About HWTech

HWTech · ‎01-21-2019

The only SSD endurance test I'm aware of took place from about 2013-2015 and only involved a few devices a couple of which used early TLC models. It is interesting to see how drives behaved in general and failed in the end, but it doesn't really tell you one drive is better than another. With the constantly changing technology in the SSDs, any test will likely be irrelevant by the time it finishes. Most of the current consumer SSDs are using TLC NAND (soon to be replaced by QLC) so they all share the same limitations. The more important part is how the various drives implement workarounds to keep performance levels reasonably high.

HWTech · ‎01-20-2019

Unfortunately I cannot advise you on the specific AMD issues as I was not aware of them, although I am planning on building an AMD system later this year. In general though, make sure hot plug is enabled and be sure to disable any power management for SATA or the SSD. Also make sure the SSD is conected to a pure SATA controller and not one which supports RAID. Some motherboards will have two different types of SATA controllers. As for CSE issues, you cannot Sanitize a drive you are booting. If it is a secondary drive and the Sanitize is not working using CSE, then you can use other methods to try to Sanitizer/Secure Erase the drive by creating a bootable USB drive with Parted Magic or a Linux distro. If the drive has OPAL hardware encryption enabled, then the Sanitize option will not work until the hardware encryption is disabled or you perform a PSID revert.

HWTech · ‎01-20-2019

The best way to find a laptop supporting the RAM you want is to check out the manufacturer's website and look at their products. Some OEM websites such as Dell provide filter options for certain criteria such as RAM amounts. I know some Dell laptops are capable of 32GB of memory, but they are usually the higher end & more expensive models. Once you find a compatible model, then you can purchase it direct from the OEM by customizing it or search online for the model configured with less memory. Some OEMs will make this process very difficult requiring you to look at spec sheets, User/Service Guides, & Crucial's website as you've already done. Personally I find purchasing a laptop very difficult & annoying because of the games these OEMs play, but unfortunately we have no choice in the matter. Besides looking for systems capable of 32GB, you should also investigate how the upgrade(s) must be performed since some systems are difficult to access.

HWTech · ‎01-20-2019

You should be perfectly fine with any memory Crucial suggests for your system. Since some memory is soldered to the motherboard there are unlikely any advanced memory modes available to configure which is where identical or near identical RAM is more necessary.

HWTech · ‎01-19-2019

The best way to access your data is by creating & booting from a Knoppix Linux USB drive. After booting to the Knoppix Desktop, attach your SSD using a USB adapter. Open a file manager (the white file cabinet icon on the taskbar near the Start menu). You should be able to mount the Windows partition by clicking on the items in the left pane of the file manager. Just drag & drop any data you want. Make sure the icon shows a "+" or a "?" (holding "Ctrl" or "Alt" can force this, but may not be necessary) so it will only copy or give you the choice when you release the mouse. If you are saving the data to another Windows boot drive, then make sure that system was fully shutdown or it will not allow you to save to that drive (if using Win10, hold the Shift key while clicking Shutdown). If you get errors during the actual copy process, then open a terminal (black icon on the Taskbar) and launch testdisk to attempt copying the data using this command: sudo testdisk You will use the arrow keys to navigate. Use "Q" to step back to the previous step/menu (acts like "Esc" usually does). Selecting ". ." in a folder will take you back to the parent folder. Practice on another drive before attempting to use on your SSD. Once you launch "testdisk", you will need to select the proper drive, then the partition type of that drive (Intel for Legacy MBR, or EFI GPT for UEFI booting systems). Select "Analyse", then "Quick Search". Use the arrow keys to highlight the partition with your data, then press "P" to list the files on the drive. Navigate to the folder and select folders and/or files and use the appropriate copy commnad which will prompt you to provide a location to save the items. Do NOT use any of the repair utilities at this time as you could make things worse. If this becomes necessary, you should first make a bit for bit image of the drive/partition and work from the clone to preserve the original data in case of a mistake. While there is a Windows version of this utility, it is much safer to use it from a Linux boot disk as Windows itself can interfere with the process or even cause more problems with the SSD. If testdisk is not available on the Knoppix drive, let me know and I can provide easy instructions to install it. If you are unable to mount the SSD partition containing your data, then the next best option may be to clone the partition bit for bit so you can work on it safely without further risk to your data. I can provide you instructions if this becomes necessary. If this is the case please post the output of the following command: sudo dmesg | tail -n 20 | tee ~/ssd-log-file.txt This command creates a file containing the last 20 lines of the system log entry which should show what is happening with the attempted connection of your SSD using USB if you connected it after reaching the Knoppix Desktop. Copy the resulting file from the Knoppix home user folder to another location you can access from your system.

