"Boot Device Not Found" Error After Replacing Laptop HDD with an SSD

I recently helped a friend upgrade his older HP laptop (i5-4th Gen CPU) by replacing the hard drive with a Samsung 860 EVO SSD. Upgrade went fine, programs work fine, etc. The OS is the latest Windows 10 version 1909 (Home).

But every day or so, the computer either boots with this error message or crashes and displays the same message:

Boot Device Not Found.
Please install an operating system on your hard disk.
Hard Disk (3F0)

The laptop will recover with just one or two restarts, but the error will pop up again every day or so.

I did the original install doing by cloning the new drive with the Samsung transfer software. But also have since done a clean install which resulted in the same error.

Not sure where to go from here.

Thank you for the suggestions, but I've done both (several times!) (Even tried a different SSD--same result.)

There are log collectors used in another forum room.
Run V2 and upload results into this thread:

BSOD - Posting Instructions

Caledon Ken said:

Anychance drive is connected with thin ribbon cable. I would check end not connecting to SSD.

Yes, it is connected with a small, thin ribbon cable. It seemed like it was loose, so I re-seated it and stuck a little sticky putty on it. It has an insulated wire running to the SSD which seems pretty flimsy, so I suppose the wire inside could be damaged. At some point maybe I'll have to order a replacement to rule out that possibility.

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zbook said:

There are log collectors used in another forum room.
Run V2 and upload results into this thread:



BSOD - Posting Instructions

V2 log collector 1.07.zip

When available please upload each V2 and DM for troubleshooting.

zbook said:

When available please upload each V2 and DM for troubleshooting.

Thanks, I'll try to do it as soon as I can. It may be a week or so before I have access again to the laptop.

rchris said:

I recently helped a friend upgrade his older HP laptop (i5-4th Gen CPU) by replacing the hard drive with a Samsung 860 EVO SSD. Upgrade went fine, programs work fine, etc. The OS is the latest Windows 10 version 1909 (Home).

But every day or so, the computer either boots with this error message or crashes and displays the same message:

Boot Device Not Found.
Please install an operating system on your hard disk.
Hard Disk (3F0)

The laptop will recover with just one or two restarts, but the error will pop up again every day or so.

I did the original install doing by cloning the new drive with the Samsung transfer software. But also have since done a clean install which resulted in the same error.

Not sure where to go from here.

That sounds to me like a bad SSD. I am piecing together a Dell Inspiron 5675 (long story). Bought an ADATA NVMe SSD on EBAY to put in it and it would only recognize and boot from the SSD about 1/3 of the time. I tried the SSD in another computer and the same thing, only recognized and booting about 1/3 of the time. So, I bought another SSD off EBAY, Toshiba I think. That SSD would not be recognized at all in either computer. Finally bought a Samsung SSD from Amazon and everything is perfect with it.