Installing M.2 in Slimline 290-p0056

[flycat]

I have tried two different WD Blue M.2 2280 1TB SSDs and have been unable to get the computer to recognize them.  Slot is enabled but the BIOS doesn't see the drive.  Current primary drive is a 500GB Crucial SATA SSD.  HP chat assured me that the computer takes 2280 type drive.  Phone call to support told me that they could help but only if I paid $49.95 for the advice.  Computer is in warranty.  Am I missing a trick to get this thing to work?  Do I need to remove the SATA drive first?  I am hoping to have both drives.

[Grzwacz]

Greetings,

Welcome back to the forum.

I am not a HP employee.

Here's the thing.

Some HP PCs only work with SATA M.2 drives, some HP PCs only work with PCIe NVME drives. Other motherboards can support both SATA and PCIe in M.2 sockets.

WD Blue could be a SATA M.2 drive. A cursory research, using the drive description you have given, seems to show the WD Blue drive may be a SATA storage device.

So, if the BIOS does not see this storage device, this means you have to try a PCIe storage device if the WD Blue is a SATA device.

This is all I can say based on the information provided.

Regards

[flycat]

Well, I took your suggestion to heart and installed a PCIe drive.  We're heading in the proper direction, in that the BIOS now sees the drive, as does Device Manager, but it doesn't show up in Windows Explorer.  I don't know how to clone the C drive to the new one without it showing up in Explorer.  Suggestions?

[Grzwacz]

Hi Flycat,

You need to initialize the new M.2 drive in "Disk Management".  Go to Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Computer Management. Then select "Disk Management".

Right click on the new SSD and select initialize disk. Note the ID of the disk. It may be Disk 0 or Disk 1.

Now you can format the new disk as a GPT disk.

You should now see the new SSD in File Explorer.

This article (Link) describes how to clone the existing disk to the new disk using Macrium Reflect free.

Disconnect the old disk and start your PC with the new disk only.

The PC should boot to the cloned SSD.

Now you can reconnect the old disk. Then you can use Disk Management to reformat the old disk as a data drive.

I would rename the old disk in File Explorer from OS to Data or whatever you want so you can identify the disk in Disk Management. 

Regards