Getting windows to boot from an M.2 SSD

[TotalN00B]

Hello,

     I recently decided to upgrade my HP Omen 17t laptop.  It had 8 gigs of RAM, a 1 tb HDD, and 16gigs of intel optane.  I was successful in removing the optane and installed a samsung evo 970 M.2 SSD.  I got windows to recognize the SSD and Cloned the HDD.  My hope was to get the laptop to boot from the ssd, but when I go into the BIOS i dont even see the SSD.  AM I going about this all wrong?  Is it even possible to do this? 

[old_geekster]

@TotalN00B , welcome to the forum.

Did you use Samsung's Migration software, installed on the hard drive, to clone the hard drive?  If so, did it ask for the Target drive and list the EVO 970?

[TotalN00B]

@old_geekster

Thank you and yes I used Samsung migration software everything works perfectly on it, I just wanted the laptop to boot from the SSD.

[old_geekster]

You are welcome, @TotalN00B!

If you were able to clone the HDD to the SSD it should show in the BIOS.  Did you check in the Boot Order section of the BIOS?  You would have to set the SSD as the first boot.

[TotalN00B]

Windows recognizes it but it still doesn't show in the bios.  When I got into the boot section this is the list that I get. There is no selection for anything else, I can only change the order.

[old_geekster]

Thank you for the additional information, @TotalN00B!

Does the SSD appear in Disk Management (Right click Start and select Disk Management)?  You might try disconnecting the hard drive (HDD) to see if this helps.

[TotalN00B]

Yes it does. It is Disk 0 and it is drive E and F

[old_geekster]

Thank you for the additional information, @TotalN00B!

I suggest that you right click on the E: drive and select "Mark Partition as Active".  Once this is done, you can try to clone the HDD to the SSD again to see what happens.  It isn't going to cause any problems because the system won't boot from the SSD at this point.