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XPS 8930, replaced with unformatted HDD, but data is still appearing on boot?
HDD Crashed, Put in New HDD, Purchased Win11 on USB flash drive. Booted to USB and that's where it got weird. My programs & folders are intact and I can continue to work. Office works, Outlook works, Internet works. On My computer it shows this PC and USB Flash drive. The new HDD has not been formatted and nothing installed to it. How are all my programs there and still working? Does Dell do and image of the hard drive and where does it store it. I am so confused. Any help would be appreciated.
ejn63
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March 18th, 2024 19:01
If you have more than one drive in the system -- perhaps an M.2 SSD and a hard drive -- it sounds like the the latter failed, but the former is working.
RoHe
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March 19th, 2024 01:05
@ErnieHutch - What makes you think the HDD failed? Are you getting an error message?
OS: (C:) 166gb free of 461GB - Sounds like you have a M.2 NVME 500 GB SSD. Dell installed a number of different brand SSDs in XPS 8930 as the C: drive along with a HDD as D: drive. My XPS 8930 came with a 500 GB NVME SSD plus a 1T hard disk drive.
If you want to double-check, go to the support site and enter your Service Tag. (Don't post Service Tag here.) When the site recognizes your XPS 8930, look on right side of screen under Quick Links for a link to your factory config. Open that and I bet you'll find an M.2 NVME SSD listed.
You can also look on your motherboard for an SSD in the M.2 slot marked #8 in this picture. The NMVE SSD is thin, 22 mm wide x 80 mm long, that's flat on the motherboard and held in place by a screw at one end, and it can be easy to miss it.
So @ejn63 is probably right, the HDD failed but not the SSD. BTW: Are all your personal files available, in addition to your apps, or did you lose your personal files? If all personal files are still available too, that means you've been storing them on the SSD along with Windows, instead of storing personal files the HDD.
If you unplug your Windows USB stick and the old HDD, does PC boot properly? If that works okay, connect the new HDD and boot PC. Then boot up and when you get to the desktop, search for and run Disk Management. Use it to format the new HDD. Just be careful that you don't accidentally try to format the SSD C: drive.
Now you can tell Win 11 to move its default folders onto the HDD (D:), and then move all your personal files off the SSD into the folders on the new HDD.
RoHe
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March 18th, 2024 19:45
@ErnieHutch - Always include exact PC model in your posts...
ErnieHutch
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March 18th, 2024 21:16
@RoHe Sorry I just joined today. The Model is XPS 8930
ErnieHutch
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March 18th, 2024 21:18
@ejn63 There was only one hard drive in the system which is toast. I removed the dead drive and plugged in a new unformatted hard drive with the intention of installing a clean windows 11 .
Further information. My XPS 8930 came with Windows 10 pre-installed, which I later received a free upgrade to windows 11. My Original 2 TB HDD failed completely. I tried repair, nothing helped. The drive is totally unreadable even in another pc. I had on hand a new 3TB drive and purchased windows 11 on a USB flash drive, went to install and my whole desktop came up with most of my programs working, yet there is no connect hard drive. How is this possible?
I thought I would try to do a factory reset to it's original configuration but because the hard drive is dead this is not possible.
ErnieHutch
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March 18th, 2024 21:40
@ejn63 I just shut down the computer and disconnected the new unformatted hard drive. Then restarted and everything is still there and working. When I go to file manager is shows the following
OS: (C:) 166gb free of 461GB
Windows 11 (D:) 20.9G Free of 27.1GM (This is the USB Flash Drive with Windows 11 on it.
DVD RW E:
Original drive that is dead was partitioned into C: and D:
Where is all the information apparently on C: drive stored? There is physically no hard drive installed. Is it all stored in the cloud or something?
ErnieHutch
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March 19th, 2024 03:29
@RoHe OMG Thank you so much. You just solved the mystery. I thought I was going nuts. I was looking for a much bigger SSD drive in one of the slots. My husband insisted he had an SSD drive and I looked and couldn't find one in any of the Hard drive bays. So I assumed it only had one drive. I checked the configuration and you are absolutely right. It was the D Hard drive that died. Sadly my hubby saved all his documents etc to the D drive so has lost a lot of info. I have reinstalled the new drive, removed the USB stick and everything booted fine. I have formatted the new D drive. The only things that don't work are to programs installed on the old D Drive and the location of files on D drive. I am in the process of moving the default folders. I was a computer tech for many years, building new systems in Australia since the days of Windows 3.11 and onwards. I am now 70 years old and a bit behind on the current technology. SSD drives on motherboards is a whole new technology for me. I was looking for a drive the size of a laptop drive. Oh well I spent $135 on Windows 11 which we don't need. I want to thank you again so much, you are a lifesaver. You saved me days of work doing a clean install of windows and re-installing all our programs. Thank you, Thank You, Thank You.
ErnieHutch
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March 19th, 2024 03:32
@ejn63 Thank you. as @RoHe pointed out you are correct it did have 2 drives and the D Drive Died losing all our data. SSD is working fine. Thank you again for your input.
RoHe
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March 19th, 2024 18:09
Glad we could help!
Sorry you lost some files. Now that you know Windows is on the SSD, you could try re-connecting the old HDD to see if anything is still recoverable. And get in habit of backing personal files up on an external USB drive on a regular basis.
Also sorry you bought that USB stick because you could have created your own for free using Microsoft's Media Creation Tool....