Installing an SSD in an HP 15-da0053wm laptop

[mjw72652]

Flush with success at finally solving all of my Windows 10 problems on 2 HP laptops by successfully doing 2 in-place upgrades to 20H2 and finally being able to install all updates on both after innumerable hours of frustration with both, I created restore media and did restore points on both. The 15-bs234wm is running with 8 GB of memory (the max it can hold) and the 15-da0053wm (which is still under warranty) with 16 GB, it's max. Both are current as of today with Win10 home 64 bit 20H2 and all the latest updates.

I decided this was the proper time to upgrade them both to SSD. The 15-bs234wm went off without a hitch, with a huge speed increase. This was with a 1 TB WD blue SATA SSD,. The 15-da0053wm is another story.

Based on prior posts in the forum, I obtained a Sabrent Rocket 1TB PCIe/NVMe to install in the Optane memory slot. I cloned the existing SATA 1 TB drive with Minitool Partition Wizard, which I had successfully used to clone the 15-bs drive (it is licensed installed on both machines). The cloning went fine.

I then opened the Intel RST app to disable the Optane. It ended up throwing me into a reboot. When I tried to run it again, it refused to disable, giving me an error message. I rebooted, went into the BIOS, and successfully disabled it there. The restart went very very slowly. I shut down, opened the machine, pulled the SATA drive, then the Optane. I noticed that the Optane pin configuration was different from the Sabrent- it matched a 1 TB WD Blue M.2 SSD that I was using as a portable drive. I put the Sabrent in anyway to try it, and the machine refused to boot, telling me there was no boot device available. I pulled the Sabrent and put the original drive back in without the Optane module.

When I rebooted, first windows ran a disk repair, then went into a blue screen. I went into advanced troubleshooting, told it to run Windows anyway, and it went back to the blue screen, asking me if I wanted to repair. I said yes, it ran the repair, then booted up OK.

I am now in the process of copying off all the files on the portable WD Blue, and intend to clone the SATA drive to it, then install it in the machine and pull the SATA drive again.

Questions- Is the Sabrent compatible with this laptop? If not, I will use it as my portable (I have compatible portable enclosures for everything- the Sabrent, the WD, and the SATA) and install the WD instead.

Is there anything I need to do in the BIOS after I install the WD? It's tough to do if I can't boot, since I don't know how to get to the BIOS if I can't boot.

The silver lining, if there is one to be found, is that I can't lose any data, as all my documents, photos, and media files are on an external Seagate drive and aren't affected by any of this. All of my software install files and licenses are also on the external drive, so I can reinstall if necessary, Both laptops are networked through an ethernet router and switch, so I can get to everything on the 15da with the 15bs (all my drives are mapped to the 15bs.

I would greatly appreciate any help anyone can give me. HO support is so difficult to get to, and their advice has repeatedly failed me in the past.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

Sorry that you are having issues with the NVMe drive.

According to chapter 1 of the service manual, NVMe drives are supported and I do note that the Intel Optane memory looks like it has a SATA pin/notch configuration, yet the slot must support NVMe in order for the Optane memory to work.

Your NVMe drive (and any other one I have ever seen), has one notch.

It should have been plug and play after you disabled the Intel Optane memory in the BIOS, so unfortunately I don't know what the problem could be.