M.2 will not recognize HDD

Like2Hike
Like2Hike Member Posts: 24 Troubleshooter
edited October 2023 in 2020 Archives
Used the Acer Support YouTube video to add a M.2 SSD to my E15 laptop. Used this M.2 SSD: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07TYGQJ45/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Window boots fine from the m.2, but as soon as I add the HDD, Windows boots from the HDD, Not the M.2.
Here is the BIOS boot screen:
And the Disk Management screen:

Is my M.2 SSD defective or another answer?
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Answers

  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 44,900 Trailblazer
    Just try moving HDD0 further down the boot list. After WindowsBootManager. Jack E/NJ

    Jack E/NJ

  • Like2Hike
    Like2Hike Member Posts: 24 Troubleshooter
    JackE said:
    Just try moving HDD0 further down the boot list. After WindowsBootManager. Jack E/NJ
    Pretty sure I did that several days ago, made no difference. I'll try again tomorrow. I'm replying on the test PC so I have to turn off and start over. If it boots from the M.2 I have no programs loaded.

    Thanks
  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 44,900 Trailblazer
    If it doesn't work, just press WIN+R, enter 'msconfig'. Click boot tab. You may have two Win10 systems listed one for 2.5" HDD and one for  m.2 SSD. Choose the SSD as default. Jack E/NJ

    Jack E/NJ

  • Like2Hike
    Like2Hike Member Posts: 24 Troubleshooter
    JackE said:
    If it doesn't work, just press WIN+R, enter 'msconfig'. Click boot tab. You may have two Win10 systems listed one for 2.5" HDD and one for  m.2 SSD. Choose the SSD as default. Jack E/NJ
    That's out of the box thinking.


    So according to msconfig, the M.2 doesn't exist as a boot drive. It shows as a drive in Disk Management. Apparently not a boot drive. Interesting. 
  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 44,900 Trailblazer
    Is the F12 option enabled in the BIOS Main tab? If yes, does the m.2 show up as a bootable choice by the WinBootMgr? Jack E/NJ

    Jack E/NJ

  • Like2Hike
    Like2Hike Member Posts: 24 Troubleshooter
    JackE said:
    Is the F12 option enabled in the BIOS Main tab? If yes, does the m.2 show up as a bootable choice by the WinBootMgr? Jack E/NJ

    Enabled F12, works . . . kinda.
    I can boot from either drive, but . . . If I boot from the HDD, I can see either drive, tried to copy a folder from the HDD to the M.2. Seemed to work until I tried to find the folder.
    If I boot from the M.2, the HDD disappears in Disk Management.

    More and more I'm convinced that the M.2 is defective in some subtle way.

    Thanks for all your help.
  • aphanic
    aphanic Member Posts: 959 Seasoned Specialist WiFi Icon
    Quick question, why do you keep an installation in the SATA drive anyway? The problem you're having is because there are two EFI partitions (one in each drive) and for some reason the HDD takes precedence over the M.2.

    Unless there's some reason to have both systems (for example, one is 7, the other is 10) I would just copy what I need off of the SATA disk, delete all of its partitions, create a single partition and use it for data. No more booting problems, but it may not be suitable if you want to keep both installations.
  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 44,900 Trailblazer
    @aphanic's suggestion is probably a better assumption that something being wrong with the m.2 hardware. Generally, two identical Win10 boot drives can confuse WinBootMgr. The 2.5" HDD/SSD normally BIOS defaults to HDD0 assignment. WinBootMgr is simply choosing HDD0 BIOS default over HDD1 when the two are present assigning C : to HDD0 and E : to HDD1. Forcing HDD1 to be C :   by manually choosing it with the F12 boot option likely causes WinBootMgr to disrupt access to HDD0 to protect it as a default system drive. If it was mine, I'd probably remove the HDD0 and put it as is on a shelf for safe-keeping in case something goes haywire with the m.2. Then install a new 2.5" HDD or SSD in its place --- they're super cheap these days. Jack E/NJ  

    Jack E/NJ

  • Like2Hike
    Like2Hike Member Posts: 24 Troubleshooter
    aphanic said:
    Quick question, why do you keep an installation in the SATA drive anyway? The problem you're having is because there are two EFI partitions (one in each drive) and for some reason the HDD takes precedence over the M.2.