HWTech · ‎01-18-2019

@ssdinamac Thanks for showing another method. I really do like Target Disk Mode and wish PCs in general would employ it as well. FYI, the current Crucial updater now supports UEFI booting to a USB drive. You can use Etcher to make the bootable USB updater.

HWTech · ‎01-17-2019

@Slycer wrote: I was trying to install Windows 7 x64. The AHCI drivers should already be present in the installation package. The BIOS was updated to the latest version yesterday so the defaults (and optimized defaults) were set, no change in situation. To be honest not the biggest fan of reinstalled the OS once again (this would be the third time), this is my fathers PC and he needs it. Right now the computer is running fine on IDE, just obviously not as optimal as it could on AHCI. Doesn't anyone find it strange that the drive is not listed in SATA Channel list (picture 1) but seems to work? And that it is recognized in the submenu od the Channel list? (Picture 2) FYI, updating the BIOS does not necessarily mean the settings were reset. Even so you may want to try removing the CMOS battery (if possible). I understand not wanting to reinstall, but it may be the only way to know for sure if there is a driver issue or just a hardware compatibility issue. If you have room on the drive, you could have Windows shrink the partition enough to try installing Ubuntu on to the extra space. You shouldn't need much room for a test (likely less than 10GB especially if a swap partition is not used). Now Ubuntu will overwrite the MBR boot area of the drive with its own bootloader, but you should be able to use your Windows or Windows installer to recreate it (bootrec /fixmbr, or use Automatic Startup Repair). Ubuntu doesn't have to overwrite the MBR, but it is easier than trying to use the Windows boot options to launch Ubuntu. It is odd that the BIOS sees the BX500 in one menu, but not the other one. BIOS implementations are not known for being reliable. Perhaps when AHCI mode is enabled, the BX500 is relaying the 4k sector size instead of the older 512 byte sector size and this BIOS is unable to handle it. When in IDE mode, the drive is responding with 512 bytes since that is all it would be able to recognize.

HWTech · ‎01-17-2019

Definitely check for a BIOS firmware update for your laptop. Try resetting the BIOS to defaults (or optimized defaults) in case something has gotten stuck or corrupted. To see if this is a hardware compatibility issue, try downloading and installing Windows 10 or even better Ubuntu Linux. Personally I think Ubuntu is the better option for this test as it completely eliminates Windows drivers as an issue since Win10 has depracated support for some hardware. You don't need to know anything about Linux to see if this works (just accept the defaults if needed). You won't be able to use Win10 for more than testing unless you have a valid license for it.

HWTech · ‎01-17-2019

Is this a 13" model? If so you may need to replace the Hard Drive Cable. First you can try reseating the cable to the Logic Board. Also check the memory modules are locked into place. Use a wooden toothpick to press on the edge of the "lower" memory module to see if it is locked in place (make sure not to press against any of the small components on the memory module or they will become damaged. Then press down on the upper module. Sometimes the levers locking the memory in place can unlatch. Post one of the Kernel Panic logs here. You can use the Console app to locate it. Within the Console app, the log name will begin with "Kernel" and and with ".panic" and will include the timestamp within the name. I believe in Mojave you need to click on one of the Diagnostic folders (probably the one in /Library folder) the System Reports folder in the left pane within the Console app and this panic file will show up in the 2nd pane. You can try running the Apple Hardware Test by holding the D key immediately after powering on. See if it fails any of the tests.

