Upgrading SSD on HP Pavilion 15-bc090na

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Trying to upgrade my 2016 HP Pavilion 15-bc090na 's boot SSD, which is a Samsung 128 GB mznty128hdhp-000h1 with a Crucial 1 TB NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD.  The laptop is a hybrid setup so it also has the default 1 TB HDD which I'm leaving as-is.

I've cloned my drive over using Macrium Reflect free, but the computer doesn't boot properly.  In BIOS I can see that the new SSD is detected and it passes the short DST, but the long DST gives a warning, any ideas (Q1)?

The HP Manual on their own website is wrong, so I've been looking at this manual at manualslib here .  It lists the highest NVMe-type storage size the computer can handle is 512 GB - is there a practical limit here (Q2)?  I understand about the motherboard having limits on what RAM it can handle but I couldn't see why there'd be one on the storage.

Also, the existing Samsung SSD is B + M Key, but the new Crucial one is M Key.  My port is M Key but I doubt this would cause any issue (Q3)?

At this stage I'm thinking I'll need to scrub and return the Crucial 1 TB for a (hopeful) refund, and buy this 512 GB Samsung one instead , based on the response by Alezis in this thread from 2017.

TIA 🙂

(PS apologies about my username; just call me Ed.  I didn't realise why it wouldn't let me use HP in the username field until after typing this random name!)

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi:

Here is what I recommend before returning the drive.

As far as the capacity...that is just what HP offered in the model series.  I agree with you that there should be no limitation on the drive at least up to 2 TB.

Here is the issue with installing a SSD along with a HDD with an existing OS on it....the PC will always want to boot from the hard drive until you remove the operating system from it.

So, what I recommend is this...first make sure W10 will install and run fine on the SSD you have now.

Temporarily disconnect the hard drive.  Clean install W10 on the SSD and make sure it boots up and runs normally and passes any drive tests.

Use the Microsoft media creation tool to create the installation media.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

If you find that everything works right, I suppose you can try cloning the drive again, but here is the issue with that, IMHO.

I have very little background with cloning drives, tried it once or twice. Not happy with the results.  I much prefer the long route of clean installs and reinstalling my programs and files.

You are cloning a drive with a SATA boot structure/drive controllers, etc onto a NVMe drive which uses totally different NVMe drive controller drivers and whatnot, so that may also be another issue as to why the cloned NVMe drive won't boot.

If the NVMe drive works properly with the clean W10 install/cloning, connect your hard drive up again, save any files you don't want to lose, and you can boot from the W10 installation media you made, and when you get to the part that asks, where do you want to install Windows, you can delete every partition on the hard drive, leaving just one partition of unallocated space, format the drive and exit out of the installation.

Now the PC should boot from the NVMe drive, and your notebook's hard drive will be completely free for storage.

If it were me, I'd be removing the hard drive completely and just using the NVMe drive.

[asvjgfrbauivbgt]

Hi,

I don't think I was clear - this is my current setup:

1: Samsung SATA SSD with Windows on it

2: HDD used only for storage; no bootable media on here as far as I know

I connected 3: Crucial SSD NVMe via USB to perform disk clone.  Then I turned off the laptop, swapped 1 for 3 and then rebooted.  I will look to install a clean version of W10 first 🙂

I think you're suggesting it might be worth disconnecting 2 as well, before booting with the new drive, to force the HP to boot from 3 ?

Many thanks,

Ed

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Gotcha.

The spinner drive is already blank, and you upgraded the SATA M.2 SSD to a NVMe M.2 SSD, correct?

If so, you still have the same cloning issues...SATA drive controllers cloned to a NVMe drive that uses NVMe drive controllers.  Oil and water.

Try the clean install of W10 on the NVMe drive.

You shouldn't need to disconnect the 2.5" drive since it has no OS on it.

[asvjgfrbauivbgt]

Spinner has data on it, but yeah no OS.  Have installed W10 on the new NVMe via the W10 installation media tool, will give it a go and see what happens!

Thanks,

[asvjgfrbauivbgt]

🎉You're amazing Paul!  🎉 Clean install has worked wonders!  😄  I needed to install Windows on a 4th drive - external HDD - as Windows setup didn't like it for some reason - probably my own error - but it's all hunky dory now.

Next step is migrating the two user profiles across.  Is there a tool somewhere or can I drag and drop on this one? 

Many thanks,

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

That is great news!

What I do is open the old user profile, and the new one; and copy all of the file folders from the old profile to the new one, and it overwrites the empty file folders in the new profile with the full file folders of the old one.

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I made a second admin profile but for some reason the manual profile copy hasn't worked.   So I'm going to pop the old SSD back in and use the Microsoft account backup tool to make a copy that way.

[asvjgfrbauivbgt]

I reattached the old SSD to install ForensiT's Transwiz, which seems to have done the trick.  Then simply reinstalled it on the new NVME and the two users have transferred okay 👍🏻

https://www.forensit.com/move-computer.html

[Paul_Tikkanen]

That is great news.

Glad your notebook is back up and running the way you wanted.