Replaced HDD with SSD and Now laptop doesnt want to boot correctly

[jimr1354]

I have a small older 12" laptop that has a 1.8 HDD with a ZIF connection. I replaced the HDD with an adapter and a ZIF connector and piggybacked an MSata 120Gb SSD to it. I have a Win 10 disc and put it in the CD/DVD rom drive and did a fresh install like normal. Everything went ok. When done I turned off the laptop like normal. The next day when I booted up, the laptop gave a message of "No bootable Device Found." I pressed F2 and went into the BIOS and it lists "HDD" not SSD. I exited the BIOS and the laptop boots up normally. It does this everytime. When I go into Disk Manager and look at the storage device, it has the SSD listed. How can get this laptop to boot normally?

 

[InvalidError]

I'll hazard a guess that the SSD might simply not be done with its own internal power-on self-tests while the laptop is checking for a boot device. In that case, if you want the laptop to boot normally instead of having to boot twice, you'd need to find a way to delay the boot device check by a few seconds. If the BIOS has an option for waiting for boot devices or a "spin-up delay", you could configure that for something like a 5s and see if that helps.

 

[jimr1354]

I looked in the laptop. The MSata drive plugs into an adapter board which in turn has the ZIF connector and the cable that plugs into the laptop. Could it be that the adapter board is delaying the signal that tells the computer that there IS a bootable drive? There is no other way to connect the SSD. It IS connected the way you would replace the HDD. I also checked the BIOS and didnt see any adjustments that could be made. I thought I could get an SSD that had a ZIF connector on it but I guess not.

 

[InvalidError]

There is no signal for "bootable drive", what happens is that the laptop checks if there is a drive installed before the SSD is ready to accept commands and boot fails because detection timed out. It could also be that the bridge chip doesn't power up the SSD until it receives a spin-up or other command.

If you can't delay the boot device check, then you'll have to put up with either having to double-boot all the time (maybe you can get around that by hitting the 'pause' key during boot and un-pause a few seconds later by pressing any key), go back to using a HDD with ZIF (PATA) interface or paying the significant niche premium for a native ZIF-based SSD.

 

[jimr1354]

Here is the latest. I went into the BIOS and checked the BOOT Sequence. #1 is Diskette Drive, #2 is Internal Drive, #3 is USB storage device, #4 is CD/DVD/CD/WR drive, Card NIC, D/Dock PCI slot NIC, Onboard NIC.
I then exited out of the BIOS and it continued on. The laptop is running Win10. The lock screen always came up with a background picture, and I went in there and turned it off as it was just another thing taking time up for it to get to the main screen. Just out of curiosity, I rebooted the laptop and now it boots up normally!! I tried it a couple of times and it seems ok now. AND in the BIOS under Device Info, The Primary Hard Drive was always saying NONE and now it says 120GB HDD. If its fixed, thats good enough for me! Strange how something like that would affect the booting up.
I want to thank you for your help. I know some things about computers but not everything. Good to find someone online to take the time to help another person having problems.

 

[InvalidError]

Strange how something like that would affect the booting up.

Nothing strange about it, non-trivial modern subsystems have their own non-trivial power-up routines they have to complete before entering normal operation and your SSD (+PATA/SATA bridge) is taking longer to get there than the laptop's BIOS is expecting it to, so you end up having to buy that time somehow to make it work, such as by knocking the HDD down in the boot device sequence.