HWTech · ‎01-17-2019

Try using "testdisk" to copy the file from the SSD. I recently had a cloned image where I could not copy some files and this utility copied them successfully. If this does not work, then the only other free option that may work is "Gnu ddrescue" which is a Linux command line tool that will perform a bit clone of the entire drive/partition to another drive/partition or a raw image file (make sure to use a log file to resume an interrupted clone). It works great for failing hard drives, but I've never had to use it on an SSD with read issues. Probably the easiest way to use this tool is by creating a bootable Knoppix Linux USB drive. You still may need to repair filesystem damage or even use testdisk on the clone. You will definitely want to upgrade the firmware on the SSD since anything before M0CR060 has issues. If you check the MX300's SMART Attributes I believe you will find some Uncorrectable Errors which reached the filesystem when a block went bad. I've also seen the earlier firmware on the MX300 get stuck reallocating bad blocks which can cause this to happen as well. See if you have any Pending Blocks that have not been reallocated. I found after updating the firmware I had to also perform a Secure Erase on the MX300s to reset it and get it working properly again (this may not be necessary for you, but it was for me). If you continue using Windows without a Secure Erase & reinstall, then you will want to run "chkdsk" on it so it can repair any filesystem damage. If you absolutely need to recover this file, you may also want to consider using a professional data recovery service such as Drive Savers. Feel free to post the SMART Attributes if you are unsure. Let us know how you make out recovering the file.

HWTech · ‎01-16-2019

According to Intel, your CPU should support 16GB total, but it would all depend on how Dell implemented everything on the motherboard. Some people have claimed other similar Dell systems (E6520) was able to do so. However, there is no guarantee from Crucial if it is not compatible. Crucial does list 8GB modules for the E6520 which either means your laptop cannot support it for some reason or Crucial overlooked it as being compatible. Regardless, unless an official Crucial representative provides you with the part number and a guarantee of compatibility you will be taking a risk. If you risk it, I would suggest running Memtest86, Prime95 and the Dell Diagnostic to make sure no issues pop up. Your BIOS firmware is way out of date. I recommend you update the BIOS firmware as some later versions do fix some bugs and provide security updates.

HWTech · ‎01-16-2019

What version of Windows are you trying to install? I would try installing Ubuntu Linux onto the SSD while the SATA controller is set to AHCI mode in the BIOS. If Ubuntu installs & boots Ok, then you know you have a Windows driver issue. Perhaps you can download the SATA & AHCI driver from Shuttle's website so you can have Windows use it during the install (you may need to extract all the files to a USB drive first). Have you reset the BIOS to defaults (or optimized defaults)? Removed the battery (sometimes also requires setting a jumper) to reset it completely?

HWTech · ‎01-16-2019

I had you format the drive in an MBR FAT format so that we could simplify the process and try avoiding the use of Core Storage to see if the process would complete. Apple has been removing functionality from each version of the Disk Utility GUI and sometimes this can cause problems. Sometimes using a completely different disk format can get Disk Utility to properly & fully create an Apple partition which is why I suggested erasing the beginning of the drive. You should only install OSX to a drive partitioned as GPT (or GUID) with HFS+ or APFS which is required for proper booting & firmware updates. I'm assuming your system is booting into Internet Recovery Mode since you do not have a bootable drive connected and are not using an installer. Please correct me if I'm wrong. In Recovery Mode, there is a small list of utilities on the main screen along with an option to (re-)install OSX. If you go to the Tools/Utilities menu, there should be an option for the Terminal app (you must close Disk Utility). You can click on the Apple menu and select "About this Mac" or launch the Apple System Profiler to see what version of OSX you are using. The Apple part number for the new style Hard Drive Cable is 923-00975. This site specializes in Apple products and would likely be as safe a source as any. iFixIt is generally safe. This site has some information about the cable and suggests using electrical tape to help protect the new cable. I have no experience with this site, but applying electrical tape on the case beneath the cable cannot hurt. As mentioned on the last site, finding a new style cable even with these sources may not be guaranteed. The part number written on the official replacement cables I had were "821-00698-A".

