Upgrade SSD in HP 690-0073w

[nguyenvinn]

I bought this prebuilt PC from Walmart because I really liked the case and the small form factor. Before this, I had a PC that i had built myself just a few months ago and I have been using. I wanted to switch out the stock SSD that comes with the HP Pavillion 690-0073w. Upon opening up the case and adding my old SSD (intel 660p m.2 NVMe 1TB), the PC is unable to boot. The error message that I get looks like this

Boot Device Not Found

Please install an operating system on your hard disk.

Hard Disk -(3FO)

F2 - System Diagnostics

For more information, please visit:

http://www.hp.com/go/techcenter/startup

I know that my old SSD has an operating system installed because I was just using it last night. What should I do?

[Grzwacz]

Greetings,

Welcome to the forum.

I am not a HP employee.

I would enter the BIOS to verify the Intel 660p is recognized in the BIOS.

Regards

[nguyenvinn]

Yes, the drive is recognized on the BIOS, but it just won’t load. I have also tried changing the boot priority and that hasn’t helped either. 

[Grzwacz · Accepted solution]

Hi,

The only thing I can think of would be if the 660p is using MBR.

Try booting to the drive as a Legacy device (non UEFI) using the HP Boot Menu (F9).

You may have Windows activation problems if you can boot to the OS installed on the 660p.

You may have to clone the operating system from the HP drive to the 660p.

Regards

[nguyenvinn]

I booted as a Legacy device and it worked!

Thank you so much for your help. It didn't even give me windows activation issues. Last question, is it okay to keep booting it as a legacy device? would that cause any issues down the line?

[Grzwacz]

Nguyenvinn,

You're very welcome.

I am surprised you don't have a Windows activation problem.

I would think the drive is using MBR instead of GPT.

You can use MBR on Windows 10 with no problems.

Regards