Dell XPS 8500 and Samsung 840 SSD and Updating to Windows 10

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My system won’t upgrade to Windows 10 – it says the update is ready, but the install fails (with a variety of error messages) and the system boots back to Win 8.1.

The system is a Dell XPS 8500 – purchased in the spring of 2013. The Dell official position is that this system has not be tested and certified for Windows 10 and they recommend you don’t try (!) Apparently the issue is with drivers, and they apparently don’t plan to update the drivers for this system. (Very disappointing for hardware less than 3 years old.)

My second issue is that my C: drive is a Samsung SSD 840. I have seen several posts where the Windows 10 upgrade is failing for users with Samsung SSDs (various models).

I’m curious about the experiences of others with similar equipment:

(1) If you have a Dell XPS 8500 have you been able to upgrade to Windows 10?

(2) If you have a Samsung SSD as boot drive, have you been able to upgrade to Windows 10?

I’m trying to narrow down the source(s) of my problems.

David

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It will be hardware drivers, not the disk, it’s just an SSD on a SATA bus so it’s standard hardware.

Go to the Dell support site and enter the service tag. See what W10 drivers are available.

cheers, Paul

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There are no new drivers available for the 8500. They have updated the Bios (and I assume some drivers) for the 8700 and advertise that it is now W10 compatible. A number of posters have indicated that it is not.

As far as I can tell, Dell has abandoned a system that is 2 1/2 years old.

David

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You could try creating install media and using that to upgrade. I’ve successfully upgraded a 6-7 year old Dell XPS 410 multiple times since last October. There is no way Dell has provided Windows 10 drivers for it.

Joe

--Joe

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I’ve tried that several times. It fails.

I am in the process of copying the image from the SSD to a regular HD (the one that was in the System when it was delivered). I will then swap in the HD and see it I can get it to boot. If it boots, I will try the upgrade. If that fails, I’ll try a clean install. I have MS and Dell V8 reinstall disks.

David

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Have you looked up the failure messages to see if there are any clues?

cheers, Paul

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I have swapped out the Samsung SSD for the original HD – which I imaged from the SSD. The install still fails – with the error message C1900101-20017 The installation failed in the SAFE_OS phase with an error during BOOT operation”. Same error I got before.

Next, I am going to try a Refresh to see if I can get back to a basic, “clean” W8.1 and see if that will update. I have my applications backed up via the EaseUS Todo PC Trans Pro, so (if that works) I can still reinstall my applications easily.

This is ridiculous.

David

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David, my wife has the XPS8500 that boots from and SSD. I have an XPS8700 that boots from an SSD.

Guess what, the 8500 successfully upgraded (from W8.1 Pro, started life as W7 I recall) without a problem. That PC does NOT use the standard 1703 Wireless halfcard but a USB AC wireless adapter. Others that I’ve seen upgrading an 8500 did have problems with wireless not working.

My XPS8700, EXACTLY the same problem you are facing. We have an XPS 435T that Dell also says isnt supported/tested for W10 and it too updated without a problem (it too has an SSD for booting).

One difference with my XPS8700 though with respect to your XPS8500, my original hard drive is always in the system and via the BIOS I could boot to either the SSD or the C: on the original hard drive.

What is/was the difference between the 3 XPS’s here? Will disk wise all 3 have an SSD for booting that holds the OS, the original hard disks remain in the system and the C: size was shrunk to match the SSD’s size and the rest of the drive was used for another partition to hold data/programs, and a 2nd hard disk was installed for data and backup purposes. Major difference between the XPS8700 and the other 2 was HOW the SSD was enabled and cloned. This as it turned out was the CAUSE of my upgrade problem on the XPS8700. On the other 2 I manually had to do the cloning and installing. In both cases the SSD was put in and assigned a drive letter. I then used IMAGING programs to clone the C: to the SSD. Also the boot record from the original hard drive. Then I had to do some BIOS changes and some ‘tweaking’ on the SSD. However I did get them going but I don’t remember all the details, it was trial and error. Now for the XPS8700 I didn’t want to waste my time so I used Paragon’s Migrate OS to SSD 4.0. Worked like a charm, no need to do anything.

Then came the W10 Upgrade. Same failure you got. Expect I was able to upgrade the original hard drive C: that I could boot. Called MS and they tried for 2 hours to make it work. Used Windows Update, the Update tool from both a DVD and USB drive, same failure. MS passed it onto the developers who never called. After a week I called and was told I needed to re-install W8.1 and then do the update. Huh? I’d loose a lot of data but I do have a backup but was told that couldn’t be restored.

I did contact Paragon and they said they were aware of the problem but sort of said it was an MS one.

I did start a thread on this over on Dell’s support forums and a few of us have/had the SAME exact problem, all used the Paragon s/w. It is a LONG thread to look at with a lot of data and attempts to fix.