HWTech · ‎01-15-2019

Try reseating the Hard Drive Cable on the Logic Board. Try an SMC Reset & a PRAM reset. Can you Erase it by selecting MBR & FAT32 instead of the normal Apple options? Maybe try using your original install DVD or create a bootable USB installer instead of using Recovery Mode which is booting into Internet Recovery Mode since you have no bootable OS on your system. Maybe the Internet Recovery version of OSX being used has a bug. What version of OSX are you booting from? You may not be aware of the different methods of booting into Internet Recovery Mode (seems they keep changing it without any notice). I would suggest trying Shift+Cmd+Option+R to boot the oldest version of OSX it will allow, so you can try manually partitioning the SSD by selecting "Partition" and changing the drop down option to "1 partition" (not sure if this is still available in OSX 10.12 or not). If you still have your original install DVD, then try using it to partition/erase the SSD. The newer versions of Disk Utility have been stripped down and may be causing a problem. You can also try writing zeroes to the beginning of the drive by launching the Terminal (may be on the Tools or Utilities menu). You need to identify the identifier associated with the SSD. You may be able to do so using Apple System Profiler or Disk Utility (select Info), or you can use the following command from the Terminal (you may need to scroll back/up to find it): diskutil list Most likely the SSD will be identified as "disk0". Make sure to substitute the correct identifier in place of "diskX" in the following command which will erase the beginning of the drive. If you have any other devices connected, then this might erase them if you choose the incorrect drive identifier. BE CAREFUL! sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/diskX bs=100m count=5 After writing zeroes to the beginning of the drive, try partitioning/erasing the drive with Disk Utility again. FYI, unless you modify the OSX installer, OSX 10.13 or newer will automatically reformat your SSD with APFS regardless if you manually use HFS+ beforehand. Crucial sells a USB to SATA Adapter. Using an USB adapter/dock/enclosure is the easiest way to determine what is going on with your laptop. With it you can try booting your original hard drive and maybe even recover your data if necessary. Plus it can allow you to format & install OSX to the SSD. If everything works with the USB adapter, then you know you need to replace the Hard Drive Cable. You can check the health of the original Hard Drive by checking its SMART Attributes. If the RAW value column of the following attributes "Reallocated Sectors", "Reallocated Events", "Current Pending Sectors" and "Uncorrectable Errors" are non-zero, then the drive is failing. If the "Value", "Current", or "Worst" column for the "Load Cycle Count" attribute is "001", then the drive may be failing or is at least on borrowed time. To check these SMART Attributes, you will need access to a regular Windows PC where you can use a program such as GSmartControl. You can also check it on your MBPro if you are able to create a bootable USB Knoppix Linux drive which includes GSmartControl (Start menu --> System Tools).

HWTech · ‎01-13-2019

FYI, Not showing up in Boot Manager does not necessarily mean the SSD is bad. UEFI systems are notorious for not being able to recognize boot files. Check to see if the SSD is showing up on the SATA controller in the BIOS/UEFI settings. Not showing up as a physical device with the Windows installer does not bode well though so you should try connecting the SSD to another system or with a USB adapter/dock/enclosure to confirm the issue is with the SSD. You could also try connecting it to another SATA port, but this option won't help if you have system or configuration issues. Make sure the BIOS/UEFI firmware is up to date. Try resetting the BIOS/UEFI to defaults.

HWTech · ‎01-13-2019

You may want to read this series of articles where they stressed their SSDs 24/7 for several years. I found it very interesting how the various SSDs held up & eventually failed. It is certainly a good idea to monitor the SMART attributes of the SSD, but as @targetbsp mentions, they don't always alert you to failures. Almost every critical SSD failure I've seen has been with them suddenly disappearing from the system without any warning. Even so since your SSD is so worn, you should at least monitor the following attributes: 05, B4, BB, C4, C5, C6 & CA. Attribute B4 & CA are probably the most important as they signify the actual end of life for the drive. "BB" will alert you to filesystem & data corruption. Because your SSD is so worn & near end of life, other values than these may become important. FYI, the "current" & "worst" columns will never go below "1". I'd really be interested in hearing how this SSD eventually fails (and how long it takes) if you continue using it.

