Boot device not found

[andycjxxl]

I recently bought the HP desktop amd ryzen 3 from best buy. The storage on it was 256 gb and I wanted to upgrade it to 500gb so I bought a ssd that is the same as the one that came inside of the pc. The Crucial - P3 500GB Internal SSD PCIe Gen 3 x4 NVMe. I followed the instructions and plugged in but when I started the pc it said boot device not found. I don’t know what’s the problem maybe it’s something simple. I searched it up online and saw a few solutions but non worked so I don’t know what to do. I plugged the 256 gb ssd back in but I need help understanding why it won’t work.

 

[TheOldMan]

Assuming that when the 256GB SSD was reinstalled it worked, again. (which you did not state)  If that is the case, then the reason the new SSD showed the message of "Boot device not found" is because there is more to the process than just installing the new SSD.  The new SSD needs to have Windows installed and all of the required drivers for the PC in question.

There are various methods to use.  The simplest is to have a complete backup of the system drive on a separate media, IE:external hard drive, if you want everything to be back like it was and use the backup to restore the system OR use the HP Recovery tool, if your PC is supported OR reinstall Windows using the install media from Microsoft.

If your PC is supported by the HP Recovery tool, you can find out by going to the Support site

https://support.hp.com/us-en, insert the model number of the PC in the box titled "product number"

or let HP detect it and then pick the "Software and Drivers" section and look in the listing for the HP Recovery tool for further directions.

[andycjxxl]

Yes when I put back the 256 gb sad it worked. You mentioned that I need to have a complete backup of the system drive on a separate media to do it. How would I do that? With a usb or something else.

[TheOldMan]

Assuming that you wish your system to be the same as before but with the larger drive, that is recommended.  At least make a backup of the most important items  such as photos and important data to an external media..  If you do not get an external USB hard drive, a large capacity USB flash drive can be used but the flash drive will not be of enough capacity to make the complete system backup.

Depending on the desktop model number, you might be able to clone the old drive to the new one.

Of course the other choice is to start fresh and install Windows and software of your choosing on the new drive and it will be like it was when new.