u/SiSRT

I have an old HP 6300 MicroTower PC (Intel i5-3470) equipped with a SSD.

In the HP BIOS Setup Utility I accidentally removed the Windows Boot Manager under the "UEFI Boot Sources", saved the config, rebooted and installed windows with an USB-Stick.

Yes, during Windows Setup I can select my SSD and it just installs fine. Until the first reboot. The boot process does not see the SSD - it just won't boot from it. All i have is a blinking cursor. that's it.

If I go into the BIOS, the SSD is always recognized, always.

Very strange thing: if I replace this SSD with another SSD (same SATA connector), I can install Windows on it and it boots from it. But as soon as I put back the original SSD, it won't boot.

Booting from the replacement and checking the original SSD, there are no SMART issues. I can copy onto it, read from - the ssd just works fine - except, it does not show up in the boot order.

• Yes, I have loaded BIOS factory defaults
• Yes, I have removed the CMOS battery for a few minutes and needed to set the time
• Yes, I have loaded a dummy BIOS config from another HP 6300 MicroTower PC

What is wrong?

• the mainboard SATA port is fine (as it boots from another ssd)
• the SSD is fine, as there are no SMART value and it will be recognized from as an internal SSD or an external SSD with an SATA-to-USB encloser
• the USB stick is fine, as I can install windows from it onto another SSD

any help is really appreciated

I have an old but still going strong EliteBook 8440p for the sole purpose to capture old camcorder tapes.

The laptop has only USB 2.0 ports as that chipset QM57 does not support USB 3.0 - fine.

But it has a ExpressCard slot and the Chipset supports PCIe 2.0. So I was wondering if using an ExpressCard with USB 3.0 ports would increase the USB transfer rate higher than just 2.0?

Unfortunately those cards are quite expensive just for a test and then being disappointed.

Thanks