Does my old HP G60 Vista laptop require a BIOS update or a new SSD?

A couple of days ago I cloned my HP G60 Vista laptop hard drive to a Corsair SSD as part of the process of updating it to W7 and hopefully on to W10. The cloning was done using an external caddy via usb. The HP allows boot via usb (F9) but when I tried to boot from the clone the laptop was not detecting the ssd. I installed the ssd inside the laptop but again it was not being detected. I tried Macrium and Casper to do the cloning but it made no difference. Now I initially thought that maybe the BIOS required updating but when I tried an Adata ssd from an Asus laptop the drive was detected and ran both inside the HP and via usb. Could the BIOS cause one ssd to be detected whilst not detecting another ?

Since typing the above I've tried the Corsair ssd in the Asus laptop and it won't boot in that machine either - is this beginning to look more like a suspect drive? If the suspect Corsair is connected via usb to either laptop after it has booted up from its internal drive then it is detected and I can look and read its contents. Its just that neither machine will recognise the Corsair ssd during boot up.

Anyone with any ideas?

Incidentally I've updated the Corsair ssd's firmware via Corsair's SSD Toolbox. Whilst the Toolbox sees the drive, SSD Life Pro does not... On the other hand CrystalDisk tells me the ssd life is 'Good -= 100%'., I suspect these programmes need to be taken with a pinch of salt...

As an aside this confirmed that with a bit of tweaking the old HP will run W10!

I've seen clones "go bad" because not all partitions were included in the clone. All partitions need to be cloned or it won't boot.

spunk said:

The USB Boot is for Installation Media to install Windows 10 from the USB Flash drive. It is not for booting a OS from the USB HDD.
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??? I boot other Operating Systems via USB all the time, i.e. Linux Distros, Windows2Go. I've used both USB HD and thumb drives.

but pretty sure Windows 7 can't

It can, but that doesn't seem to be the issue here.

the laptop was not detecting the ssd. I installed the ssd inside the laptop but again it was not being detected.

Looks like the ssd isn't being detected correctly.

spunk said:

An SSD has to be set to AHCI.

An SSD does not require AHCI mode to be set. Moving from IDE mode to AHCI mode is not a requirement, but it will improve performance.

Consider moving folders/files instead of applications, drivers, etc.

spunk said:

The USB Boot is for Installation Media to install Windows 10 from the USB Flash drive. It is not for booting a OS from the USB HDD.
When you put the SSD into the laptop, Start the computer and press F10 to boot into Setup (Bios). Here go to Advanced and Hard drive Mode. An SSD has to be set to AHCI. If your previous HDD was set to Legacy or CSM then it will not boot if changed to AHCI. Try to Enable Legacy mode.
If that fails, the clone may have not completed correctly.
You cannot Upgrade from Vista to Windows 7. You have to do a Clean Install. Since you are doing that, just do a Clean Install of Windows 10. Be sure to backup your files before wiping the drive and installing Windows 10.

I think you are mixing IDE/AHCI modes with Legacy boot/UEFI/GPT boot. They are not the same thing. You could have your drives under IDE mode and still boot into UEFI/GPT Partitions.