Booting from the M.2 SSD socket

[Rehrig32]

I have a HP Pavilion 590-p0066.  I created a smaller partition of the C: drive that contained the OS.  I cloned that partition onto a WD Blue 3D NAND 500GB PC SSD - SATA III 6 Gb/s, M.2 2280 - WDS500G2B0B.  I would like to boot from the M.2 SSD socket but I am not able to choose it in the bios for boot order.  The SSD and the original HD are visiable within windows.  I removed the HD to see if the SSD would then boot, it would not.  How can I boot from the M.2 socket?

[Grzwacz]

Greetings,

Welcome to the forum.

I am not a HP employee.

The SSD is present in the BIOS if Windows can see this drive.

I am fuzzy on how you copied/cloned the current operating system installation to the new SSD.

This Microsoft document (Link) explains the general partition structure required on a GPT installation.

The EFI System partition normally contains the boot loader unless you modify this when installing Windows clean.

The Recovery partition contains recovery tools and is required to use BitLocker.

You may have only cloned the operating system (C) drive to the SSD. This means there may be no boot loader.

You need to clone the disk to copy the hidden partitions to the new SSD.

Regards

[Rehrig32]

Thank you for your information.  I tool I used to clone the HDD was EASEUS and only cloned the C: windows drive which has the boot partition.  After reviewing what you wrote and the windows link you included I may have to clone the "system,efi" partition.  Also to clarify the BIOS is not showing the SSD. 

Let me clone that partition to the SSD and see what happens.  I will update once completed.

[Grzwacz]

Hi Rehrig32,

I would clone the entire disk unless you don't want recovery options.

A SATA M.2 drive will not work. This is why you can't see the storage device in the BIOS. I missed this in your first post. 

You need to use a PCIE NVME stick drive. But you still have to clone the factory disk image to the new PCIe NVME drive to have things go well.

Regards

[Rehrig32]

So there is no way a SATA M.2 will work to boot? So why would someone use a SATAM.2 SSD? I will need to return it and buy a PCIE NVME 

[Grzwacz · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Motherboard manufacturers can do SATA and NVME on M.2 slots.

HP has chosen to only support NVME on M.2.

Sorry, but this is the way it is.

Regards

[Rehrig32]

Thank you I appreciate the information. I wished I would have known that information before purchasing a SATAM.2.

I really appreciate your help.

[Grzwacz]

Hi Rehrig32,

You're very welcome.

A PCIe NVME drive will work and be bootable provided you clone the entire HP operating system disk to the new drive.

I am sorry I missed the M.2 SATA description in your initial post.

Many motherboard (MB) manufacturers do what HP have done. I have some PCs with two M.2 slots. One slot supports SATA and PCIe, the second slot only supports PCIe. But these MBs provide six SATA ports.

There are only so many lanes available for data on these motherboards. Your PC's Intel chipset (H370) supports up to 20 PCIe lanes. The MB makers have to disable SATA ports when you use M.2 sockets for storage. Your motherboard only has three SATA ports. Sometimes PCIe x1 slots are disabled or throttled when using both M.2 slots on some MBs.

Regards