Envy x360 M.2 SSD not recognized

[Jpro21]

Hello, I've installed a Samsung 960 EVO 250GB SSD in my Envy X360 M6 15t-aq200. The manual states on page 6 that an M.2, PCIe, NVMe solid-state drive with TLC is supported, which is exactly what that SSD is.

The following forum post reflects my EXACT situation (same machine, identical SSD) and that user got it working:

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Hardware-and-Upgrade-Questions/What-type-of-SSD-is-compatible...

Why does my BIOS not recognize the SSD? I have just updated the BIOS from HP today. I can't see the drive in Windows Disk Manager, File Explorer, or BIOS boot options. Legacy support is disabled, it is using UEFI.

UPDATE: I can see the drive in Samsung Magician perfectly fine.

Any help solving this one would be appreciated.

John

[Jpro21 · Accepted solution]

So, I figured it out. 

Here’s what I did. Hope it may be helpful for someone else.

1. Installed the Samsung EVO 960 SSD.
2. Turned on computer, booted to see if it appeared in BIOS – nothing, only my old HDD.
3. Checked Windows Disk Management, downloaded Samsung Magician (available on their website), checked File Explorer, the drive shows up nowhere.
4. Reboot.
5. Now Samsung Magician sees the drive, but Windows still doesn’t. So, the hardware is properly connected and it is now at least visible. Challenge now: get BIOS to see it.
6. First thing I did is install Samsung’s driver from their website for the SSD. It was using Windows generic driver. This may be important for what follows.
7. Cloned my existing HDD to the Samsung EVO 960 SSD. I have a 1TB HDD and a 250GB SSD, but since only about 170GB were being used on my HDD at that time, it was not a problem. The Samsung migration software (available on their website) will ask you which files you want to not copy if the “SOURCE” HDD has more data than the “TARGET” SSD.
8. Once done, rebooted, to see if the newly cloned SSD with Windows on it now would appear in BIOS. Nothing. Magician still sees it, so same thing. Just have a cloned drive now.
9. After doing some further research online, it seems that NVMe SSDs do not appear within the BIOS until Windows creates the system partition with the EFI boot sector. To get it to do this, the old drive needs to be disconnected. So, I pulled the old HDD out. For this to work, all SATA drives and USB drives need to be removed or at least disconnected.
10. Boot up and enter BIOS (ESC for my HP ENVY). Brings to a menu, press F10.
11. Disable Legacy Support (also called CSM).
12. Disable Secure Boot (or set to “other OS” instead of “Windows UEFI” if that is the only options you have). The M.2 SSD contains UEFI driver information within the firmware. By disabling the Legacy support, Windows will read and utilize the M.2-specific UEFI driver.
13. Reboot and enter BIOS again. Now the only drive listed under boot options is the Samsung EVO 960.
14. Restore the Secure boot to the original setting – “enabled” or “Windows UEFI”.
15. F10 to save and exit, boot up on the SSD.
16. IMPORTANT: re-installing your old HDD will cause the BIOS to recognize it and boot from it. It won’t even recognize the Samsung EVO 960 anymore. Crazy. Perhaps I had to delete my secure boot keys (which I didn’t dare do). I suspect that might have saved me this next step, but this is what I did):
17. I put my HDD into another PC with two HDD spots (Dell XPS L702X), and formatted it.
18. Reinstalled into the HP. BIOS STILL recognized it, but now at least my Samsung EVO 960 was also showing in boot order, so I simply put it first and, voila!

Notes:

1. If you can’t clone the SSD from an existing HDD, or you don’t have Windows yet, then install the SSD, remove the HDD, reboot, set the BIOS boot order to USB first, plug in a USB memory stick with a UEFI bootable iso of windows 10 on it, (DVD won’t work unless you’ve created your own UEFI bootable DVD), reboot, and Windows will start installing on your NVMe SSD as it has its own NVMe driver built in. Then re-boot and it will list your SSD in BIOS.
2. IF this still doesn’t work, I would try clearing the secure boot keys also and try again. They should be able to re-install afterwards, as a button should become available in BIOS that will allow you to re-install them.

Please leave a comment if you have any insight on the secure boot keys thing or anything else I might benefit from knowing. Thanks!