Upgrading SSD in Samsung Notebook

[marcplante]

I have a Samsung NP940X5J-K01US ATIV 9 2014 notebook.

I am trying to upgrade the SSD from 128 GB to a 512 GB transcend model I purchased. I plugged the new drive into a converter to hook it into a USB port to clone the main image using Samsung's cloning utility...no problem. When I went into BIOS to try to set the USB drive as the boot drive, the option to set a different drive than the Windows boot manager is grayed out. In fact the Windows boot manager option is also grayed out.

I turned off fast BIOS per some recommendations, and I turned off secure boot. Neither of these helped. Samsung technical support told me that I had to install the drivers for the new SSD for the Motherboard to recognize it. Could it be that the notebook is built with a barebones OS that doesn't have a range of drivers?

Would the notebook not be able to read and write to the new drive without those drivers?

Might I have a compatability problem.

Thanks,

 

[corkyg]

You are simply making a procedural mistake. After cloning the old OS drive to the new SSD, you should then remove the old drive and put the new SSD in the old one's place. It should then boot right up. After that is done, you can connect the old drive and format it. When you have two OS drives in place with no dual boot selection, you will usually witness confusion and chaos.

 

[marcplante]

Thanks for the pointer.

I understand that I can do that, but i was hoping to confirm the disc from the USB port before actually cracked the case on my wife's shiny, new $1500 ultrabook to install. I would also like to be comfortable in the fact that I can boot from a USB-based rescue disc in an actual emergency. I am readily able to switch my boot source in every other machine I have owned, and I feel vulnerable not being able to rescue this machine, especially since my wife is not a very patient IT user.

 

[Ketchup]

I think this girl has a good method:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0_cMzmRBBk

It reminds me of taking the back cover off my phone. Samsung must really hate screws. It feels a little awkward at first, but if you don't go crazy with pressure it will be fine.

 

[marcplante]

I'm not concerned about the cover. My issue at this point is that I would like to be able to boot from my wife's USB port. I've taken apart m Samsung phone to fix the Power button and microUSB port. There are actually 10 screws in the back of the notebook.

I'm wondering if I can reflash the BIOS even though they don't need upgrading per the diagnostic tool.

Marc

 

[Ketchup]

I'm not concerned about the cover.

I suppse I took you too literally here:

...i was hoping to confirm the disc from the USB port before actually cracked the case on my wife's shiny, new $1500 ultrabook to install

My issue at this point is that I would like to be able to boot from my wife's USB port....

I pulled this off another site:

Set Secure Boot to Disabled
Set BIOS mode to UEFI and Legacy or CSM and UEFI OS
Save settings and reboot
When the Samsung screen comes up again, press F10

Now, I can't guarantee this means that Samsung will offer the option you are looking for, but it should allow you to see all available options.

 

[marcplante]

Didn't try the reboot. I'll have to try that tomorrow morning.
Thanks

 

[Sheep221]

You are simply making a procedural mistake. After cloning the old OS drive to the new SSD, you should then remove the old drive and put the new SSD in the old one's place. It should then boot right up. After that is done, you can connect the old drive and format it. When you have two OS drives in place with no dual boot selection, you will usually witness confusion and chaos.

You can have multiple drives with valid OS boot record. Then it depends on BIOS setting which drive will load OS.

 

[marcplante]

Exactly, but in this instance I can not find and combination of Bios settings that allow me to change the boot disk. I will try the procedure above when I get a chance. I typically don't think of thks as a two step process.

 

[marcplante]

SOLUTION: After going into the boot setup and turning off fast boot restart the computer, then then go BACK into BIOS and the option to change drives is available. I've never had to do that before...Duh! Computer booted fine from the new image. I'll be going into the case during a quiet moment this weekend.

Marc

 

[marcplante]

Completed the physical install this weekend. Though Samsung support indicated that the Mobo would only support a 256G HD (I think it is because that is the largest they sell), I installed a Transcend 512GB M.2 SSD in the original slot with no issues. The cover on this model is very easy to remove. Just remove the screws. No prying apart a tenacious cover that is snapped together. The SSD is under a cover plate just above the battery. remove two screws and pry gently since thecover plate snaps into place. When adding a larger, 2-sided SSD remember to remove the foam bumper sticker that samsung installed below the stock drive to make room for the extra chips.

Also, once I updated the BIOS anrd rebooted, I was able to see three different Boot drives to choose from

1) Acronis boot disc (which was not necessary since the Samsung backup utility worked perfrectly to make me a clone
2) Original SSD
3) Cloned image on larger SSD.

That Samsung ATIV9 is a very nice machine. If you like the MBP form factor and lofty battery life but want a windows unit, definitely look into it. pricey, but worth the money IMO.

Marc

 

[Ketchup]

Good! Thank you for the follow-up.