Getting Series 3 notebook (NP300-V5A) to boot from second HDD?

Last summer I upgraded my 15.6" Series 3 by replacing the included mechanical HDD with a Samsung Series 830 SSD. Yesterday I used an optical bay HDD caddy to reinstall the mechanical HDD as a second drive. It wasn't just that I was running out of space on the 128 GB SSD, I also wanted to dual-boot Ubuntu 12.04, by dedicating a portion of the mechanical HDD to Ubuntu.

The problem is, the machine refuses to boot off the second HDD. I installed Ubuntu 12.04.2, complete with bootloader, to the second HDD, and I have both "SATA CD" and "USB HDD" (just in case) prioritized ahead of the SSD in the BIOS boot order.

So what's the deal? Do I *HAVE* to install the Ubuntu bootloader on the SSD (primary HDD slot)? I really don't want to do that, as it would risk messing with the wonderfully quick resume/sleep features of the factory Windows 7 install.

I had no trouble getting the machine to boot from a bootable USB stick, so I'm not sure why it refuses to boot from the HDD installed in the CD drive slot.

 

Does pressing F10 at the BIOS screen give you a one-time boot menu on the Series 3? (It does on the Series 5, 7 and 9). If so, is the HDD listed? If F10 doesn't work then try Esc (which was the one-time boot key for the previous Samsung notebooks).

If the HDD is not listed then is the Samsung Fast Boot enabled in the BIOS (it probably needs to be disabled to search for bootable devices other than the primary drive).

If you are running Windows 8 then features such as SecureBoot may also be obstructing you.

John

 

Pressing F10 in the BIOS menu exits while saving changes. Pressing F10 at boot time does nothing.

There is no "Fast Boot" item in BIOS.

I ended up reinstalling Ubuntu and putting its bootloader on the SSD. I think I'll be OK - it doesn't seem to have interfered with Windows 7's quick resume/sleep feature.

 

When you have time, try pressing Esc during the initial BIOS startup - it will be useful to know if this gives the one-time boot list on your Series 3.

John

 

Esc does bring up a boot menu (yet another undocumented feature!), but the secondary HDD is not listed. I tried it with various devices attached via USB, including an external HDD which isn't set up as a boot volume. The USB devices were all included on the list.

So it seems there is some kind of deliberate exclusion from the "bootable media" list of whatever's plugged into the second SATA port. That's dumb.

 

1. I discovered the Esc key function by accident some years ago. Samsung moved it to F10 on some recent products and I had to use trial-and-error to find out where it had gone.
2. I presume, that if you were to put the optical drive back into the bay and insert a bootable disc, then the BIOS would be able to see that device. Perhaps this thread explains why the SSD isn't bootable or offered in the boot menu.

John