16-d1011sl - second ssd on the second slot - I can choose which from SSD to boot?

[steeve101]

hi
I would like to know if by inserting a second SSD into the additional slot present in the 16-D1011SL, I can boot by choosing between one SSD and another?

thanks

best regards

steeve

[steeve101]

Hi

I added the second SSD, but it does not appear in the bios boot options (but, booting from the old SSD, the new SSD was present in Windows 11 and after initializing and formatting it, I tried again to enter the bios boot options but it is not nothing changed)
I thought it was because it didn't have the OS yet and so I tried to clone the original SSD to new SSD and in the boot options, now, only the new SSD appears (and it boots fine)
I tried removing the new SSD and the old SSD reappeared!

Is it possible that there is no way to choose which SSD, of the 2 M.2 slots, to boot from?

ps. I also tried pressing F9 during boot, but nothing changes: just an SSD shown

please, help me

thanks

Steeve

[tk_srq]

@steeve101,

Your issue seems to be very similar to the one discussed in the post below.

Solved: Re: HP Victus 16-d1005nq unable to install 2 NVMe SSDs - HP Support Community - 9010972

The author's issue: if the Victus laptop has one M.2 SSD installed, the system boots from the SSD regardless of which slot the SSD is connected to. If the laptop has two bootable SSDs, however, it only boots from the SSD in slot 1, with the other SSD not being recognized in BIOS.

Solution: The author updated BIOS to the latest version before adding a second SSD. The issue was resolved when the BIOS was reset to the factory default settings. 

You can try to reset the BIOS to see if it resolves the issue.

[steeve101]

Thank you for your reply
I read the whole post you linked to me and the user at the end says he solved it by resetting the BIOS to default settings.

I don't have any settings in the bios that allow me to reset it. 😞
can you help me do this?

thanks again

steeve

[tk_srq]

You can reset the BIOS to default settings this way:

1) Go into F10 BIOS.

2) Move to Exit. 

3) Select Load Setup Default (or similar name) and click Enter.

4)Save the change and exit.

If this doesn't work, another option would be, just as the other person did, update the BIOS to the latest version and reset the BIOS to the default settings afterwards. Your laptop and other person's both belong to the same Victus model series 16-d1xxx and share the same BIOS update files so this is something you can possibly try. But I have to tell you that BIOS update has some risk involved.

[steeve101]

Thanks again for the answer
I updated the bios from version F14 to version F15 (latest available on the HP website)
I then turned it on and checked and nothing had changed.
I also reset the bios to factory settings (it was like you said), but it didn't solve the problem.
I continue to see only one SSD in the boot choices (as per the attached screen)

Are there other things I can do?
Thanks again
Steeve

[tk_srq]

Try to enter F9 Boot Options Menu on bootup. If you see two sets of Windows Boot Manager, one of them is for the other SSD.

If you see only one Windows Boot Manager, click Boot from EFI File. If you see two sets of File System which looks like a string of characters and numbers, send us the screenshot.

If you see just one File System there, it means that BIOS doesn't recognize the other bootable SSD. The other guy fixed the issue with the BIOS trick, but it didn't work for you, even though your laptop and the other guy's belonged to the same model series 16-d1xxx.  

Unfortunately, I don't have any other suggestion to provide. I'm afraid to say your laptop is not capable of a dual boot and you may need to use the other NVMe as a storage drive. 

[steeve101]

Hi

I had already tried F9 and only ever saw an SSD.
I had also tried choosing the EFI files and by scrolling through the various folders until I got to the file in the Boot folder and selecting the .EFI file I was able to boot disk 1 or disk 2 (but it's confusing since you have to remember which is the numbers and letters that identifies each other)

this morning I wanted to try to install Linux (always on the new 2TB SSD) and in this case both SSDs appear under the boot options!!!

then I tried to install Win 11 from zero on the new disk (always the 2TB SSD) with a USB stick and iso win11 and the disk was recognized if it was alone but it became invisible when I reinserted the original SSD (only the 512GB was seen)

I suspected that the problem was that I had cloned the original SSD (512 GB) onto a new SSD (2 TB), but given that even with a clean installation the problem appears, it seems clear to me that there is no way to have 2 different instances of Win 11 and be able to choose which one to boot from!

This is very strange and has never occurred before on any PC I have had in over 30 years.

thanks again

best regards

steeve

[tk_srq]

Ok, so you installed both the factory installed NVMe and cloned new NVMe, and the system booted from the factory SSD. F9 Boot Options Menu listed only the factory SSD, but Boot from EFI displayed the file system for the new drive, and you were able to boot from the new drive manually.

Obviously, the BIOS doesn't detect the new NVMe as a boot device if another NVMe is present. 

It seems that you booted from EFI\Boot\bootx64.efi but you can also boot from EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi. If the first one doesn't work, you can try the second one.

I agree that File System is very confusing. Basically, it shows where the EFI partition is located. File System seems to consist of: disk's location of path + EFI partition's number + some type of ID number. Id number is unique to each drive so, you can associate a disk with ID number (such as first few digit of ID).

If you want to keep the system dual booted, you need to boot the new drive manually from F9 Boot from EFI. I don't know if you want to do that. Maybe a future update BIOS version will fix the problem. . .maybe.

[steeve101]

Hi

It's not clear why with an NVMe with Win 11 and the second NVMe with LINUX, dual boot is made available and easily selectable both from the bios boot options and from F9.
This is very strange since dual booting is recognized and made available by booting with WIN 11 & Linux, but not with WIN 11 & WIN 11.

I'm hoping for a BIOS update that fixes this problem

Thanks again

best regards

steeve