HWTech · ‎01-11-2019

From your SMART logs, it does not appear that any blocks have been reallocated so I don't know why you would be seeing any Pending Sectors popping up. I'm not familiar with monitorix. Is it sending these messages or is it smartd or some other app? Do you know if it is leveraging smartmontools to get the information or is it using its own tools to compute the values and analyze them? Could there be a misconfiguration in the settings or scripts for the alerting & reporting? Do you have other drives connected to this system? Are these SSDs internal? You should update the "drivedb.h" file so the SMART attributes are properly labeled & computed. The latest release of the "drivedb.h" file has proper support for the MX500. Just make sure to download the one for v6.5 to match your version of smartmontools. Once downloaded you need to manually replace your current file. On Debian this file is located at "/var/lib/smartmontools/drivedb/drivedb.h", but it may be located elsewhere on CentOS. Then run smartctl again on each drive using the "-x" option which will provide a few more details. It wouldn't hurt to run the Long selftest on both drives (takes about 30 minutes to finish). Make sure to omit the SSD serial#s from your post. Your screenshot has not been approved by the moderators yet, so I will check back later to review it.

HWTech · ‎01-11-2019

I'm not quite sure what you are attempting, but it sounds like you are trying to mount this drive perpendicular to the normal drive orientation of the drive bay. I'm assuming you are using some kind of adapter bracket made for this case. If you purchased an adapter bracket, they usually come with the necessary screws to install everything. Laptop hard drive screws such as these are used to attach the SSD to a standard mounting plate or adapter, but some systems may require a different type. Usually traditional 3.5" hard drive screws will be used to attach an adapter bracket into a 3.5" drive bay, but again it may depend on the bracket.

HWTech · ‎01-11-2019

Please post the SMART attributes of your MX500's. You can use "smartctl" from the "smartmontools" package or you can use GSmartControl. You may need to manually update the "drivedb.h" file to have the SMART attributes displayed properly. Both of these apps can also show you the current firmware version on the SSDs. The current version is M3CR023. How old are your SSDs?

HWTech · ‎01-10-2019

If your system is running fine now with another video card, then that is the most likely source of your problems. I know there were some issues with various RAM when Ryzen first launched especially when going above 2400, but I think most of those issues have been resolved with motherboard firmware updates. Check to make sure the firmware on your PC is up to date. The best way to test a system is by stressing individual components. You may want to monitor your system's various temperature sensors & fan speeds during some of these tests in case you have a cooling issue. Some useful options are: 1) Memtest86 2) Prime95 (Torture Test). See this for a bit more information. 3) GPUTest 4) Unigine Superposition, Valley, and Heaven These are good multiplatform options. I know Windows users have a few more options available as well, but I am not personally familiar with them.

HWTech · ‎01-10-2019

Is your system booting in UEFI mode or Legacy MBR mode? If it is booting in Legacy MBR, then make sure the System partition is marked "Active" or "Bootable". If UEFI mode, then the problem could be on the EFI/ESP partiton or the regular System partition. Be careful copying/cloning another system partition as it can contain a lot of boot configuration files and even incompatible versions of the files. I've been able to use a Linux drive to leverage its GRUB2 bootloader to jump into a broken Windows system. It helped me to make some sense of the multiple boot files & config files found on all of the Windows partitions (sometimes several to a partition). I still cannot understand the jumbled mess, but it did help me get it booting on its own again. If you need boot files like "bootmgr", etc. you can do so using 7zip to extract them from the Windows installer "/sources/install.wim" file (this file name may be different for Win8/10) and you may also havesome of them on the "Recovery" partition. Sometimes you have to delete (or better yet rename) the boot configuration files and run all the tools you mentioned again. You may need to do this on a partition you wouldn't expect. FYI, some OEM product keys won't be accepted for downloading the Win7 installer from Microsoft. I recently tried to download a fresh copy using a product key from an HP laptop and MS rejected it. I don't know why they worry about people acquiring the ISO since you still need a valid key to activate Windows. Sometimes you just need it to repair a broken installation. I'm glad this isn't necessary for the Win8/10 ISOs. AFAIK you should be able to use any valid Win7 installer or ISO since every installer includes Home, Pro, and Ultimate on it. It must match the architecture for your system though (32bit or 64bit). You may also need to manually create a bootable USB drive or remaster the ISO to remove the "ei.cfg" file so you are presented with the choice of which version of Win7 to install. I just recently did this myself.

