[Discuss] Need help to get a Dell Inspiron to boot

[Krystyna Haberek]

just a Note… There is a flaw with the Hard Drive Caddy. There are two screws in the outside of the drive, but the side closest to the SATA connector there is an indentation in the caddy. I was installing an SSD and the drive was skinny and was falling down and not engaging the SATA port. I added a spacer to lift up the drive and I could feel it engage the SATA connector then. Obviously, after that, the Drive was seen in the Bios. This may be the answer to some of the other problems that people are seeing here.

-gracias after trying several times it works out
-there is some extra space between the top panel and the SATA port...you have to use a spacer to get it properly seated into
 the SATA port...

-usually, it will just insert just above the SATA port, not into it

https://www.dell.com/community/Storage-Drives-Media/Inspiron-1525-Won-t-Detect-HD-in-Bios/td-p/3466582/page/3

Krystyna

From: Discuss <discuss-bounces at vlug.org> On Behalf Of K Wong
Sent: July 9, 2018 6:02 PM
To: discuss at vlug.org
Subject: Re: [Discuss] Need help to get a Dell Inspiron to boot

I had a Dell Inspiron 15" laptop with that error. The problem was not the OS. The problem was the disk controller on the main board. A working SATA drive was attached and it wasn't recognized. It went to the e-waste recycler.

K

On Mon, Jul 9, 2018 at 10:10 AM Yuuri <yd-vlx at boreal.shiroha.com<mailto:yd-vlx at boreal.shiroha.com>> wrote:
Hi Ron and Alan,

thank you for getting back to me.

On 2018-07-09 01:36, Ron  De Beck wrote:
> Computer Bios pointing at wrong device for boot.

See my relatyed comment further down...

> Boot Flag not set on the Linux Partition.

Hm... this I need to follow up on, since I don't recall doing anything
about setting a boot flag. I also don't see it being mentioned in the
BIOS menu - is that something Grub needs to be told about?

> I don't recall Grub errors reporting this way.

I think it is the BIOS talking to me - this is the wording of the
message:
"No bootable devices --
strike F1 to retry boot, F2 for setup utility. Press F5 to run onboard
diagnostics."

F2 and F5 lead to the same "Aptio Setup Utility", which looks like your
typical BIOS set up.

On 2018-07-09 02:05, Alan W. Irwin wrote:
> Does your laptop have an old-fashioned BIOS or UEFI?

It gives me a choice: "UEFI" and "Legacy" - currently set to "Legacy"
and reporting "BIOS Version 4.0.7". There is no mention of "device"
anywhere, however, when "Legacy" is chosen, there is a boot priority
submenu, which shows the following selection: "1 USB, 2 CD, 3 Hard Disk,
4 Diskette, 5 Net". This boot priority submenu does not show up when
"UEFI" is chosen.

There is also a menu item "secure boot", which I recall reading about at
the time and set to "disabled", as someone had advised. I will check
that out once more, as well.

> If the latter, there are some tricks to installing Linux
> [...] I attach some notes

Thanks for the notes! Let me first try to fix the problem by following
up on the boot flag and "secure boot" questions and then I'd like to try
the UEFI route...

Thanks again - I'll be back soon!

Yuuri




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