ROG GL552 WITH Samsung 850 SATA III m2 drive is working: Here's How I Did It

[dbodyguru]

I bought a Asus ROG GL552 and I had major issues trying to install a working SSD into the single m2 slot there.

Note, the GL552 and GL752 series (these are NOT the same as the higher end ROG G7552's!) don't support NVMe drives.

You have to have a SATA III m2 drive.

The ACHI m2 SSD versions don't work on this model (at least for some people, I see reports on this forum).

I bought a Samsung 850 PRO 512 SATA III m2 drive and installed that into the m2 drive on the GL552.

It detected this drive just fine. So at least on CANADIAN or AMERICAN versions of the GL552, Sata III m2 seems to be the working m2, not ACHI or NVMe.

However, using the Samsung Migration software to clone the 1 Terabyte default HDD OS installation to the new SSD did clone to the drive, but the drive would not boot a working version of windows 10. When I tried to boot from the new 512 850 EVO m2 SATA III on the GL552, it would boot into windows, but the desktop would flicker every half second and I could not click on anything.

I tried using Partion Magic, EaseUS TO Backup, Samsung Migration -- and every time I could NOT boot to windows properly on the new m2 SSD drive on the GL552.

Finally, I was able to get it working properly by using Macrum Reflect FREE, cloning from the HDD to the 512 Samsung EVO Sata III m2 SSD, switching the boot load order to the new SSD, and walla, it worked perfectly.

SO USE Macrum Reflect to Clone from your HDD to your SSD if you have the GL552 and you bought a Samsung 850 m2 SATA 3 SSD and you want to boot your OS from the SSD. The OTHER clone software did NOT produce a working installtion from me.

[dbodyguru]

Also, look at the package -- it tells your right on it that it's a SATA III m2. If it says SATA III and it's an m2 drive, that's the one that works with the GL552 (for now anyways, maybe a bios update will fix the ACIH support).

[rewben]

for samsung ssd owners, tbh, the steps are actually very simple when the laptop is still fresh (without anything installed yet). i am using samsung 850 evo sata m.2 ssd. the tools you need are:

1. windows 10 bootable usb stick; and
2. samsung data migration tool.

the steps are:
1. install new samsung 850 evo;
2. boot into stock w10 (hdd) and install samsung migration tool;
3. if your ssd capacity is smaller than c: partition, open disk management and shrink c: to fit into the ssd;
4. run the migration tool to clone the c: partition to ssd (it's a click-click-click-then-wait process);
5. after successful cloning (i have done a number of machines with the same process. flawless), plug in your w10 bootable usb stick, restart the machine;
6. upon boot, press and hold the esc key to bring up boot device menu, choose uefi:usb.stick.name to boot into windows 10 installation;
7. in windows 10 installation screen, press shift+f10 key to bring up administrative command prompt;
8. type diskpart
9. in diskpart prompt, type list disk to show all disks; observe the disk number of the stock hdd (it should be 931gb in capacity; usually it's disk 0)
10. type sel disk 0
11. type clean
12. type exit to get out of diskpart prompt, and then close the command prompt and w10 installation process and reboot;
13. the machine should boot into w10 in ssd directly.

[wqdfe]

why in this page asus say

You are able to fill up the two slots for memory (up to 16GB), an M.2 slot for PCIe SSDs (best for installing the OS onto), and a 2.5" hard drive bay for even more (HDD) or faster (SSD) storage.

https://rog.asus.com/20242016/g-series-gaming-laptops/upgrade-guide-rog-gl552/

and why they mean by mentioning pcie x4 in this page?

http://www.asus.com/ROG-Republic-Of-Gamers/ROG-GL552VX/specifications/

- 1TB HDD 5400 RPM
- 1TB HDD 7200 RPM
- 2TB HDD 5400 RPM
- 128GB SSD (M.2 2280)
- 256GB SSD (M.2 2280)
PCIE x 4 256G

[james11705]

wqdfe wrote:
why in this page asus say


https://rog.asus.com/20242016/g-series-gaming-laptops/upgrade-guide-rog-gl552/

and why they mean by mentioning pcie x4 in this page?

http://www.asus.com/ROG-Republic-Of-Gamers/ROG-GL552VX/specifications/

It's based on the region.... I have a m.2 sata Ssd, got mine from Canada

Sent from my Titan