HWTech · ‎01-10-2019

@th30d0r3 wrote: This firware is an abslute disaster for me, it's killed my RAID 0 array and now I cannot access my data. Storage Exec updated it automatically and the drives immediately became slower and inaccessible after a few minutes of operation. That is very unfortunate. Any time you use any type of hardware RAID you must be very careful especially with RAID 0. RAID controllers can be very picky about the drives and a change in firmware may cause it to be identified differently by the RAID controller. Or perhaps your MX300 had a problem that went unnoticed until the firmware update which revealed it causing the RAID controller to break the RAID. Besides firmware updates are always risky. What you experienced could potentially happen with any brand of drive. Verified working backups are even more important when using SSDs than ever before.

HWTech · ‎01-09-2019

When using the BX300 in another system or with a USB3 adapter, do the C7 Ultra DMA CRC errors still increase? If so, then it would appear to be an issue with the BX300, otherwise it sounds like you will have to forego using the BX300 in this system then. You could try to Secure Erase the BX300 (installed internally in another system) as a last ditch effort since it will reset the SSD to factory defaults. If it has gotten into some weird state, maybe this could reset it for you.

HWTech · ‎01-09-2019

The C7 Ultra DMA CRC Error attribute definitely shows that the cable/connection between the system & the BX300 is not up to the task with this drive. I don't recall which controller those drives you have are using, but even if they were the same there could still be slight differences in implementation on the newer BX300. I don't know if this cable/connector is replaceable. Is it possible to wrap some shielding around the cable to the SSD? Just make sure it does not come into contact with any electronics.

HWTech · ‎01-08-2019

Did you make any other changes to your system? Many systems share the M.2 connector with another SATA port. Is it possible you may have connected another SATA drive to the shared port? Is there a setting in the BIOS for enabling the M.2 connector? If so, try toggling it off, Save the Setting, maybe even reboot the system back into the BIOS and turn it on again, followed by another reboot to make sure the system scans for M.2 drives. If your BIOS is using any non-default settings, make sure you save them or at least note them down. Then reset the BIOS to defaults (or optimized defaults). A reboot here may be in order as well. Make sure to check the M.2 is enabled if such a setting exists. If MX500 still isn't seen, then try removing all power including the CMOS battery. Check to make sure your system doesn't include another proprietary method to reset itself (I found a Dell laptop had such an option once). Do you have another system you could install the M.2 drive to see if it can be seen by the BIOS? Or perhaps a SATA M.2 adapter/enclosure? Is your motherboard firmware up to date?

HWTech · ‎01-08-2019

Actually, if the NAND block failure built up slowly, then the block should be reallocated without any filesystem problems at all since the ECC or other internal safety mechanisms should be sufficient to prevent it (assuming the controller doesn't get stuck reallocating the bad block). Monitoring the Uncorrectable Errors attribute is your best bet to know when to run those checks. Of course you can get "soft" filesystem failures caused by other system issues, software issues or unexpected shutdowns. Another good attribute to monitor is the "Pending" attribute. Once it becomes non-zero, see how long it takes before the controller reallocates the bad block and this value goes back to zero. Might provide some useful information for you next time since I don't know how long a pending block reallocation should take for an SSD. BTW, depending on the size of the defective area of the NAND where the last error occurred, it is possible it could happen again on a physically adjacent area.

