Can`t get my laptop to boot from m.2 SSd instead of old HDD

Hi fams, so basically today I recieved my order for my 240 Gb M.2 SSD, all nice and fancy. Everything alright with the installation, I own an 2018 HP OMEN-15, removed the battery, installed the ssd, cloned OS to ssd via Macrium Reflect, shut down the laptop, removed the battery again, removed the connection pin for the hdd, booted up right away from the ssd, then I went through reconnecting the pins for the HDD( didn`t format it because I have something on the C drive, some music plugins that I don`t really want to lose) but this time, it booted from hdd instead of ssd. I pressed F9 to open the boot order from bios, went on efi, selected the long name with pci then selected boot and it booted again from ssd but everytime i restart my laptop it boots by default from hdd. Any tips on how to get the ssd to be the default booting device without having to format my hdd? Thank you in advance!

You need to use the old XP trick of telling it which OS is the correct one, if it ignores your BIOS settings. You DID change your BIOS, right?

Sounds like you need to go into UEFI setup and change the boot priority order. It's set to boot from SATA first. When the HDD is disconnected, it moves on down the list and finds the SSD to boot from. Reconnect the HDD and it finds it first because it is likely at the top of the list.

essenbe said:

@NavyLCDR, could it be that because he cloned it, both disks have the same disk ID? Would using the Macrium recovery and 'Fix Boot' help?

Doesn't seem to be a problem because they can manually select the SSD to boot from in the boot override menu.