Razer Blade 14 (2014) with New Crucial M500 480GB Not Booting

Hi guys,

I'm in a bit of a bind so I need some help. I've got a new Crucial M500 480GB (http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-M500-480GB-6Gbps-Internal/dp/B00HBKM6UO) and installed it in my Razer Blade 14 (2014).

I managed to run the Razer Blade recovery USB and everything installed fine but now the system isn't booting. I played around a bit with the BIOS setting, switching from IDE to AHCI to RAID and the only mode that 'allowed' me to see the drive was in IDE and that was only in the password setting. Any other settings render the drive invisible, thus the system not booting. My n00b questions are as below:

1. Did I brick my (precious) M.2 SSD (not even sure if it's possible)
2. If I didn't - how do i properly do a clean install on this new SSD and booting it properly too (I still have the original SSD with the Win8.1 deactivated)
3. Even if I did - how to do I fix this?

PS: I found a post by hfm (http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-review-swapping-instructions-cloning.771316/) about how to go about this but I don't have the necessary hardware (software I can get). Is there a chance I can this done? I have access to an IT department that can do some favors for me but I'll need to let them know what to do.

Any help is appreciated (not looking forward to opening the chasis again if I can)

Thanks in advance guys!

 

Is odd that the recovery USB didn't work. Try again from scratch. Does the bios at least see the drive connected?

 

I suggest you create the WinPE bootable recovery USB key with Macrium Reflect from @hfm 's guide, and boot with the USB key to see if it recognizes your M500.

 

@hfm the BIOS only sees the drive when I change the SATA confit to IDE, and that is only detected under the password config and not boot menu. AHCI & RAID renders it completely invisible in both boot and password menu. I can't rerun this as the drive isn't available in the boot menu via F12.

@wawawa thanks for the suggestion. Would macrium be able to do this or i need to buy it?


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You just need to be able to see the USB recovery flash drive to try to recover again.

 

Hi so via WinPE I can see the drive with all of its partition. I used the fix boot problem and the laptop managed to restart into the SSD running smoothly. However post me restarting the system goes back to the old state. It seems the fix isn't permanent. This is what I did:

1. Selected Fix Boot Problems from the upper left option
2. I had to manually select the path so I typed in "C:\Windows" and this round the software auto detected the disk (Crucial) and the OS
3. It did its work and all went well but upon reboot the blade couldn't find the disk again. Re-ran the boot and repeated step 2.
4. However this time it couldn't detect C:\Windows so I typed this in and crossed my finger. WinPE ran smoothly and I managed to boot again
5. Upon restart I end up with the same issue where the system isn't booting and I can't see the drive on the bios again but WinPE can see it.

Help?


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Reset system bios to factory defaults, maybe something is set incorrectly.

 

When you formatted your M500, did you partition it with GPT?
Somehow the bios doesn't recognize your drive as bootable.

 

@wawawa the partitioning was done by the Razer Blade restore USB stick


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Hi, another development here where the fix doesn't seem to stick post shutdown. If I keep it in a restart the changes seem to work. Feels like I gotta use WinPE everytime I shut down and restart. There's nothing wrong with the windows just doesn't seem to boot. BIOS setup has been restored to default btw.


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Here's a silly question, when I first got the SSD I just popped it directly without formatting and all. Should I have first partitioned it and then use it? I'm trying to get a hold of a m.2 enclosure to hopefully clone the old drive to the new one. I'm sure it is related to an earlier answer about partitioning it via a MBR or GPT method


Typed by thumbs

 

Hi guys

This is what I'm seeing. Those 4 partitions are active and viewable on WinPE on AHCI config. Hope this will give you an idea of the setup.


Typed by thumbs

 

I notice all of your partitions say (None). I think you need to at least assign C: to your primary drive.

 

hi, but that wouldn't fix the issue of the drive not being detected tho? Anyways think I might have overdone it. Will run a recovery again


Typed by thumbs

 

Hmmm now even the recovery stick can't detect the drive. I've also tried using a windows 8 recovery USB with the repair option and it didn't work


Typed by thumbs

 

Right. I managed to get command prompt working. What should I do to fix this?


Typed by thumbs

 

Hi guys, so I did a bit more work but no results still. I manage to boot into a Win8 USB stick and cleaned out the partitions and tried to do a re-install:

1. Used the Win8 installation tool to clean out all partitions
2. Then select "New" so the installer creates the necessary partitions, I end up having 4, the 4th being the one where the OS is usually installed
3. BUT windows says it can't install on the 4th as the disk controller isn't enabled.
4. I took a chance and continue with the installation.
5. Everything went smoothly but again, i end with the situation where i lose the bootable 'session' if I ever shut down.