HWTech · ‎01-08-2019

What version of Win10 did you install? Is the system set up for CSM/Legacy MBR booting or UEFI booting? From your screenshots it appears the motherboard thinks it is booting Windows in Legacy mode, but I could be wrong since I'm not familiar with how non-OEM motherboards present the boot options. (I'm hoping to change this later this year with my first custom build in years. ) Boot your Win10 installer and get a command prompt. Use Diskpart to list the drive partitioning information. What type of partitioning scheme is being used on the SSD (GPT or MBR/DOS)? I'm wondering if you might have booted the Win10 installer in one mode and the BIOS/UEFI settings are not set properly for it or they are configured for both and things got confused during the install. If Win10 was installed in UEFI mode (partitions are using GPT layout), then make sure the BIOS settings are configured for UEFI. If UEFI booting is being used, the motherboard needs to point to the proper "bootx64.efi" file on the EFI/ESP partiton (small FAT partition). I personally try to configure all systems for UEFI only mode to minimize issues as this is the way things are moving, but this could involve a complete reinstall. There is a small chance that you could run the Automatic Startup Repair from the Windows installer (select "Repair this computer", then Troubleshooting --> Advanced) and it might put the other bootloader on the drive. If you enter the BIOS boot menu during POST, you may be able to select how to boot the Windows installer. If you know from the partitioning layout it is GPT, then you want to make sure the Windows installer boots using the UEFI boot option from the BIOS boot menu you bring up during POST. If the automatic startup repair doesn't work, then you can try selecting the Windows installer Legacy/MBR boot option from the BIOS boot menu you bring up during POST and try it again. The bootloader Windows installs is most likely based on how the Win10 installer boots (and possibly the configuration of the drive). Try to set the BIOS/UEFI settings to match the partitioning scheme of the drive (GPT or MBR) when you attempt this repair. If booting in Legacy/MBR mode, make sure the "System" partition is marked as "Active" or "bootable" in Diskpart. If these items don't work and your motherboard was configured for both CSM & UEFI, then I would try starting over by setting the motherboard to UEFI only mode (disable CSM/Legacy options). In the Windows installer, open a command prompt (Shift + F10) and run Diskpart and "clean" the drive before selecting the drive for the Windows installation. This is critical as most systems will not change the partitioning scheme between MBR & GPT when erasing or recreating partitions unless the drive is completely blank.

HWTech · ‎01-07-2019

I doubt using Rufus will work since another user in the thread I linked burned a CD and it had the same error (I only mentioned it because a Crucial representative mentioned it to me, but I had no way to verify it). I think you will need to attempt manually creating the USB updater using my first method I linked to before. It should be pretty quick & easy to do if I wrote it up correctly. No worries, some early UEFI capable systems have very poor UEFI implementations. Some still do which is ashame because in some ways it is an improvement over legacy booting. You need to install "smartmontools" in order to get the "smartctl" app. FYI, If you install "apt-file" you can use it to search for the package a command belongs to like: "apt-file find smartctl"

HWTech · ‎01-07-2019

You can access the BIOS boot menu on many HP systems by pressing the "ESC" key during POST. This may present you with a boot menu, or it may present you with other options, one of which should be a boot menu. You may want to go into the BIOS/UEFI and change the timeout setting to give you a little more time to react as newer system don't give you much time press these special keys. If "Esc" is not the correct key, then check HP's website. After you install the newly cloned SSD, if you are unable to boot, then you may have to enter the BIOS/UEFI settings and create a new UEFI boot entry for Windows and make it the default. If you cannot make it the default, then you will need to use the BIOS boot menu to test it. After you confirm everything is working fine, you should delete the original Windows boot option so it doesn't cause any problems and should make your new entry the default. If your system doesn't allow manually creating a new boot entry, then run the Windows installer and click the "Repair this computer" link in the lower left and find the "Automatic Startup Repair" option (under Advanced->Troubleshooting or this might be reversed) and see if it can create a new Windows boot entry in your system's NVRAM.

HWTech · ‎01-07-2019

I would suggest you use Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC) to clone the drive as it does a much better job than Disk Utility. Another option is to do a clean install of OSX on the SSD, then on first boot to the new drive allow it to use Migration Assistant to transfer your User Folder, apps & settings to the new drive. If you have proprietary software which requires license keys to activate then you will need them to reactivate the software after the migration, otherwise CCC may be your better option. Since you are using the APFS filesystem, you can boot your system using Internet Recovery Mode so you don't need to create any install media. Just make sure to use Disk Utility to erase the SSD before installing OSX or using CCC. You can do all of this with the new SSD connected externally. Once the installer reboots your system, you may need to manually do an Option Boot to select the external drive to boot (it will be the orange icon) to finish the installation & migration.

Date Registered	‎09-05-2017 11:03 AM
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Re: Feedback Thread Firmware M0CR070 for the MX300

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