crucial C300 SSD boot problem with xps 17

strange boot problem with new crucial C300 sd.

i have just done a fresh install on to an ssd drive on my laptop with windows 7 professional. The first problem was that i could not remove one of the screws for the first HD caddy so had to leave that one in HD slot 1 and place the ssd in slot 2 etc.

i assume that is ok or does the ssd with the os have to go in slot 1 etc (does the ssd have to go into the primary drive slot or is the second slot ok)

now the windows 7 ran ok until i started loading the first chipset drivers - when i restarted it failed to restart, it just hangs there with a underscore symbol and in the top left corner of my screen and a black screen

now the odd thing is if i try loading from the cd as my first boot option and dont press a button it goes to the screen where i do then have an option of selecting out of 2 windows 7 OS (i have not yet formatted the HD drive yet). i can then select the first windows 7 OS and the ssd works and the system boots up very quickly

however if i try booting with the SSD as the first boot option it just hangs there.

is the fact the ssd is in the second drive space the reason for this, or have i done something wrong, i did not install any drivers during the install phase as i assumed nothing has to be done with the crucial ssd drive unlike the vertex ssd drive.

i can not budge the screw holding the primary hd caddy so if the ssd has to go into that slot to work then i will need to send the laptop back.

can anyone help.

 

I can't answer your question, but have had similar experiences today. I've just fixed up two new laptops with SSDs today (a latitude E6520 with a Crucial M4 128GB and a precision M6600 with a Crucial M4 256GB). Both times I tried to clone the original drive onto the SSD. Both times, it looked like an exact copy, but when I installed the SSD into the primary drive slot with no other drive present, upon hitting the power button I ended up with the black screen with the flashing white underscore cursor in the top left corner of the screen.

I tried so many things and finally gave up. I tried repairing the windows installation with the windows disc, and it said something about an incorrect partition something or other, and that it fixed it, but upon rebooting, it still wouldn't work. So for both laptops I finally just reinstalled the OS and all drivers from scratch. What a pain in the rectum it was! I wish I knew why I'm too stupid to clone a hard drive...

 

in my case i was not cloning anything but simply doing a fresh instal.

the first question is does it matter if i am using the secondary slot for the SSD and that i am booting from the SSD or does an ssd have to go into the primary drive bay.

secondly the system i have now sort of works in that it boots first to the cd/dvd boot menu then automatically goes to a menu where both my windows 7 OS are (one on the SSD and the other which for now has been left on the HD - which has the standard dell set up etc).

I can boot from both but ideally want to format the HD, however if i do that will my system still work as someone posted that when you install an OS onto a SSD with a second hard drive present that part of that installation goes onto the second HD (that does not make any sense to me but i am no expert on these things)

 

May sound a stupid question, but you did change the boot order in your Bios to boot from the SSD and not the original HDD.
Allthough that shouldn't pose a problem an just boot from your HDD... Might worth a shot

 

I got it working - it was not a problem with the SSD but rather the fact that because the second HD was in the laptop windows 7 automatically assumed i wanted a dual set up and put a partition on the hard drive.

I sorted it our by getting the hard drive out and then repairing the OS on the SSD.

It now works fine.

The ssd upgrade was brilliant.