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04-06-2023 12:43 PM
I have an HP 17t-by300 laptop that originally came with a 1TB HDD with Optane acceleration. I have recently experienced a slow down in system performance and decided to replace the Optane m.2 board with an NVMe SSD. My original plan was to clone from the original HDD to the NVMe drive, then boot from the NVMe drive and reformat the HDD for additional storage. I was able to disable the Optane acceleration and replace the m.2 board with an NVMe SSD drive. Windows found the SSD drive and I was able to clone the HDD to the new SSD drive. So far, so good.
Now the problem. The BIOS does not seem to have the ability to recognize the SSD drive as a boot source so I am still booting from the HDD. Is there something I am missing in the BIOS to allow me to specify the SSD as a boot source? If not, can someone describe the process to allow booting from the HDD, but running Windows 11 from the SSD?
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Accepted Solutions
04-06-2023 12:56 PM - edited 04-06-2023 01:03 PM
Try temporarily removing the original 1TB drive to see if it will boot from it.
You may or may not have to enter the BIOS to see if you can select it as the boot drive.
Once you have done that and if it was a success, you will need to remove the boot flag from the original 1TB hard drive to make it a storage drive only.
You are unlikely to be able to do that on the laptop. If you have a USB external enclosure or adapter you can do it with the use of the BCD Edit command and the appropriate flags added. That will involve use of the command line.
I am a volunteer forum member. If my suggestion helped you solve your issue, help others by marking that post as the accepted solution. Say thanks by clicking on the Yes button next to the "was this reply helpful?"
04-06-2023 12:56 PM - edited 04-06-2023 01:03 PM
Try temporarily removing the original 1TB drive to see if it will boot from it.
You may or may not have to enter the BIOS to see if you can select it as the boot drive.
Once you have done that and if it was a success, you will need to remove the boot flag from the original 1TB hard drive to make it a storage drive only.
You are unlikely to be able to do that on the laptop. If you have a USB external enclosure or adapter you can do it with the use of the BCD Edit command and the appropriate flags added. That will involve use of the command line.
I am a volunteer forum member. If my suggestion helped you solve your issue, help others by marking that post as the accepted solution. Say thanks by clicking on the Yes button next to the "was this reply helpful?"
04-09-2023 06:17 AM
Thanks. After posting this, I did some more research and found several suggestions to remove the original HDD. I opened the laptop again and disconnected the HDD, but before putting things back together, I booted and, lo and behold, it booted successfully from the SSD. I then shut it down and reconnected the HDD and tried to boot again. Again, success. The C: drive was on the SSD. Before booting again, I re-partitioned the HDD and made one huge Data partition. I then shut it down and buttoned it up. I now have what I wanted in the first place. The SSD made a HUGE difference in performance.
I have been in and out of PCs since the mid 80s. Back then, the BIOS showed you ALL of the physical drives and let you choose the order to boot from. I am not a fan of “simplifying” software, especially down near the hardware. It hides too much information for the guy who knows “a little” but does not work “in the depths” every day.
04-09-2023 01:12 PM
You're very welcome.
I am a volunteer forum member. If my suggestion helped you solve your issue, help others by marking that post as the accepted solution. Say thanks by clicking on the Yes button next to the "was this reply helpful?"