M.2 SSD Slot Not Seeing Drive

[StanPHirsh]

This laptop came with a standard HDD 1TB hard drive.  I am trying to add a SSD to the open M.2 slot and make it the boot drive by loading Windows 10 on it.  I will use the existing HDD as a data drive.  I installed a Crucial P2 MVMe PCIe M.2 TLC SSD, but the system does not recognize it as it doesn't appear in the BIOS, Device Manager or Disk Management utilities.  I saw something on one of the HP forums from a year ago saying that HP had disabled the M.2 port on this model if it didn't originally come with an M.2 ssd already installed.  I saw at least one other posting that contradicted this.  Has anyone out there successfully added a SSD to the open M.2 slot?  If so, maybe I just bought an incompatible SSD that I need to replace.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

Below is the link to the service manual for your notebook.

HP ENVY m7 Notebook PC Maintenance and Service GuideIMPORTANT! This document is intended for HP auth...

According to chapter 1, only SATA M.2 SSD's are supported, not NVMe.

[StanPHirsh]

I bought a second SSD that is a SATA3 M.2 that supports TLC and fully meets the requirements on Chapter 1, page 2.  Specifically, the drive is a TEAMGROUP MS30 256GB SATA3 M.2 Internal SSD TM8PS7256G0C101.  The HP Envy 17-u273cl does not see the drive in the bios or in Windows 10.  I find it hard to believe that HP would purposely disable the M.2 slot and then not tell anyone.

Any ideas?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Unfortunately, I have no idea why the M.2 slot isn't working.

It is not because HP purposely disabled it though.

I don't know of any HP notebook or desktop PC that has a M.2 slot that doesn't work the supported drive.

Something else is wrong.

See if there is any device security setting in the BIOS to enable/disable the M.2 slot.

If not, I would suggest you contact the HP executive team at the link below for further assistance.

Executive Team: CEO email | HP® Official Site

[StanPHirsh]

Thanks for responding and providing me with the link to the HP Executive Team.  I sent them an email describing the problem.  I'll let you know when I get an answer.

[StanPHirsh · Accepted solution]

I got a call back from an HP Escalations Case Manager.  He looked up my laptop's serial number and told me that the original specs didn't show an SSD in the M.2 slot.  I knew that, of course, which is why I was trying to add one now that these drives have become much larger and less expensive.  HP's position is that I didn't order it that way, so shouldn't have assumed that the M.2 slot is active.  I won't bother editorialize about how I feel about this business practice, I'll just tell you that I declined his offer of a sizeable coupon to purchase other HP products.  The case is now officially closed.

[Reverberocket]

Thank you for posting.  Interesting that they tried to bribe you with a coupon.