Problem Upgrading To SSD

[Cyron2010]

So I recently got an HP Probook 4540s from a relative as a gift. It came naturally installed with an Intel i3-3110M and a hellish slow HDD which was crashing a lot. I decided to plug in an SSD to hopefully get some faster speeds, Connecting the SSD via the SATA port gave me an error of boot device not found. Expecting this I plugged in a Tiny 11 boot drive to get an OS into the SSD, reaching the partition menu of the Windows menu showed me that the drive was not recognized. It was only "Drive 0-0.0 GB" so I couldn't install Windows on the drive for some reason. People on this forum have swapped their HP Probook 4540s with an SSD successfully but I could not get mine to work

I acquired a better CPU from recycling centers, the Intel i5-2410M, which is barely 5% better than the i3-3110M, but I wanted to try it, so I swapped it in. I tried the SSD on a whim, and it worked somehow with Tiny 11 installed on it running smoothly. I also got a Bluetooth network card and went to swap it after I swapped the CPU and as a precautionary measure unplugged the SSD for any data loss. I swapped the card and plugged the SSD back in and behold I was getting the same "boot device not found" error. I figured it must've crashed so I plugged the Boot flash drive in again to reinstall Tiny 11 and it again showed me "Drive 0-0.0 GB" Weirdly it somehow read the old drive which was not plugged in with its storage and its data but was not interactable. I checked SSD for bad sectors in another PC and it was clean but why would the laptop forget about it again?

Another weird fact is that with the original HDD and original CPU pressing ESC on boot got you to the boot menu within 5 secs, If the SSD was plugged in with the original CPU it took like 20-30 secs for it to respond to the ESC key being pressed and to bring me to the boot menu still flashing the caps lock key 5 times.

WIth the swapped CPU and SSD it did get me into the boot menu within 5 sec but after its crash or something it got back to the abnormal 20-30 sec times to get into the boot menu.

Right now I am running the original HDD with the swapped CPU with TIny 11 on it and its too slow for me to actually roam around in windows even. i cant figure out anything except a random idea that my bios might be infected,

[erico]

The devil is in the details.

Since the HP Probook 4540s is from HP's market year 2012, it is likely to have support only for SATA SSD products.

You have not provided the brand and model number of the SSD.

In the forum we do prefer not to guess and your providing details would make that unnecessary.

[Cyron2010]

Specifications of Fc700 512GB Drive with Firmware W0413A0

this is the SSD and I did not intend to blabber but its my first time here.

[erico]

Have you tried to install an operating system to the SSD?

If so, which operating system?

[Cyron2010]

within the period it did work in this laptop I was dual booting tiny 11 (stripped down windows 11) and ubuntu at the same time, where this SSD previously was it was a WIndows 10 only system.

[erico]

That is not an answer to my question.

If you do not answer my questions, I can't help you.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi, @Cyron2010 

I never heard of that model SSD before.

On some of those older notebooks, only certain model 2.5" SATA SSDs will work.

One of the most compatible drives would be something like a Western Digital Blue SA510.

I once had an older HP 6930p that exhibited a similar issue as yours where I would install Windows and everything worked fine but when I turned on the notebook a couple of hours later, I got the 'Boot device not found' error.

I was using an Intel 530 SSD which was a compatible drive.

How I fixed the problem was to install the SATA AHCI drivers during the Windows installation process, even though Windows didn't need them to install initially.

I have zipped up and attached the Intel storage controller 64-bit drivers for your notebook below.

Copy the driver folder to a USB flash drive.

It doesn't matter whether you install W10 or W11.

When you are at the screen where you are asked, 'Where do you want to install Windows,' select the 'Load driver' option, and browse to the USB flash drive with the Intel storage controller drivers on it.

Open the folder and if you check the box, it will only include the compatible driver.

Click Next, and hopefully Windows will install and stay working.

One important question...did you install 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) of memory in your notebook?

If you did that causes the notebook to slow down big-time unless you do a minor hack which is described at the discussion below:

Solved: Performance degrades in Probook 4540s after memory upgrade - HP Support Community - 2268503

[Cyron2010]

it makes sense that you have never heard of it since its a random one I got off a trashed pc in a 3rd world country but I am running a 4 GB stick with a 8GB stick, I currently cannot try your method out bc I got an exam in the morning and I will try to make time to swiftly to as per your instructions and reply to you.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

OK, with 12 GB the PC should run normally.

It's only with 16 GB that the slow performance occurs.

[Cyron2010]

Hey i tried it but i get this error now

 this was just after i plugged the SSD in and didn"t apply the drivers, It was non interactable so i restarted it.

 now this is the situation it cant read the SSD now came up as 2048 GB drive for a bit

 it gave me a "driver not installed error" for the first time i loaded it but now applying the driver just gives me no prompt and brings me back to the partition screen