T440s CANNOT boot from M.2 SSD

Hello guys, I configured my t440s with a 1T HDD.
I just installed the 128g M.2 SSD and planning to install the system onto the SSD and use the HDD as storage.

However I hit big trouble when installing the system.
I made a system recovery USB and booted from that drive. There is no way to select which drive to install. So I called Lenovo. The technical support said the recovery image will automatically install onto the main 2.5inch HDD.

Fine, I disconnected the HDD and hoping the recovery USB will be smart enough to install the system onto my m.2 SSD.
It worked, kind of. When I relaunch the system from my main 2.5 inch 1TB HDD, I can see the installation is done. Program Files...BLABLABLA all of them are in the m.2 SSD.

However, the laptop JUST CANNOT boot from the SSD. I can see the ssd in the boot list, but it just will not boot.

I have set the boot mode to legacy.
Have I done anything wrong?
Thank you guys!

 

I have a Lenovo Yoga 2 13 that comes with a 500GB HD. It has an empty M.2 2280 slot. I installed a Crucial M550 M.2 128GB SSD. I verified that in the BIOS, the new drive was available on the boot page. Using the free Macriium Reflect Backup program, I saved an image of the 500GB drive. Then I restored that same image to my SSD. When I booted to the BIOS, I selected the SSD as the drive to boot from and the system booted from it. I did not change anything else. I can still boot from both drives.

Going from a large drive to an SSD can be tricky. I had originally shrunk my Windows C drive to create a separate D drive which I use for media storage and image storage. That made it easier to fit all of the HD partitions onto the SSD.

I hope you can use this information.

 

Hey Sean. I have the same setup you do - T440S 1 TB rotating with the 128GB M.2. I did the same thing as ipaqman... I imaged the original Windows 8 partition then restored it to the SSD. I also imaged and restored the SYSTEM_DRV partition as well, which is where the EFI bootloader files reside.

I set the new disk up as a guid partition table (GPT) when partitioning prior to restoring the images. Look at the original partitions for the size you will need for SYSTEM_DRV, I had 260MB FAT32. I used Easus for the partition tool and Paragon Backup and Recovery for the imaging, both are free products for personal use. Easus has a check box for "Optimize for SSD" when creating the partitions.

If you copied over the SYSTEM_DRV loader partition, you'll want to set Startup to either UEFI only or Both (not Legacy only, else it won't see the EFI bootloader). I set mine to Both, with UEFI first. Other than that just set your BIOS startup order to boot first from the M.2. Good luck!