HP ENVY 17-j017sg mSATA & 2xHDD

[RaymanForever]

Did you follow the 25 steps I mentioned?

Specially: did you tried to disconnect the hdd and power on the system? If the image was done right you should be able to boot from the ssd without the hdd connected.

[NashvilleSlim]

Rayman, if your response was to my post, no -- I didn't try the 25 steps.

My problem is that I can't get past step 1. My mSATA SSD isn't being recognized by the system.

When the mSATA SDD is in: "no bootable device;" when it's out I boot just fine from the HDD.

[donrosco]

I made some progress with this last night.

I imaged my 1TB HDD which contained a Windows 10 install and copied it over to my 250GB mSATA SSD. I managed to get this booting after some messing around. Initially, it showed up as "INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE". The fix was pretty simple, just boot in to Safe Mode through the Windows Boot Manager, and then it booted fine with the next reboot. 

So after that I put back in the old HDD to move on to the next step in RaymanForever's instructions. 

The two disks showed up in the boot options, but when I booted in to windows on the SSD, there was no sign of the HDD whatsoever. Nothing in Disk Manager, nothing in Device Manager, and nothing in Diskpart.

I'm a bit mystified now. Any suggestions on what I can do to get my old HDD to show up? As I said, it's definitely there in the BIOS, so the computer is seeing it. 

Going to try a different, blank HDD tonight to see if it shows up. 

[donrosco]

NashvilleSlim, do your two drives show up in the boot options? Select (I think) "boot from EFI file" from the boot options. Do you see two drives there?

[NashvilleSlim]

No, the two drives don't show up in boot options. My machine is from 2012 and uses BIOS, not UEFI.

The mSATA does not show up under boot options as even selectable.

In BIOS my boot options, in order, are:

USB Diskette on Key/USB Disk

Internal CD/DVD ROM Drive

Notebook Hard Drive

USB CD/DVD ROM Drive

! USB Floppy

! Network Adapter

The ! indicates that that option is currently disabled. There's no way to add to the boot device options, only enable or disable the ones available.

At this point, I'm trying to get the machine to boot from the mSATA drive. I just want it to be recognized.

If, as others have pointed out, HP included the mSATA slot on this model only to be used as a cache accelerator and not as a bootable drive or storage device, then I'm still puzzled as to why the machine won't boot at all when there's a drive in the slot.

Could it be that the mSATA had to be installed at the same time as the original OS?

[RaymanForever]

Nashville, you should be able to boot manually from the msata if you select boot options once you hit esc repeatedly when powering on. Once there if everything is ok you should see 2 disks

[RaymanForever]

Nashville, you should be able to boot manually from the msata IF you select boot options once you hit esc repeatedly when powering on. Once there if everything is ok you should see 2 disks. Select the one you think it's your ssd and then follow the path explained earlier to boot from it.

[RaymanForever]

Also try to power on without the hdd connected. Physically disconnected. If your operative system was imaged right the bios will boot automatically from the ssd. The problem comes when you want to use both hdd and ssd together. But if you can boot from the ssd while alone on the motherboard you are very close to success.

[NashvilleSlim]

Thanks for the tips. Just to be clear, I'm not necessary insistent that the SSD become my boot drive.

I'd be happy for the system just to recognize it, just like another storgae device.

So if I understand correctly, if I install the mSATA SSD and then enter the BIOS before the system looks for an OS, the mSATA should be recognized by the BIOS? If I can get that far, then I should be able to put the HDD above the SSD in the boot order and had Windows see both.

[RaymanForever]

No, you don't need to enter to the bios configuration. You don't need to press f10, you need to hit esc instead. Then there are many options like hardware diagnostic, bios setup, recovery and boot options. Those boot options are the one we are talking about.
This topic is about bootIng from the msata. However I can tell you the Disk should be accesible automatically as another hard drive, D, and recognized by the operative system. This is the case for a healthy ssd. I had a damaged one that behaved as you describe and Samsung replaced it.