Asus Laptop SSD Issues

Hello everyone,

I am currently attempting to swap out the 500GB hard disk in my Asus x550CA laptop (Win 8.1) to a 120 GB PNY Optima SSD. To do so, I have followed exactly the directions on this page:


How to Upgrade Your Laptop’s Hard Drive to an SSD

I did not have an external enclosure handy, so I shucked one of my external drives and have been using the included USB adapter. It seems to work fine.

After following all of the instructions on the page, I turned the laptop on with the ssd installed and the BIOS refused to recognize the drive in the boot selection regardless having turned on csm (though i'm not entirely sure what that is or does, so perhaps I've made an error here), or using default BIOS settings. When in the BIOS, if I select the sata option, I can see the drive listed, so I know that it recognizes it. I have also tried formatting the disk as just a plain empty volume with Window's Disk Manager without success.

Reading around, I saw one suggestion to update the BIOS, which I was successfully able to do with the instructions from the Asus website. Though my BIOS had been updated, the drive was still not recognized in the boot order.

To verify that the drive was functional, I connected the SSD via usb without the original hard disk or any other media attached and it was recognized in the boot menu (though I did not attempt to boot from it).

Further reading suggested that another approach would be to create a USB recovery disk on a 16 GB flash drive and install Windows from both that and the recovery image I made as part of the steps in laptopmag's guide. Although the ssd is listed among the drives to exclude or not during that process, I get the following error about 1 second after I attempt the process:

"No disk that can be used for recovering the system disk can be found....etc...error 0x80042412"

The original Hard Disk still boots even after being swapped repeatedly with the SSD

I am beginning to wonder if my laptop is simply incompatible with an SSD.

I am unsure of what to do at this point and would really appreciate some guidance. Thank you for your time, anyone who reads this.

Edit: an update from another thread on another forum:

When I replace the HDD with the SSD, it immediately puts me into the BIOS when I have default BIOS settings enabled. With Launch CSM and Launch PXE OpROM enabled and secure boot control disabled, it immediately kicks me into this screen:

http://imgur.com/C3HfOTj

In the Bios, the following appear (without anything but the ssd connected):

http://imgur.com/Sm9aifW

There is no disc in the DVD drive and attempting to boot from Realtek PXE just gets the black screen again. I know that the BIOS is recognizing the existence of the disk because in the Sata Configuration tab it give me this:
http://imgur.com/YvXASYQ
But when I connect the SSD via my USB Sata controller, it does show up properly in the boot list.

 

I don't think it is anything to do with the SSD. Your problems lie with the extra security introduced with Windows 8.

I'm moving this thread to the Asus forum where, I hope, someone familiar with jumping through the right hoops to install a new drive on a recent Asus notebook can give you the correct guidance.

John

 

You should also have Hard Drive BBS Priorities listed there also. That being gone is a red flag; it means you can't configure your storage drive boot options/priority. This may be why you can't boot from any mass storage device.

Do you recall deleting that by accident at any point?

You can see whether resetting the BIOS to optimal defaults brings your hard drive BBS priorities option back or not. The option to reset everything should be under "Save & Exit."

 

I did not delete them at all. I've reset the BIOS multiple times without success, as well as flashing it to the newest version.

And I have been able to boot from my original hard disk that came with the

 

johndotsun - We are sorry to hear about the difficulties you have been having installing the SSD on your notebook and we will do our best to assist you. Are these the steps you attempted?

1. Enter the BIOS setup menu by tapping the F2 key when powering on.
2. Switch to ""Security"" and set ""Secure Boot Control"" to Disabled.
3. Switch to ""Boot"" and set “Launch CSM” to Enabled.
4. Press F10 to save and exit.
5. Press and hold ESC key to launch boot menu when the notebook restarts.
6. The Drive should be displayed in which you would like to boot from

If this issue is still there please email us at [email protected] with your serial number for further assistance. Thank you.

 

After the operations in that last post by Asus failed to work, I contacted their customer support. They said that effectively I do not have the ability to configure my BIOS to boot from a solid state. As to why, I have no idea.

Thank you for your help everyone that posted. For anyone Googling this issue:

The BestBuy version of the x550ca does not seem to be capable of taking an SSD.

 

Ew, that's just terrible.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I agree. This wasn't labeled anywhere on the box or online as far as I can tell. This is my 3rd Asus laptop and the other two were great. This one, low end though it is, is also pretty good except for the slow HDD. This will have a significant impact on deciding who makes my next laptop.