Upgrade/Add SSD to 15-da0008ca

[melmes11]

Hi there, just trying to go about upgrading my 15-da0008ca that came with a (rather slow) 1TB HDD but has slots for NVME m2 addition and says in the manual that it supports 256gb or 512gb additions. I have a Samsung Evo 970 that I was hoping to use with it and installed it last night but its not being recognized anywhere in Bios or Windows. Any ideas?

[Huffer]

Yes according to the Manual the M.2 slot to the right of the battery is compatible with an NVME M.2 or even an Intel Optane module. Being an 8th gen Intel Core processor system the Evo 970 should work. Let's go over what you have done and you may just need to reseat the M.2 disk. What capacity is it? Should not make a difference but curious. 

[melmes11]

Thanks. It’s the 256GB size. I was pretty sure it was installed/seated properly but I might try it again if I can’t get anywhere. It isn’t showing up under devices, drive management or in BIOS. I tried installing the Samsung drivers but it said that no drive was found. I read that some BIOS have it disabled by default but couldn’t find that in my BIOS.  

[Huffer]

There are some models where we supect HP had disabled the M.2 slot in the BIOS or somehow but yours is not one subject to that suspicion. Make sure to seat it firmly into the slot and there is no way to misunderstand which way it goes in. 

[melmes11]

Ok thanks. What was the fix for that issue? 

I am 99% sure it’s seated properly but will try it again later just in case.

[Huffer]

No known fix...it just don't work. There is a small chance a different M.2 would work but that gets to be an expensive game of M.2 roulette. 

[melmes11]

Ok I’ll keep trying stuff - I noticed there is a System Diagnostics option in bios and upon looking at “hard drive information” there it shows both hard drives (HDD and SSD). So that’s promising I suppose. I ran the quick test on the ssd and it passed Smart check/dst check. But still not showing in Windows.

I’ve read that you sometimes have to to unplug the HDD? Do you think I should try that?

[melmes11 · Accepted solution]

Ok so I was scanning through device manager and noticed an unknown item, pci. I made it look for drivers and it found some and then now the Samsung ssd now shows up in windows 🙂

hopefully i I can figure it out from here! Thanks

[Huffer]

You da man. Can you see it in command line diskpart? I would run diskpart from an elevated command prompt select the M.2 if it is shown and then do a clean all on it and then try to instasll Windows to it as unallocated space and let Windows installer do the mounting and formatting. 

[melmes11]

I was planning on using the cloning/migration tool, never done this before so I’ll see how it goes. Do I have to take the original HDD out to boot from the SSD?

 I felt like it might be easier that way vs. a fresh install, didn’t feel up to dealing with windows install and setting everything back up.