Dell Optiplex 7010 no M.2 slot – use existing PCIe slot for NVMe SSD?

SIW2 said:

I have an old hp 8300 sff lying around. It might be possible to do a similar bios mod for it, I dont know how to get into service mode on the hp.

Sometimes there are no Service Mode pins (as in the Dell example I showed) - however there is always a jumpering mechanism to do it, but if there aren't pins it is much less convenient. Finally if no service mode pins can be found. You can simply use a CH431 USB Programmer to read the BIOS chip, modify it and rewrite it. Something I did in this blog post:

How to repair a Dell Alienware Area 51 r2 with a corrupt BIOS

I think I actually have a HP 8300 in my garage. I will see if I can find it and check it out.

It is just out of curiosity, I am unlikely to have much use for the 8300 sff. However a lot of people have them so there could be quite a bit of interest

I don't know why, but I love making old machines do things like this. I am just in the process of modifying a Dell PowerEdge R320 with a similar method. It's really and rock and roll lifestyle I am living

PaulieM - "I love making old machines do things like this" - agree with you 100% (even though I'm a lawyer and not a tech).
- I kept my old XP machine updated with the POS hack for four years after its EOL date.
- I put two used Win 7 machines in my wife's mini-office and still keep them updated via a hack on AskWoody.
- Your help here will eventually keep at least one of those Win 7s going for a while (a Dell Optiplex 3010 MT that I will then upgrade to Win 10, probably for free.)

SIW2 and PaulieM - how can I tell whether my current dual-booting OS HDD is MBR or GPT? I am fairly confident that I am using UEFI to boot both, but I don't know whether UEFI answers this question.
a) To do everything we've been discussing - BIOS hack or Clover and then clone to NVMe M.2 - which do I need, MBR or GPT?
b) If I am the wrong one, does converting wipe out my existing HDD?

PaulieM - If you Google for Optiplex 7010 Technical Guidebook, download the pdf and do a Find search for USB, you will find pictures and legends showing where is the internal USB socket. It looks like it exists for the MT and DT size cases, but not SFF although I am not 100% sure.

how can I tell whether my current dual-booting OS HDD is MBR or GPT?

In disk mgmt rt click the disk and select properties>volumes

SIW2 - Thanks. I'm GUID Partition Table (GPT), just like your graphic above. So good to go, yes?

PaulieM - We haven't discussed a Q - Since I plan to clone my OS HDD to the NVMe, I think I should be skipping both your "Create your bootable Windows Server Installation" and "Install Windows in the normal way" steps. Do I have that right?.

I expect so.

Just FYI -
If you all want to see my CrystalDiskMark results for my existing HDDs and two externals, see
Microsoft OneDrive - Access files anywhere. Create docs with free Office Online.
The first four (C-G) are from my three internal HDDs, all Seagate Barracuda 2TBs, the next (H) is a WD external HDD, and the last (I) is a PNY USB stick.
Well, we'll see.

SIW2 said:

It is just out of curiosity, I am unlikely to have much use for the 8300 sff. However a lot of people have them so there could be quite a bit of interest

I have got it working on 8300 SFF also - nowhere near as easy to do, but it works great when it is done. The machine I did it to had a mechanical hard drive before, so from HDD to NVMe is quite the performance boost!

PaulieM said:

I have got it working on 8300 SFF also - nowhere near as easy to do, but it works great when it is done. The machine I did it to had a mechanical hard drive before, so from HDD to NVMe is quite the performance boost!

Great, will you putting a guide on your site for the 8300 sff ?