    Unless there's some reason to have both systems (for example, one is 7, the other is 10) I would just copy what I need off of the SATA disk, delete all of its partitions, create a single partition and use it for data. No more booting problems, but it may not be suitable if you want to keep both installations.
    Not sure I totally understand your question. If something is not as it should be, it because I followed exactly the instructions in the Acer Support YouTube video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCmAOwRYNwY

    It is my goal to retain the HDD for data and I don't need a second copy of windows, it's just there on the data disk. Can I disable windows on the HDD and solve the conflict?

    I don't want to format the HDD because I'll loose all my files.
  • Like2Hike
    Like2Hike Member Posts: 24 Troubleshooter
    JackE said:
    @aphanic's suggestion is probably a better assumption that something being wrong with the m.2 hardware. Generally, two identical Win10 boot drives can confuse WinBootMgr. The 2.5" HDD/SSD normally BIOS defaults to HDD0 assignment. WinBootMgr is simply choosing HDD0 BIOS default over HDD1 when the two are present assigning C : to HDD0 and E : to HDD1. Forcing HDD1 to be C :   by manually choosing it with the F12 boot option likely causes WinBootMgr to disrupt access to HDD0 to protect it as a default system drive. If it was mine, I'd probably remove the HDD0 and put it as is on a shelf for safe-keeping in case something goes haywire with the m.2. Then install a new 2.5" HDD or SSD in its place --- they're super cheap these days. Jack E/NJ   

    If I understand your point, you're saying format the HDD and the M.2 will play nice with it because it has no windows. So transfer my files to another drive, format, then reinstall my files?
  • aphanic
    aphanic Member Posts: 959 Seasoned Specialist WiFi Icon
    Aha! I see! I enlarged your screenshot to make it easier to show:



    From what I understand, you cloned the contents of one drive onto the other, in that picture I'd saw the disk #0 is the one that came with the laptop and the #1 is the new SSD right?

    Those highlighted partitions are system ones, boot ones, they tell the UEFI boot loader what to boot and from where. Once you have installed the OS in the new SSD and made sure the system boots with it, the next step would be to delete everything from the old drive and create a single partition for example.

    I say get rid of it all because the HDD still contains the Windows installation that was there before, so you'd be losing some GB in there plus that Recovery partition which is no longer needed either because you have the new one in the SSD.

    Let's try something shall we? Let's get rid of the EFI partition in the HDD, leaving it only in the SDD for now and we'll then deal with the rest.

    Fire up DiskPart (type it in start and after opening you should see something like this:



    Then type "list disk", to see the disks you have and "select disk X" where X is the HDD, you'll know because the HDD is the big one:



    To make sure you selected the right one, type "det disk" and it will show you its model and details:



    Next, list its partitions with "list disk", you'll see one named as System, that's the one we want to get rid of:



    Select that partition with "sel part X" where X is the number and show its properties, to make sure once again it's the one we want:



    Now let's delete it, a normal delete command won't do because it is an important partition, we'll have to force its deletion (I won't input the force command because it's my system and I'd have to re-create it otherwise haha):



    The command you want to override its deletion is "del part override". ("exit" is the command to exit the program)

    If all went well, the HDD should have no EFI partition and it won't be possible for you to boot into the old system. All of your data will still be there, because we just got rid of the partition that was messing things up. Rebooting the machine should make it boot from the only disk that has an EFI partition, the SSD.

    I suggest, if at all possible, that you take the data out of the HDD, maybe even to the root of it like... creating a folder called "Data" and putting everything you deem important in there, then getting rid of the rest. You'll gain quite some space in the disk. Ideally the data would have been copied to an external hard disk and then from DiskPart (or any other disk management utility) all of its partitions would be deleted and a new one created spanning the whole disk, but I understand it may not be possible.