 

Try using command line in winpe recovery drive you created to run diskpart and clean the m500. Make sure you are selecting the correct disk as active so you don't accidentally clean the recovery USB.

Then reset bios to factory default and try recovering with the Razer recovery USB again with a clean SSD.

 

Hi hfm. I just did that via this guide here as i was researching on UEFI - https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn336946.aspx. I followed the instructions to manually wipe and convert the drive to GPT. Didn't work just now but I'm gonna try again. Cross your fingers for me.

 

FYI that didn't work still. I don't feel there's an issue with the SSD or the laptop. Gonna research more. Else I might need to brief a Razer engineer somewhere to help me.

Update: or cloning it. M.2 USB 3 enclosures are hard to find.

 

Maybe instead of using the Razer Recovery key, you should try pop your old drive back in, create a backup image file with Macrium Reflect (not cloning, but backup). Then put your new drive in and restore the image file to the new drive.

 

You can just follow the instructions in my thread for that one.

 

Hey guys. Thanks for the support and ideas so far. I did what both you mentioned and still ended up with the blue screen BCD error. I used diskpart to list the volumes and somehow that SSD is not listed as a volume. I'm trying to find out what this means. Could it be a faulty SSD?


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Sounds like a bad SSD in my opinion. Restoring from USB key is pretty simple.

 

Thanks man. Just spoke to the shop they're gonna get one. Btw anyone knows a Razer Blade 14 tech guy that might be able to help?


Typed by thumbs

 

Ok. I repeated the steps again and didn't work.
1. Repeated HFM's steps
2. Screen of the results

3. Booted normally

4. Upon reboot I end up with the issue of the BIOS not seeing the drive (BIOS is on default setting).

5. End up with the same problem where upon shutdown BIOS doesn't pick it up.

I'm gonna stop working on this until I get a new SSD. Meantime I'm gonna research around for different solutions, think it could be related to the GPT setup


Typed by thumbs

 

That is strange, it seems like the partition table is being modified when you boot or reboot for some reason. Or somewhere in between.

The original SSD still works fine?

 

Hey, you're right. Odd that I can see Ye C drives.

Ye original one still works. I managed to find a local Razer tech support and met him (nice chap). He did say the Blade 14 only supports a limited range of SSDs. I am using the right SSD so wondering if it's:
1. a bad SSD
2. Bad BIOS firmware

I'm just gonna stick to the old one still the vendor comes back to me with a replacement piece


Typed by thumbs

 

There's zero reason why it shouldn't work with ALL M.2 SATA SSD's. If by limited range he means M.2 PCIe SSD's then yes, those are unsupported and do not work.

 

Well I have the same exact SSD that HFM used. The mystery continues


Typed by thumbs

 

I have a Micron M600, not a crucial M500. It should still work, Crucial is actually Micron's consumer division. Unless they are blocking it in software somehow.. What version of the system bios do you have? Also if you can get into Windows, make sure you have the most up to date firmware for the M500.

 

Hey ye the firmware is MU5. I've also checked on a few sites the M500 is compatible with Razer Blade 14. The unit is kept up to date with the synapse


Typed by thumbs

 

Ahh. I wasn't sure synapse updated the bios, I don't think I've gotten a bios update since I've had the unit. I think I'm on 2.24..

 

Mine's 2.27


Typed by thumbs

 

Synapse doesn't update the BIOS it seems, as I know there's BIOS updates out there. I think I even talked about it in a different thread with RazerCS. Razer keeps BIOS updates close to the chest, and I think they'll only do it if it's absolutely necessary. They don't just throw the latest BIOS for download on their site like most other notebook manufacturers do. I expect they don't want people updating the BIOS unless there's a specific problem they are trying to solve.

I'd love to see the changelog from 2.24 to 2.27 to see what they changed and why.

 

Is this what you're using @hfm?


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That's it.

 

Thanks. Gonna try to sell the crucial and get his


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So here's the update - got the SSD, stuck it in immediately, didn't do any format whatsoever as I wanted Macrium to handle it. Restored image and I'm greeted with a properly working & BOOTING drive.

Sad thing i couldn't expand the volume so I've got two drives now. Still, I'm happy with the fact that it works. Thanks for the help guys.

Now, who needs a crucial M500


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