? I am looking for the simplest & hopefully fool resistant method of forcing the boot from the NVMe drive.

Steps described are not always 100% the same, it will usually say "select the drive you need", as the writer of an article can predict your system layout. Temporarily removing the mechinacal drive, and finishing all the steps will get you going for a while again. It's mostly Windows bugs during big updates that will break it again.

OK I have the laptop back together since they were supposed to pick it up this morning. I got it for another day so will remove the drive for good. The drive is suspect anyway. Hopefully, I can get it to boot

Having 2 storage devices each with Windows its boot manager will cause conflicts as to who has control. So safest is to clean install Windows 10 with just one SSD, deleting all partitions before start of install.

@Mike Sun  I did a clean install initially but that didn't create the hidden EFI partition on the SSD so it would not boot without the mechanical drive.

Yes, it was the presence of the mechanical drive with its boot manager that stopped the creation of the same on the new drive.

The issue is that the order in which multiple drives are presented and the existence of the EFI partition on the physical dirve complicates matters.

You may have to go through the UEFI OS install/setup to get the UEFI to register the new/additional destination.

https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000131442/how-to-install-windows-10-from-the-dell-iso

@Mike Sun that makes sense. It did make it easier to initially copy files & later clone but caused plenty of issues itself. I have removed the mechanical drive booted & removed teh old UEFI reference. Everything looks good so far.

@arnold Mechanical drive is out for good so no need to format partitions. The laptop is much faster without the old mechanical drive holding it down.

Thanks everyone for your help!

@arnold I removed the 2nd Boot Manager from BIOS UEFI since the path didn't reflect what I saw in bcdedit. All seems to be working and lightning fast with th old mechanical drive out.

Thanks again for all the help.
Sorry I didn't see your post last night Kimputer, Arnold & Nobus. Apparently experts-exchange.com was not sending me email. That has been corrected.

all is well now?

yes but the laptop still won't run Dell or Windows update . I am thinking it's time for a new laptop.

Which version of Windows 10
You may have to use the win10 mediacreator to get it up to date.

@arnold Windows 10 Home

Deleted, prior comment not applicable to the question at hand.

What is the error on either side?
Did you reinstall or clone?
The issue with the dell related update might be that the reference it has stored in the config is related to the prior physical drive.

in regards to the windows update, what is the error that it is reflecting.
You may have to manually get it to the next version (windows key + I, system and updates, os build anything before 1904 will likely run into issues of getting to 2004 or 20H2 or newer.)
the upgrade may have to be done manually by you and provided the space remaining on the 465G M.2 is more than 20GB
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Creating a usb (8GB stick is all that is needed) to download and create (32/64 windows 10 install media)
while the system is booted, insert the USB and run the update/upgrade
note it offers choices on whether you want clean install (wipe all existing data) or preserve it.
Another option is that you can download the install from Dell.
Dell's recovery that you can obtain from
https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000123667/how-to-download-and-use-the-dell-os-recovery-image-in-microsoft-windows

@arnold it is a clone. I have media Creation tool for 20H2. Even considered wiping and restarting but 1909 media tool  didn't like the GPT partition. I wonder if Dell recovery will work on this system since it was originally a mechanical drive. Do you think it's likely the system board is corrupting files?

I do not think it is a hardware issue,

your physical seems to be a GPT partition so that would not be an issue.
Possibly going through the Dell app's change/repair to see whether it is somehow tied to a path that is no longer available to it and it complains, or crashes.

the recovery to reinstall on the M.2 should be a fairly straight forward.
wiping the M.2 to make sure there are no residual references.....

@arnold Windows error is:
There were problems downloading some updates, but we'll try again later. If you keep seeing this, try searching the web or contacting support for help. This error code might help: (0x80070002)

I have plenty of space on the M.2 

@arnold I booted from the 20H2 USB but nothing seems to work. Tried Startup repair. The other options require some sort of backup. Reset is not available.
I suppose wiping the OS partition is the best recourse.

@arnold I created another question to troubleshoot this since we need a separate solution - https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/29213491/Windows-10-clone-won't-update-Dell-5575.html

note, you can test what you have by going through the Dell recovery partition to reset the system on the m.2 to factory default
https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000177401/restore-your-system-using-dell-supportassist-os-recovery#:~:text=Recovery%20Process%20%20%20Dell%20SupportAssist%20OS%20Recovery,6%20%28English%20Only%29%20%203%20more%20rows%20

provided the image was not altered....

try the troublechooter for windows update if you do not do the reset.
note MS terms support for versions 15xx 16xx 17xx 18xx 19xx windows 10 releases.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/troubleshoot-problems-updating-windows-10-188c2b0f-10a7-d72f-65b8-32d177eb136c

The troubleshooter didn't help. I ran it a couple of times & it appeared to make repairs but didn't fix the issue. I don't see a version number when I look at properties of the PC

to see version, you have to go into settings.
windows key +I
system and updates
OS Build to see the installed version information

The BIOS recovery didn't seem to do anything. The Dell Recovery Tool says it completed successfully. Still get download error on Windows quality & feature updates.

OS build is 19041.746

I am guessing that wiping OS partition & starting over is the best recourse.

this is a 20H2 version

the troubleshooter should be run as many times as needed.
have seen it fix the issue after running it several times.

Randy, when you say "nothing seems to work" that does not tell us anything; you MUST tell us what screens, and messages you got - then we can think about ways to assist
you can post pictures if you like

@nobus The comment about "nothing seems to work" was in reference to the various options in the Dell recovery partition. The only options that seemed useful were the Startup Repair which actually is not a problem  & Uninstall updates: both failed. Restore requires a backup & recovery didn't work when I tried from BIOS.

the message from Windows Update is this:"There were problems downloading some updates, but we'll try again later. If you keep seeing this, try searching the web or contacting support for help. This error code might help: (0x80070002) "
By the way the new question is here since this has been closed- https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/29213491/Windows-10-clone-won't-update-Dell-5575.html

why are you going through this?

windows key +I
system and updates
on the left side
recovery
get started and go through the process and see what happens

@arnold That is one of the many recovery options I tried. nobus wanted to know what I meant by nothing worked 2 hours ago.

Running recovery/reset via Settings wants me to insert the recovery media & restart the PC. Pretty sure I have done that already but didn't start from Settings.

Dell has an option F8 during bootup/bios or F2 or F12 to boot using the recovery partition

and trigger the reset of the system from the Dell image back to factory default.

updates at times gets out of whack when old updates are present.
renaming the downloads, carroot while bits and windows update services are stopped. when they are restarted the folders should be recreated,......

there are too many possibilities, runnning through one at a time might help resolve. if the idea is to get the thing to normal op.

checking the settings in bios/uefi to see what is there UEFI, boot preference,etc.