HP dv6t-6c00 CTO Upgrade ssd

[Comsult]

The one in the photo of the computer is the original. The slot in the SSD only matches up when the SSD label is inside and not showing. The green SSD is the original (see below) compared to the new Samsung SSD.

[Huffer]

I figured that. The SATA M.2 is a B + M key (3 prongs) and the NVME is an "M" key (2 prongs). Is the 970 Evo seen by the BIOS at all? 

[Comsult]

Also, when I install the new 500 GB SSD, the BIOS seems to recognize it (I can see it in the boot order), but despite trying three times using a variety of cloning software, I am not able to get the laptop to boot once it is installed in my laptop. 

[Huffer]

How are you doing the clone? From what device to what device? NVME M.2 disks are very hard to clone as there are no simple USB adapters that will support them. Also your laptop is an Intel 6th gen machine and the 970 Evo is often reported to have compatibility issues with these 6th gen laptop but not so much with 7th and 8th gen models. 

Have you tried removing the hard drive and see if you can clean install Windows 10 to the M.2 disk using a Windows Media Creation Tool disk? If the BIOS is seeing the Samsung 970 Evo there is hope to get this working. 

[Comsult]

The new SSD is listed in the boot order screen of the BIOS setup.  When I look at the SSD slot in the laptop, there are pins across that match the M key - but I see as you point out the original SSD has a second slot that would not make contact with the corresponding pins on the slot. I wonder if that’s the problem?

[Huffer]

No the slot is designed to accept either a B + M keyed M.2 OR an "M" key only so it is not the keying of the disks. Again, if the 970 Evo is seen in the BIOS we have hope to get this working. As I said, remove the hard drive and see if the 970 Evo is seen by a Windows installation disk as a possible install target. If it is then something is amiss with your cloning technique. 

[Comsult]

I haven’t tried removing the HD to see if I could get a clean install on the new SSD. I have a recovery USB that might work for that. I have a USB enclosure that works with the new SSD - I can transfer and read the SSD when I have it plugged in, and that is how I did the cloning using Macrium, Aomei and was going to try Acronis.

[Comsult]

Good suggestion, I will try that and let you know the result. Thanks again for your insights. Carey

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@Huffer wrote:

No the slot is designed to accept either a B + M keyed M.2 OR an "M" key only so it is not the keying of the disks. Again, if the 970 Evo is seen in the BIOS we have hope to get this working. As I said, remove the hard drive and see if the 970 Evo is seen by a Windows installation disk as a possible install target. If it is then something is amiss with your cloning technique. 

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[Huffer]

Macrium works well for me. Even the free version. Remove the hard drive and put the SATA M.2 in the laptop. I assume you have Macrium installed on it. Use Macrium to make a bootable usb disk. You may need to check the UEFI version of the bootable disk. I had to roll back to 5.0 using the "Change PE version" key in the dialogue that pops up when you ask it to make a bootable startup medium. Otherwise the screen resolution of the Macrium app running off the usb disk will be unworkable.

In addition to the bootable usb plug in a formatted usb external hard drive. Instead of cloning the 128 gig disk to the external hard drive, make a backup archive and store it on the external disk. When it is done open the laptop and replace the 128 gig with your new 500 gig NVME. Now boot again from the Macrium USB disk and this time restore the contents of the backup archive to the NVME SSD. When that is done they system should boot to the NVME M.2. We can then adjust the size of the partitions so you use the whole 500 gig disk. 

[Comsult]

I removed the hard drive, inserted the new SDD and used my recovery USB from July 2018 to see if it would recognize and boot up using the new SSD. It did.  Now I’m debating on whether to just re-install my software and copy over any additional information I need from my old SSD or try to re-clone the drive to get all my settings and programs up.  I always have the original SSD to re-instal if I need something I don’t have on the new one.  Having it working now, I am a bit reluctant to backtrack.  I’m not sure if Macrium would allow me to just copy over the Windows drive, without messing up my boot partition. Any thoughts?