Laptop wont boot from SSD after HDD is connected

BK-201

Commendable
Jun 16, 2016
2
0
1,520
Hi, my bios recognize the HDD from my HP Envy 15 laptop as the main drive always and i want to install Windows on a secondary M2 SSD

when im on UEFI mode i cant install the OS because no drive is detected by the W8 installation, when i switch to legacy i can do it but as soon as i reconnect the HDD the bios tell me no boot device found

the problem is that the bios gives the HDD priority over the SSD by default and there's no way to change that setting in the bios, i made this work i while ago but i got my laptop repaired (new motherboard) and after updating the bios the problem started again, i know i fixed it with diskpart and messing around with some commands in CMD but i cant remember how i did so
 
Solution
i find the solution myself (just like the first time) so whoever who's having the same problem as i please try this

Problem: my laptop only have 2 ports, 1 for sata hdd and one for m2 ssd, consequently HDD sata port will always be Disk 0 but you want to install the OS in the M2 SSD or disk 1 but you cant change the boot order to prioritize the SSD over the rest because the options in the bios are limited

first of all i used Rufus to create a bootable USB with a GPT partition and FAT32 format, i booted the usb ad went to the repair option, then troubleshoot and then command prompt, there i used diskpart to clean the HDD and leave it un-allocated, i also converted the SSD to GPT with the convert to gpt command in diskpart

finally...

SuperSoph_WD

Estimable
Jul 30, 2014
168
1
4,910
Welcome to Tom's Hardware, BK-201!

I'd recommend you attempt to resolve the issue by resetting BIOS from the settings first. If you are not able to set the boot priority properly afterwards, you might want to check these commands for CMD from the MS tech support website.

If that doesn't help, repeat the clean install of Windows onto the M.2 SSD while keeping the HDD unplugged from the laptop. If you have access to another computer, you might as well backup the data from the hard drive there and re-format it from Disk Management.

Here's a thread you might find useful as well.

Good luck! Hope it helps! :)
SuperSoph_WD
 

BK-201

Commendable
Jun 16, 2016
2
0
1,520
i find the solution myself (just like the first time) so whoever who's having the same problem as i please try this

Problem: my laptop only have 2 ports, 1 for sata hdd and one for m2 ssd, consequently HDD sata port will always be Disk 0 but you want to install the OS in the M2 SSD or disk 1 but you cant change the boot order to prioritize the SSD over the rest because the options in the bios are limited

first of all i used Rufus to create a bootable USB with a GPT partition and FAT32 format, i booted the usb ad went to the repair option, then troubleshoot and then command prompt, there i used diskpart to clean the HDD and leave it un-allocated, i also converted the SSD to GPT with the convert to gpt command in diskpart

finally installed Win8 on the SSD and booted to it, everything works fine until i change the bios back to UEFI, before doing that please start up your OS and install all the remaining drivers otherwise you'll get an BSOD with inaccessible boot device, Open device manager and check if there are devices with a yellow exclamation sign, if so go to your laptop's manufacturer site and download the drivers (look for a storage drivers), install them and change the bios back to UEFI

all works fine now, HDD for data and SSD for OS, i also checked msinfo32 to see in the system got installed in legacy mode and it says UEFI so no problem there either

i hope this helps


 
Solution