Is SSD compatible with my Aspire S13 S5-371-35AY laptop?

Good morning,

I recently bought the following SSD (https://www.digitec.ch/fr/s1/product/samsung-970-evo-plus-500go-m2-2280-ssd-10339165) to upgrade my Aspire S13 S5-371-35AY laptop. However, after having copied all the content from my HDD to my SSD, activated the SSD and read several tutorials to make sure the SSD was properly configured, my laptop still won't boot on the SSD.

Before I spend more hours trying to solve the issue, is this SSD even compatible with my computer? I have a doubt given that the SSD slot in my computer seems to be designed to receive a SSD with two little 'holes', while the Samsung SSD I bought only has one. This being said, it still fits well.

Many thanks for your help!

//Edited the content to add model name.

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ttttt

@Favoe
My understanding is that you have spinning HDD originally with your laptop and you have an unused mSATA M.2 slot. Recently you put a Samsung 970 EVO Plus M.2 NVMe SSD to that slot and cloned the HDD to that SSD, is that right?
Can you tell us how did you "Copied" content from HDD to SSD? Using a cloning software?

Your PC probably came out around 2017, before M.2 NVMe SSD became popular. Your laptop has that kind of mSATA SSD M.2 slot ( that is why having two holes, and should be very short).

I wonder how you fitted the Samsung SSD of 80mm length to that slot?

Anyway, that Samsung 970 EVO Plus should not work with the mSATA M.2 slot. You will be lucky if the Samsung drive will work there at SATA speed.

billsey

The Aspire S5-371 supports an M.2 2280 NVMe x4 drive so that one should work. My guess is you didn't fully clone the original drive, which would duplicate all partitions while only resizing the C: drive. All the specs I see on your model shows it only coming with an M.2 drive, no 2.5". I'm guessing your SKU had the 128GB version? With the new drive installed, boot on a Windows install flash drive and use the Repair option to get to a command prompt. From there use diskpart to view the drives and partitions. Could you take a picture of that info and show it to us? We can usually see what's wrong with the boot process from that.

Favoe

@billsey
Thanks a lot for your answer and sorry for getting back to you so late. I will create a Windows 10 bootable USB and get back to you. However, I thought that I didn't need to create such a USB since I cloned Windows on the new SSD - am I wrong?

Favoe

@ttttt
No, I don't have an unused SSD slot. I first cloned the HDD on the SSD using AOMEI, then removed the HDD from the PC and put the SSD in the HDD slot. It fits very well there as it has the exact same dimensions as the HDD, except having one hole instead of two like the HDD.
Yes, I bought the PC in 2017.
Do you still think that the NVMe SSD I bought is not compatible? What about this one, also from Samsung but SATA version (https://www.digitec.ch/fr/s1/product/samsung-860-evo-500go-m2-2280-ssd-7197989?supplier=406802)? In addition to extra storage space, would it also be a bit faster than my current HDD, although not NVMe?
Many thanks!

ttttt

@Favoe

I am somewhat confused, and want to clarify something with you first.

Assuming that your Aspire S13 S5-371-35AY laptop has one 2.5" HDD or 2.5" SATA SSD slot and one M.2 slot for either mSATA or NVMe SSD that you have not used prior to adding the 500 GB Samsung 970 EVO PLUS M.2 gen 3 NVMe SSD.
I have a 500GB Samsung 970 EVO PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 NVMe SSD too (just not the "Plus" version).

1) How "my laptop still won't boot on the SSD" ? Do you see a black screen and seeing an underscore mark at the upper left corner ? Have you heard any abnormal beep sound?

2) How did you "activated" the SSD"?

3) What are the "SSD with two little holes" that you mentioned? My Samsung 970 has no holes on it. Can you send a picture of it about the "holes"? I understand some mSATA drives have two holes on the far side ( not the connector side) corners .

4) Are you telling me that you clone the 2.5" spinning HDD to another 2.5" SATA3 SSD using AOMEI? So, you are not cloning to the gen 3 Samsung NVMe SSD, otherwise, it will not be a perfect fit to the original HDD space.

5) What is that "except having one hole instead of two like the HDD"? Do you mean a "Slit" instead of a "Hole"? Please note that there are the differences between "M" key ( just one slit, with only 5 connector pins at the narrower side) and the 'B+M" key ( having two slits). If you can send a close-up picture of the M.2 connector, then we can tell easily.

Maybe because the variants for different countries, some S13 S5-371 have i7 CPU. I believe your S13 S5-371-35AY has i3-7100 CPU, is that right?

Yes, I have seen people reported successfully installed the 500GB Samsung 860 EVO M.2 SATA SSD to your model laptop (this has the "B+M" key).

Favoe

@ttttt

I just realised I was probably using the term 'HDD' wrong the whole time. What I actually want to do is upgrading from the original 128GB SSD to a 500GB SSD. I therefore removed the original SSD (grey rectangle in the middle, see picture) and added the cloned SSD. Does that make more sense?

1) I see a black screen saying 'No Bootable Device" (see picture).

2) I followed the process in AOMEI, including resizing the main partition in order to be able to use the full storage amount on the SSD.

3) Sorry, 'slit' is probably a more appropriate term. The original SSD has two on the connector side while the new 500 GB SSD only has one (see picture).

I guess your questions 4 and 5 are answered if you replace HDD with SSD in all my previous messages. Sorry for the confusion.

I am not at home now to check the processor, but I believe it is an i7.

So, should I turn to a M.2 SATA SSD or should the NVMe be compatible?

Many thanks for your patience and sorry for my computer illiteracy.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/8e/d3u2tvb9umwl.jpg

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/up/89ixslc4zmjh.jpg

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/56/1ld07v5gh5i2.png

ttttt

@Favoe,

Even without a close up picture of the M.2 slot, I could barely see that the M.2 slot is the "B+M" key type, that is for M.2 SATA SSD, not for NVMe like the Samsung 970 EVO Plus.

However, I have seen people who was lucky enough to put an NVMe SSD in and was able to run the drive at SATA speed with different model PC.

One last thing you can try before returning this NVMe SSD:

Only leave the Samsung 970 EVO Plus in the M.2 slot, no other drives connected

Go to BIOS ( when bootup, hold down Fn key and keep tapping the F2 key, some laptops will allow hitting Del key, working the same way).

Hit F9 ( Load optimized default)
Hit F10 (Save settings and exit)

If you are lucky, this time it will boot.

If not, return it and get a M.2 SATA SSD instead.

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