06-25-2017, 03:20 PM
I've built my own desktop systems for 30+ years, tweaked BIOS settings for odd drive combos, switched several systems from HDD to SSD, but this has me beat:
The factory HDD in my wife's HP Pavilion m7-1015dx (i7, 2.3 GHz, 8GB, vintage 2012) died recently, and as long as I was replacing it I thought she'd get some extra zip from a Kingston SUV400 SSD. When I installed it -- first time I'd looked at the InsydeH20 F.29 BIOS setup -- I was surprised to see no SATA mode or AHCI choices, just a "Legacy Support" toggle between CSM for WIn XP/Vista/7 and UEFI mode for win 8/10.
Since then I've had no luck getting Win 10, Win 7 or even XP to install successfully to the SSD. They stop after the first restart, complaining that winload.efi or winload.exe is absent or corrupt. Scanos, rebuildbcd etc. don't help. (I diskpart clean the SSD between each attempt.) In frustration I bought a new laptop HDD and easily put Win 10 on that, then cloned it to the SSD and swapped the latter back in as sole drive: again, no luck. The drive is always seen by BIOS and Win installers, but never takes a successful install with either "legacy support" choice, although it behaves perfectly in every drive test and as a Windows 10 boot drive on other systems.
So... I have yet to contact anyone online who has successfully put a SSD with Windows into an m7-1015dx; HP offers no support. I did notice some complaints about the highly "locked-down" BIOS. It's working with the HDD, but I'd still much prefer the SSD.
(1) has anybody else encountered a platform that ought to -- but just WON'T -- run an SSD with Windows?
(2) does it seem likely that more fine-grained AHCI, SAT mode etc settings might help?
(3) if so, what's the most bulletproof kit for Insyde? I've flashed BIOSes before, but it makes me nervous and I'd like a well-tested route.
The factory HDD in my wife's HP Pavilion m7-1015dx (i7, 2.3 GHz, 8GB, vintage 2012) died recently, and as long as I was replacing it I thought she'd get some extra zip from a Kingston SUV400 SSD. When I installed it -- first time I'd looked at the InsydeH20 F.29 BIOS setup -- I was surprised to see no SATA mode or AHCI choices, just a "Legacy Support" toggle between CSM for WIn XP/Vista/7 and UEFI mode for win 8/10.
Since then I've had no luck getting Win 10, Win 7 or even XP to install successfully to the SSD. They stop after the first restart, complaining that winload.efi or winload.exe is absent or corrupt. Scanos, rebuildbcd etc. don't help. (I diskpart clean the SSD between each attempt.) In frustration I bought a new laptop HDD and easily put Win 10 on that, then cloned it to the SSD and swapped the latter back in as sole drive: again, no luck. The drive is always seen by BIOS and Win installers, but never takes a successful install with either "legacy support" choice, although it behaves perfectly in every drive test and as a Windows 10 boot drive on other systems.
So... I have yet to contact anyone online who has successfully put a SSD with Windows into an m7-1015dx; HP offers no support. I did notice some complaints about the highly "locked-down" BIOS. It's working with the HDD, but I'd still much prefer the SSD.
(1) has anybody else encountered a platform that ought to -- but just WON'T -- run an SSD with Windows?
(2) does it seem likely that more fine-grained AHCI, SAT mode etc settings might help?
(3) if so, what's the most bulletproof kit for Insyde? I've flashed BIOSes before, but it makes me nervous and I'd like a well-tested route.