HP Zbook 17 G5 disable primary HDD from BIOS

[Vladan13]

Hello,

I have HP Zbook 17 G5. Its primary HDD is M.2 SSD located on the top of the system board. That means that physical removal of primary HDD would include removing of system board - and I will not consider it. Is there a way to completely disable this primary HDD through BIOS, and how? It should be not visible to Windows 10 installation media.

Use case: Primary HDD has Windows 10, I want to install another copy of Windows 10 to a secondary SSD, but I don't want that bootloader of the secondary Windows ends up on primary HDD. And that will happen if Windows 10 installation detects primary HDD during the installation process. Up until now, I always did the installation to another drive after physically detaching the primary HDD- which is not possible in this case.

[IT_WinSec · Accepted solution]

Hello @Vladan13 

Restart your PC and boot to BIOS (F10).

Go to Advanced tab

Go to Port Options

Scroll down to the bottom and see if you can uncheck the "unwanted" drive  (M2. SSD1 / M.2 SSD2 / M.2 SSD3 / SATA , etc)

Make sure you save the changes before you exit the BIOS.

[Vladan13]

Hello,

just to confirm: unchecking the unwanted drive completely hides it from the OS, as described.

Thanks!