Windows-10 install on HP EliteBook 850G2

PatPicciano

Hello, I purchased an HP EliteBook 850G2 refubished from MicroCenter last year and it came with a mechanical hard drive.. I wanted to update to an M.2 drive, so I found a Sabrent Rocket NANO NVMe drive - it fits and works in the M.2 slot - Windows-10 installs from USB and creates partitions but cannot find a boot device when it is done installing. What am I missing? Is there a pre-boot UEFI extension like Intel-PXE or something like that I missed? I also tried installing to a Samsung 860EVO SSD in the SATA drive slot - same thing - cannot find a boot device. PLEASE HELP!

TSTonyV

Have you tried having only the M.2 drive connected, reinstalling Windows, and then booting the system? It's possible that other bootable devices could be interfering with each other. That shouldn't happen, but it can. 

I would also make sure that your BIOS is set to UEFI mode and not Legacy. In your BIOS there should be a Boot Options menu containing this setting. You can get to your BIOS by tapping the F10 key during the initial startup process for your computer. 

PatPicciano

Hello - I have tried having the Sabrent M.2 NVMe drive alone in the laptop - both with Acronis copied and trying a fresh install of Windows-10 from a USB stick - the system cannot see the Sabrent NVMe drive at boot... it can when windows loaded previously - because Windows has an NVMe driver... I have tried with the BIOS in UEFI with CSM on and off, and Legacy mode - no boot. I even tried pulling the Sabrent M.2 NVMe drive and just giving up and installing Windows-10 on a new Samsung EVO SSD in the SATA slot... the laptop still cannot see a bootable drive when it tries to boot. I would love to get the Sabrent M.2 NVMe drive to work, it should be faster than a SATA drive, but this laptop BIOS setup is nuts - I've been building PCs for 30+ years and this BIOS is terrible - it is not clear what will work - it should be simple, but it just doesn't work. I think there is a solution in a BootLoader called CLOVER... I'm looking into it now, but if I cannot figure it out, I might just sell this PC. I have tried contacting Sabrent, and the reseller that refurbishes laptops for MicroCenter - they are called MicroBee - and they are an Amazon reseller too - but they are not responding to emails - their mailbox is full and their phone number is disconnected - I think they might be out of business. My next step is anything anyone can recommend on this forum - if you know anything about getting the HP EliteBook 850 G2 BIOS to boot off the M.2 NVMe or SSD SATA, please help me out understanding this - or if you know anything about CLOVER, I would appreciate the info. THANKS!