    By the way, do all of the steps from DiskPart from inside the new system, i.e. use F12 to boot into the SSD and from there delete the EFI partition of the older installation in the HDD. Much more safer. And using the same procedure you can get rid of the Recovery partition that lies in the HDD as well, and stretch the big partition occupying all of the space you just freed (probably easier with the Disk Management, at least it's more visual).
  • aphanic
    aphanic Member Posts: 959 Seasoned Specialist WiFi Icon
    By the way, if you ended up deleting the EFI partition in the wrong disk, don't dispair, it can be re-created from within the OS of the other disk. Just let me know it has happened and I'll detail the steps to re-create it ;).
  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 44,900 Trailblazer
    As mentioned earlier, if it was mine, I'd just remove the original bootable HDD and put it aside for safe-keeping. Don't try to do anything to it. Then simply buy another 2.5" HDD or SSD and use that as the slave to the m.2. A nice 2.5" 1TB WD with 128MB cache is only $50.   Jack E/NJ

    Jack E/NJ

  • aphanic
    aphanic Member Posts: 959 Seasoned Specialist WiFi Icon
    Yep, that's another option, or put it in a USB enclosure and use it as a portable drive. Even if I have space for a SATA disk in my A515-54G I'm just running off of a single M.2 SSD, it's fast enough and I rely on external media for data keeping.

    Anything goes here, it's dealer's choice haha
  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 44,900 Trailblazer
    >>>I rely on external media for data keeping.>>>

    Yes, that's probably a safer way of storing personal files anyway.  Jack E/NJ

    Jack E/NJ

  • aphanic
    aphanic Member Posts: 959 Seasoned Specialist WiFi Icon
    JackE said:
    Yes, that's probably a safer way of storing personal files anyway.  Jack E/NJ
    I don't know about safer, but look at the backup solution this guy has, it's nuts!

    "I have all my really important files backed up on 3 disconnected USB Flash Drives and 3 WD Red Hard drives.

    One of the 3 flash drives is in a safety deposit box and 1 of the WD red drives is in a safety deposit box. They get rotated frequently. 1 of the hard drives is inside a file server and gets backed up to nightly. It also does an online backup nightly as well.

    Quickbooks Gets backed up nightly to a usb flash drive and to a file server which then gets backed up that same night to another hard drive. It also does an encrypted backup online. THen once a week it gets backed up to the 2 disconnected usb flash drives.

    Then once a month it gets backed up to one of the 2 WD red drives."

  • Like2Hike
    Like2Hike Member Posts: 24 Troubleshooter
    aphanic said:
    From what I understand, you cloned the contents of one drive onto the other, in that picture I'd saw the disk #0 is the one that came with the laptop and the #1 is the new SSD right?

    Not exactly, I created a USB recovery drive. Then used that RD to create a working Windows on the M.2. If that is a clone, okay.

    So I followed your detailed directions to "del part override" and ran into a Chicken/Egg problem.

    I can only see the HDD if I boot from the HDD. Booting from the M.2 doesn't show the HDD. When I try the del part override from the boot disk it refuses.

    As I see it I need to copy all my data to another drive, then format the 1TB HDD. But How? Can I format in BIOS?



  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 44,900 Trailblazer
    >>>As I see it I need to copy all my data to another drive, then format the 1TB HDD. But How? Can I format in BIOS?>>>

    My suggestion. Remove the HDD. Replace it with a 2TB WD for less than $80 with free shipping from Amazon https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B079BQS5WQ/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_3?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&th=1


    Then connect your old HDD to the laptop using the USB adapter, copy all the files you want to the new 2TB WD. Then put the old HDD aside for safe keeping. It's not worth destroying all the old data and system files on this drive by reformatting it. But if you insist and want to save a few bucks by avoiding the 2TB WD, you can reformat it directly from Windows FileExplore by right clicking on it using the USB adapter.


    Jack E/NJ
     


    Jack E/NJ

  • Like2Hike
    Like2Hike Member Posts: 24 Troubleshooter
    So how do I copy the HDD contents to a backup drive? I have a 1TB drive connected via USB3 and when I drag an object/folder to that drive all I get is create a link. Copy is not an option.
  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 44,900 Trailblazer
    Rather than try to drag&drop from FileExplore, it's much safer to select what you want to copy or cut (left click mouse button on first file or folder and then use either Ctrl + left click mouse  or Shift + left click mouse to select individual or all files folders. Then right click the selected highlighted files or folders, and choose copy or cut. Then right click  on the other drive, and choose paste. Jack E/NJ

    Jack E/NJ