Top positive review
4.0 out of 5 starsNot plug and play, but not difficult once you know the technique
Reviewed in the United States on September 17, 2018
I have an HP Z600 computer. I had to update the BIOS in order for the Samsung Magician Software to recognize the new drive. But I still couldn't see it in Windows Explorer since it wasn't formatted. Took a while to discover the fix:
In Windows 10, open Windows Explorer, click THIS PC from the left column, then click MANAGE from the upper menu. A new window will open called Computer Management. In the left column, click DISK MANAGEMENT. The new drive should appear there. Since it hasn't been formatted, it doesn't show up in Windows Explorer just yet. The new drive should say "unallocated".
Right click on the new drive from the menu below. Select NEW SIMPLE VOLUME. A new window titled Welcome To The New Simple Volume Wizard. Click NEXT. Don't change any of the disk size or space defaults that show up, click NEXT. In the next window, you can assign a drive letter. Click NEXT. The next window allows you to assign a Volume Label (drive name). I called mine 1TB SSD. Click NEXT. A new window will show you what is about to happen, click FINISH.
In a few moments, the formatting of the new drive will be complete. Open Windows Explorer, your new drive should show up.
Now you can run the Samsung Data Migration software if you are swapping out your primary drive. This will detect the original drive, and the new SSD drive. If you need to pick a different drive to copy, the menu makes it easy. When ready, run the transfer. Mine took about 20 minutes. It then prompted me to shutdown the computer, remove the C drive, and put the SSD in its place. After that was done, I booted the machine and it started just like nothing had changed. The speed improved, and all my programs are working. I kept the older drive as an archive if this one fails.
Hopefully these details will save you a few frustrating hours of getting the new drive to work. It definitely wasn't a plug & play operation, but ultimately was worth the trouble. Took a star off because of the effort to install it.
