Need to boot from SSD - Explanation

[Trackpads]

I have a Dell Precision T7610 for my primary unraid server.  There is some quirk in the bios that I cannot solve.  If I boot legacy then it tells me no boot drive exists.  If I boot from UEFI it tells me the same but lets me continue and boots from the USB just fine.  The problem is not unraid. I bricked a motherboard with some help from the dell forums and I am not taking any chances with any more attempts to solve this. It is definately the Dell BIOS but there are no new updates for that machines. 

 

How can I boot from an SSD as a test?  The unraid tool only will select USB Drives. I will to put a copy of unraid on an SSD and plug it in the the MB stat ports and see if Legacy or UEFI will boot fine and not require me to touch the keyboard each time.  I want this machine to run truly headless. 

 

Thanks again,

 

-Jason

[Kilrah]

Manual install will likely make a bootable drive if you want to check but it will not be usable as Unraid depends on a USB drive for licensing. 

[Frank1940]

Look carefully at the BIOS setup for boot option settings.  You may find two or three 'pages' where the boot parameters can be set.  Be sure the Unraid boot drive is plugged into to a USB2 port when looking through the BIOS settings.  I seem to recall that some folks have had to designate/assign the flash drive as a hard drive.  Some times there is an option to boot from a USB device.  You could also google the problem.  (You are probably not the only one who has wanted to boot that PC from a USB drive-- and this desire is probably for some other OS than Unraid...)

Edited February 2, 2023 by Frank1940