Replace laptop HDD with SSD or (boot from M2 SATA if possible)

[Trail_Blazer]

I have HP Envy 15 k001tx laptop and I have 2 questions. To improve its performance I want to upgrade it and add M2 SATA or SSD. So questions are following:

1. Is there any way to boot from M2 SATA (HP says NO)
2. If I replace HDD with SSD, will my laptop work?

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hey Trail_Blazer.

If the guys from the laptop manufacturer's customer support say that it won't I wouldn't risk it. Besides, from what I was able to find about this model, it doesn't seem like it has a slot with M.2 form factor. You can check the User Manual, in order to confirm that and be 100% sure.

As for using a regular SATA SSD, I don't think that there would be a problem with that. You should be able to use a new SATA SSD if you clone your OS or simply make a fresh install.

Hope that helps. Please let me know if you have any questions.
Boogieman_WD

 

[Trail_Blazer]

Hi @boogieman_wd thanks for the reply.

After getting now where with support, I went ahead and bought 8GB ram and 256Gig M.2 drive. Unfortunately it turned out that I had got SSD and not an M.2, didn't bother to look carefully. I asked for Samsung 950Pro and guy said "we don't have 950Pro in stock but have 250 EVO" . I swear I was not drunk.

But as the store was closed by the time I collected my tools and noticed that I have and SSD and not M.2. Still I went ahead with putting in Ram and also having a peek at mobo. So below is what I got:

So will you be able to confirm that this is an "M" key slot and will it take PCIe drive (like 950Pro)?

It is not showing images, but this is the link http://imgur.com/a/WCVlv

 

[Boogieman_WD]

This really does look like an M.2 port "M Key" and the 950 Pro should be able to fit (please have in mind the length of the drive). The M key provides both PCIe and SATA interface so you should be OK with the model you're talking about. However I'm not 100% sure that you'd be able to boot. You might have to configure some BIOS/UEFI settings or flash to a newer version if possible. Please try to get that information from the laptop manufacturer's customer support, to see what you'll find out.

Here's a bit more info on M.2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.2 (you can check out the table "M.2 module keying and provided interfaces") for further reference.

 

[Trail_Blazer]

Well as things stand, I have installed Samsung 850 EVO M.2 250Gb and Samsung 850 Pro 512 Gb drives in my laptop.

Cloning messed up and I was not able to boot from SSD (or from HDD after that for that matter).

I performed fresh install on M.2 SATA drive and it is working as boot drive now. All is working fine. Only pain is that I have to install lots of software to start my development work.

Also, somehow seems I have frucked up HDD in this process

 

[Boogieman_WD]

What has happened with the HDD? Would you please post a screenshot of what you see in Disk Management (you can use imgur.com to upload the image).

Other than that when you're making a fresh install of Windows, you should remember to have all secondary drives disconnected from the motherboard during the installation process, as sometimes some of the system files or the partitions might be written on one of the secondary drives which could lead to further complications down the road.

 

[Trail_Blazer]

Well, don't know what, it spins but is not detected by Windows. But I will try again today. As the joy of booting off M.2 was short-lived. When I cold booted, UEFI tried to get OS from SSD and it failed again.

Here are screenshots.

 

[Boogieman_WD]

You did remember to install the OS while having only the M.2 SSD connected to the mobo during the installation process, right? If this is the case I really don't know what could have gone wrong since it booted properly the first time. You could try updating your BIOS/UEFI as previously recommended and check for updates for the firmware of the M.2 drive.

As for the HDD, is it recognized by the BIOS at least? Try it out with a different computer if possible.

 

[Trail_Blazer]

Well in the end, I am able to have some hope for HDD after connecting it to my old laptop so may be I will need to work on it later.

As for M.2, I think issue was with Microsoft. After installing and running it from M.2, it updated drivers etc. It is still booting from M.2 but due to some issue with display driver, it is going to blank screen. There is still another issue with Windows 10 recovery process which is not allowing me to fix it.

After failing to fix cloned Windows, I had a clean install on SSD and now all is well. After booting, I'm presented with the following:

The second one (on volume 8) is M.2 and first one (on volume 2) is SSD.

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Yeah it might be a good idea to backup your SSD's data and then reformat it (never use full format for an SSD), once you are sure that you can boot to Windows properly by using the M.2 drive alone. This way you won't have to chose which volume you want to boot from each time you turn on your computer and it will save you a lot of space on the SSD.

As for the HDD - really good news. If you have to go with data recovery software, here are some options: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-1644496/lost-data-recovery.html & http://pcsupport.about.com/od/filerecovery/tp/free-file-recovery-programs.htm. Also, if you can't get Win to recognize the partitions properly or data recovery software fails, you could try accessing it via Ubuntu Live USB/DVD, to see if that OS recognizes the partitions and lets you recover the info.