BIOS or OS will not recognise M2 drive

[jumbojake19]

this laptop has a slot for M2 drive, something recommended as an upgrade option.  I installed a Samsung 970 EVO Plus drive, which fitted as expected, but when I power up, it is not visible to Windows.

Checking the BIOS, there seems to be extremely  limited options.... is there an advanced section, where I can enable/disable hardware options and make use of this M2 slot?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

Below is the link to the service manual for your notebook.

Maintenance and Service Guide HP Pavilion Notebook PC

According to chapter 1, as far as I can tell your notebook's M.2 slot only supports SATA SSD's not NVMe.

Hard drive Supports all 7.0 mm/7.2 mm/9.5 mm, SATA, 2.5-inch hard drives
Supports M.2 SATA storage

Chapter 3 shows the list of parts and unfortunately, it only shows a SATA M.2 drive being supported in the 15-bc300 model series.

A supported M.2 drive should be plug and play.

Since the drive is not showing up anywhere, my assumption is you can only install a SATA M.2 drive in your notebook.

[savvy2]

you posted to desktops,   ouch.😂

you removed the boot drive?

so you never said what slots you used,m.2😋

got 2, and one is empty , and  the spec shows at HP.com that the 2nd slot is WLAN only.

that?

the PC would have 1 boot drive m,2 slot

then one 1TB hDD in the sata port.

the other m.2  slot is marked here, on page 1 as WIFI m.2.  AC

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c06325755

that page shows there is no SSD m.2 , 2nd slot at all.

[jumbojake19]

Thanks for your reply.

I'm a little confused, maybe confused with terminology.  The document you shared is very useful, but not crystal clear to me.  Looking at the crucial website, they recommend NVMe M2 storage for this laptop, and the socket type looks the same to me. 

Please can you clarify what type of SSD you think I need to purchase... or is  safer to go for a 2.5" SSD drive instead ?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

The crucial report is usually right about things, but in the case of this model series, when you look at the manual you can see that it covers several 15-bcXXX notebooks, and yours (15-bc3xx) is the only one that doesn't support NVMe drives.

If you would like to install a M,2 SATA SSD, If you bought the drive from Crucial, exchange it for their MX500 M.2 drive.

This is the 500 GB model.

Crucial MX500 500 GB CT500MX500SSD4-Up to 560 MB/s (3D NAND, SATA, M.2 Type 2280SS, Internal SSD): A...

If you can exchange the NVMe drive for any brand (you bought the drive on Amazon), then this one provides the best performance for the price, IMHO.

Western Digital WDS500G2B0B WD Blue 3D NAND Internal SSD M.2 SATA, 500 GB - Black: Amazon.co.uk: Com...