My computer is a Dell XPS710, 2 GB Ram
Board: Dell Inc. 0UY253 A00
Serial Number: ..CN1374073900TK.
Bus Clock: 1066 megahertz
BIOS: Dell Inc. 1.4.1 05/07/2007
EDIT: I went into BIOS , HD section, and turned off the second SATA port that had nothing installed and it seems to have solved my F1 problem. I've rebooted several times and NO "hit F1". I've learned something. :-) BUT this brings me back to my original problem.
I bought a new 500gb HD to add to my computer and cloned it with the original 250 GB HD. This worked successfully. I put the new HD in the same spot as the original HD and used the same connecting wires. I put the original HD in an empty HD slot and connected it up. Both HD's of course were now bootable drives but the computer apparently couldn't decide which to use (?)
Now, how can I get computer to bbot off new HD realizing that I can't tell BIOS which HD to use?
Your system is a very nice system. As happyrock suggested, the boot drive should be connected to the number one SATA port. It will work on other ports, but that is not the preferred configuration as per Dell support.
Your F1 error seems to have been the SATA port being enabled with no device cnnected to it. This happens quite often. All SATA ports with no devices connected should be disabled.
Now that the F1 error has been addressed, to get the boot drive in order, select the boot device in the BIOS. Usually the onboard CD\DVD drive is set as the first device and the boot hard drive as the second boot device. Determine which drive you want as your boot drive and make sure it is connected to the SATA port one. Then in the boot order, select the SATA port one as the second boot device. Save the settings and reboot. If there is no disk in the optical drive, the system should boot to the SATA port one hard drive.
You can connect the second hard drive to the SATA port two, making sure the SATA two port is enabled and making sure it is not the second boot device. You may have issues with dual booting, since both hard drives have an OS installed on them.
If you don't want dual booting, you would need to make some more adjustments to the OS and the boot manager. This is another issue that can be dealt with, but you should get the system to boot and work as you want it to, first.
Hope this is not too confusing and is helpful.
Edited by Hanspuppa, 19 December 2009 - 11:03 AM.