Pavilion 570-p078a M.2 SSD Upgrade

[GerbilFX]

Heya,

I recently bought a Pavilion 570-p078a, and immediately decided that it needed an SSD. Upon reviewing the specs of the PC, I learned of an empty M.2 Key M slot. I decided to investigate M.2 SSD options, but ran into a roadblock in deciding between M.2 SATA and NVMe.

After online chatting with HP Support, I got a very ambiguous inference that an NVMe SSD would not be of benefit due a "lack of controller" on the motherboard, and that although both were compatible, M.2 SATA would be the better option. He stated that I could either purchase a drive via HP Parts, or procure one via "local IT supply". I made it abundantly cleart that any options suggested must not void my warranty... I got a vague quasi-confirmation that SSD installation was "Customer Serviceable".

The Support Agent then offered to email me the necessary details regarding SSD upgrade/installation. When the email arrived it wasn't much more than a link to HP's parts store.

Today I managed to procure 2 test drives from a local outlet of a major chain. One was M.2 SATA (Samsung MZ-NLF1280), the other was M.2 NVMe (ADATA XFG SX7000NP).

Neither BIOS nor Windows would recognise the presence of the SATA drive. It would simply not show up anywhere, like it wasn't even there. I could boot the machine into Windows perfectly fine, but nothing indicated that any other drive connected. I tried with the HDD's SATA cable disconnected and got an error message that no hard drive was detected.

The NVMe drive, on the other hand, was detected and identified (Brand & model) by the BIOS. However, the machine would not boot into Windows. It would hang at the HP Logo Screen (black screen, white HP logo). The white dots happily chase each other around in a circle, but nothing else happens. I left it for a few minutes, but nothing changed. Out of curiosity, I used ESC + F9 at power-on, and told the machine to try booting from the SSD (it's a technician's test unit, so it has Windows 10). This time I got a black screen with a Windows logo and the white dots playing ring-a-rosie. It hung there for a few minutes, but did not progress any further. The presence of the SSD did not seem to interfere with the PCIe graphics card at all (it has the PC's only HDMI output, and would still output to the display with the NVMe module in the slot).

I used ESC+F2 run diagnostic, and the Hard Drive test returned a FAIL, and gave me a 24-digit code the I swear I Googled on my phone, but is not showing in my search history. I would have to put the SSD back into the machine again to rerun the test, unless there is a log I can access to retrieve the code.

I updated the BIOS from F.14 to F.30 using the HP Support instructions. However, I had already tested the M.2 SATA unit and returned it to the technician prior to updating. A few sources suggest that BIOS F.14 should have been sufficient to use the drive. The NVMe drive was tested with both F.14 and F.30 firmware with identical results.

For now I have removed the SSD and the machine works as it did before. Are there any compatibility issues I'm not seeing here? I have a 2.5" Kingston SATA SSD I could use, but the lack of SATA sockets would mean giving up the HDD or DVD-RW, which I would rather keep.

Cheers,

Sean

Specs: Pavilion 570-p078a, Quad-Core i7-7700 @3.6, 16GB DDR4-2400 RAM, Nvidia GT730 4GB PCIe, 2TB SATA HDD, SATA DVD-RW. (All out-of-the-box specs)

[GerbilFX]

UPDATE: I found the diagnostic logs, and have the failure ID.

GLHX91-99K99S-XD4CRF-60N903