End of the story was I listened to MS, partly. It appears that the Paragon s/w did something in the boot procedure that caused W10’s reboot not to work. Why? Don’t know. So I decided to image my SSD and do a clean install of W8.1 (from Dell’s Recovery dvd) to the SSD. I partially messed that up as the SSD is disk 1 and the old hard drive is disk 0, so part of the data on the old hard drive was overwritten for the boot process, I should have disconnect BOTH hard disks before doing this, but no real harm done other than the way to boot the old C: partition has changed now. I deviated from the MS way and first thing I did was restore my image. I did test booting every change I made and I was back to where I was. So I used Windows Update again to get W10. Worked like a charm without a problem.

Even if you didn’t use Paragon’s program (I’ve heard of other programs to clone the SSD from the SSD vendor causing similar problem) I suggest to try the clean install to the SDD of Wx that you have, then restore your image since you image, and give it a try.

Hope this helps. Dell link with all the gory details if you want to see it, http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/software-os/f/4997/t/19643586?pi239031352=1#20807757

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Interesting. I’m having similar issues with a Samsung SSD which I used in conjunction with Paragon Migrate…and in a Del XPS 9000 (435).
I used Paragon Migrate to copy Win 7 to a Samsung SSD last January. No issues, been performing flawlessly since. Now I think Win10 tried to install itself 2 weeks ago. Of course it was the day before we left on vacation and my wife was at the PC.
My PC no longer booted, the SSD was no longer visible in Explorer (after I booted from the old hard drive). I went into dskmgmt and assigned a drive letter and could see it. However there’s no boot partition on the SSD. Odd.

I get a “BOOTMGR missing, ctl-alt-del to restart” when trying to boot from the SSD. I’ve tried everything I can think of to make the SSD bootable again but no luck.

After booting from the old hard drive, I get messages telling me windows is not genuine. Not sure how that came about either.
I tried installing Win10 iso directly from a USB but it doesn’t recognize a valid install of Win 7. I even managed to load a backup image to no avail.

I’m at my wit’s end what to do.

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I think that vendors update drivers for their most recent products first and work backward from there, and Windows will be doing much the same thing in what hardware it supports. Eventually, the earlier products will be supported by one side or the other and you will have a working system.

That is consistent with my experience with previous versions of Windows – people are impatient for support for their legacy products and sometimes dash out to buy a new and compatible device, when the entire build is new and may have any number of problems that require more urgent attention than support for peripherals.

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If you have a non-valid W7 but do have a valid license sticker / DVD then you need to call the MS licensing / activation number. It should be listed under “other ways to activate” on the activation screen – after you have entered the license number.

cheers, Paul

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I am still in wait mode. I did get the message (finally) that W10 was ready to install – but starting that process runs for about 10 seconds and then drops me back to the desktop – no error message or any other information about what happened. Going to Windows update and running it from there also fails with the usual error message.

Dell does say the XPS 8500 has not been certified for W10 and they don’t recommend trying. There is nothing on the web site about whether they plan to update the bios/firmware/drivers for this system, but a Dell Support tech did tell me they were working on it. Also, yesterday, I got an email about an updated “Dell Update” service that is supposed to detect updated software, so I think that means they are working on this issue. I have the Dell Update service running and will see if an updated Bios or any new drivers are issued. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

I also have the Dell “Restore” DVD that brings everything back to the way it was when I bought the system (W8.0 Home). I assume that means that the HD will be formatted and all the relevant partitions recreated. I’m going to call Dell tomorrow to confirm that. However, that really erases everything and I prefer waiting to see a new Bios and drivers are released.

The other complication I learned concerns the license codes for the software. When I tried to refresh W8.1 in place it rejected my W8.1 license code – the valid code I am running now. What I think is happening is that this is looking at the _original_ W8.0 license code, which Dell, in its infinite wisdom, no longer puts on a sticker on the outside of the case. Dell writes the code into the motherboard when the system is manufactured and set up. Tools like Belarc Advisor don’t see that code. Some internet searches found a (Spanish-Language) site with instructions on how to read the key off the motherboard (thanks Google Translate!), and that pulled off the original key.

So, my plan, if Dell doesn’t release updates, it to restore back to the original system state (the SSD is swapped out now and I have the original Seagate HD back in the system as my C: drive – its running fine, but boy is it slow compared to the SSD!). Then, I will try to update to W8.1, and then to W8.1 Pro (with the other license key) – and then, see if I can get it to update to W10. If that fails, I’ll just stay with 8.1. I am in the process of migrating all my outlook mail and documents over to my iMac so I can access it there. I only need the PC for one simulation game – everything else is covered in OS X (I have Office 2011 for Mac) – so I suspect I’ll end up abandoning Windows and the PC within the next 12 months anyway. At this point, I am looking at this an an intellectual challenge – and to try to satisfy my mild case of OCD….

David

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IWhen I tried to refresh W8.1 in place it rejected my W8.1 license code – the valid code I am running now. What I think is happening is that this is looking at the _original_ W8.0 license code, which Dell, in its infinite wisdom, no longer puts on a sticker on the outside of the case. Dell writes the code into the motherboard when the system is manufactured and set up.

This is the MS preferred method for OEM licensing. It makes re-installation easy and ties the license to the original computer.

cheers, Paul

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