PXE-M0F error when installing hard drive in AW18

So I have an Alienware 18 and wanted to do a hard drive upgrade. I wanna remove the 1tb mechanical drive it came with and change it out to a SSD. But when I did that, I got a PXE-M0F cable connection error message and wouldn't boot into Windows. Under the BIOS, it shows the new hard drive installed however. Under the Boot Settings menu I ran diagnostics and everything came back green. But after I installed the mechanical hard drive back, everything boots up fine. Any help here would be appreciated. Specs are in signature. Using BIOS A14. I have Windows installed on the mSATA SSD and not the HDD I am trying to replace

 

Which windows are you trying to install?

Go to BIOS and see if you are running UEFI or Legacy mode

 

I am not trying to install Windows. I have Windows installed on the mSATA drive already. It's Windows 7. What I am trying to do is replace the 1tb hdd with a 2tb ssd. When I did that, I got the error message. I put the HDD back in and everything booted up just fine. I cloned the HDD to the SSD using Macrium Reflect thinking it had a boot partition and I swapped them back and got a PXE-MOF no boot device found/check cable connection. When I go into the BIOS, it detects the ssd just fine. BIOS is set as UEFI. But as soon as I put the HDD back in, everything works fine and boots up fine.

 

Have you tried putting the 2tb ssd as formatted instead of clone and see if that helps?

 

Yes that's what I did first. Just installed it as it is as a fresh hard drive with nothing on it and got the error. So I thought the HDD had a boot partition on it which was failing to be read on boot. So I cloned the HDD to the SSD and still no dice. But with the HDD in there, everything works perfectly. So it's not the sata cable or a loose connector.

 

Are you able to test the SSD in any other computer? Maybe something is wrong with it?

 

Yes I am and it works fine. It even worked fine in the Alienware when both the HDD and the SSD were installed together.

 

Also I checked the BIOS and it says the system is under RAID even though there is no RAID volume defined and my 256 mSATA drive with Windows on it doesn't match my 1tb HDD. I went into the BIOS and tried setting it to ACHI and got a blue screen and saying Windows failed to start. Went back in and set it to RAID and it booted up fine. That does have something to do with it?

 

If Windows was installed in RAID mode you cannot simply change the BIOS from RAID to AHCI, it needs a Windows re-installation. (unless you do a reg hack to make it bootable which I don't recommend)

 

Yeah but I don't understand how it can be a RAID setup when my mSATA and HDD don't match. Don't you need two identical drives to set it up as RAID?

 

I tested it in my desktop and it booted up up and detected it just fine. I thought that was the case too at first but apparently not. It even booted up in my AW18 when I had both the HDD and SSD installed. I even cloned the HDD to the SSD thinking there was a boot partition on the HDD which the BIOS was failing to read and when I removed the HDD and only tried booting with the SSD I got a "check cable/check boot error". Putting the HDD back in and everything works fine.