Aspire 875/895 can't see HDD when booting from usb for backup

Hi,Just setting up a new Aspire 875 with i5 16GB Optane and HDD. Having started from first boot and installing my user programs I wanted to take a Ghost partition backup to fall back on... i do this regularly on my older system. I've not experienced using Optane before.
Booting Hirens CD from USB I was surprised to see no HDD was found and obviously Ghost didn't see it either. Looking at the Bios options I eventually found changing Optane to AHCI in Peripherals allowed Hirens to see the HDD .. but when i tried to boot from the HDD windows failed. So I changed Bios back to Optane.
I'm puzzled as to how Optane works such that it takes control of the boot sequence. I now want to install a SSD as boot drive and use the HDD as storage.
Can anyone suggest if I need to format the boot drive in a particular way and then how best to connect/format both drives , should I now remove the Optane module, remove any software drivers and what the hell is going on anyway !!
Many thanks

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Leostat

Its beacuse of the way the "optane" works, "Linux" (ubuntu / fedora / hirens) doesnt support it yet so its not able to use it, if you turn it off, back up, and turn it back on thats the closest you will be able to get, unless you do a full reinstall with it turned off (not recomended as you will lose drivers and the system will be slower). I think its just a new disk operation similar to AHCI / sata, so it should be supported in time, but not yet im afraid! The ubtunu guide suggests you may be abel to do it by tweaking the Registry:

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubuntu-installation-on-computers-with-intel-r-rst-enabled/15347

But then goes on to say it may cause windows to not boot, so a tad risky!

coljon

OK thanks.. I can probably manage to switch Bios as i need to but The other thing is .. in the Bios Boot option, the HDD is not listed anyway. So if I install two drives how do I select which one is the boot drive ?? To say the least I'm not a fan of Optane already.

Leostat

Im not 100% on this, but i think thats the optane messing with how the UEFI sees the drives as it just as one "thing" where data is stored on the HDD and cached on the smaller optane drive, rather than seeing two seperate drives

coljon

Quite. I'm wondering now if to just keep the HDD and Optane as is. The option to upgrade is very limited with a very small PSU, no spare connectors and a non standard motherboard. I'll persevere until the whole thing slows down.. or i can install a larger SSD, forget the onboard HDD and use a USB HDD for extra storage. Not as i expected.
Cheers.

billsey

Optane acts as a SSD cache for the HDD, allowing much faster access to the first few files that Windows needs. It allows for a startup time similar to with a SSD and doesn't really slow down until you have been accessing more than the size of the Optane card. Hiren's is really old and doesn't know much about UEFI systems, and likely doesn't have the newer RAID drivers needed for the Optane functions. That's likely why the drive didn't show... In the long run you might look seriously at replacing the Optane card with an NVMe x4 SSD and shifting your system to that. Use the HDD only for data storage. That will be just as fast or faster for booting and won't slow down after a while.

coljon

Thanks Billsey.. yes I'm fast getting to know more about Optane. As more people use SSD as a boot drive then I don't understand Intel putting a lot of effort into making HDD their main USP. I'd of thought simply adding more RAM to a system would be just as beneficial. According to some 'expert trade media' anyway, a 16GB memory is not going to be much use allied to a 1TB drive as it will continually flush the data just put in.
However, I'm stuck with it for now. I'm waiting for a new Sata power cable so I can try a SSD with the original HDD. What else would I do in lockdown than create more problems. I'll update as how it goes including if the PSU holds out !!

billsey

Yes, keep us informed...

coljon

Final update.. After gaining as much info as I could about the benefits of Optane memory, I decided it was causing me too much hassle and not worth the few milliseconds it saved compared to installing an SSD drive.
So I removed the Optane module, reset Bios to AHCI, installed a 250GB SSD with a new Win 10 system.This allowed Hirens to boot and recognise the drives for image backups. Took a backup and Proved a partition restore worked perfect
I ordered a SATA power cable to daisy chain extra connectors off the original so I could add the original HDD as a data drive... plus an extra SATA data cable which plugged into a spare motherboard socket. Connected that and system booted no problem with SSD and HDD partitions visible as normal.
Strangely, although Bios identifies both drives as being present it still doesn't show them in the Boot sequence options. Windows Boot manager seems to be the controlling factor.
That'll do me for now.. Happy days.