I've been fighting some sort of issue with booting. Dell 8700XPS, Win7 Pro, 32GB SSD cache.
On power up (from system powered off) it does not recognize the hard drive (accelerated to use SSD). It only lists the SSD, and fails to boot, saying improper media. If I power cycle and hit cntl I before that error, it does not list the HD (only SSD), then hit escape, then it recognizes the HD and SSD as the boot process continues. Then it seems ok. Once up and running, a reboot sees both the HD and SSD during boot. So the problem only appears after a power down, not a reboot.
I went to the Dell Backup and Recovery program, and it reports the Factory Recovery Partition is missing or corrupt. I thought I had made a recovery CD (win7 pro), but of course can't find it. The only disks shipped with the unit were Win8.1, which I never upgraded to due to software I use doesn't run on Win8.
I'm hoping the Recovery Partition problem is why it's not seeing the HD on power-up, but may be just wishful thinking.
Thoughts on how to get that recovery partition problem resolved? I assume it is on the SSD.
Thanks in advance.
Bill