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December 16th, 2018 10:00

Area-51 R3, adding second SSD

Hello,

I have an SSD as my boot drive and a HDD for storage in my Alienware Area-51 R3. My 240GB SSD is nearly full, so I bought a new 520GB SSD to replace my boot drive. I'd like to copy an image of the smaller SSD to the larger one and keep the smaller one for additional storage (if possible). Where can I find instruction on steps do this?

9 Posts

December 17th, 2018 08:00

I searched You Tube and learned about TinyTools. It was free and did a great job cloning my original SSD to the new SSD. I had thought that the original SSD and HDD were on the same SATA cable. But when I tried disconnecting the SATA cable to see if the new SSD would boot, I found the original SSD still online as C:. So, I had to find the C: drive. I found a video on YouTube that explained how to remove the NVIDIA GeForce XT 745 video card: Just remove the two screws and lift it straight up (it is attached to a riser board which plugs into the mother board). After removing the HDD and finding that the SSD was not underneath, I was stumped. Then I looked closely at the video card and found there was a Samsung 256GB M.2 SSD mounted the riser board. I didn't know how to turn it off, so I just removed it by removing the screw and lifting it off of the riser board. 

So, new question: how do I wipe the M.2 SSD so I can use it as additional storage for PhotoShop and LightRoom? 

8 Wizard

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17K Posts

February 14th, 2019 18:00

I use Macrium Reflect for Imaging/Cloning.

https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware-Desktops/Aurora-R7-M-2-NVMe-bootable-options/td-p/6073037

To completely erase the old SSD (and remove even the hidden and OEM partitions) ... I suggest a "DiskPart clean" of the drive (but be careful with that command).

 

2 Intern

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1.8K Posts

February 14th, 2019 18:00

I don't use MiniTool by PartitionWizard, but the Manual has those tools

I'd probably Delete Partitions, then format them afterwards, or try Wipe Disk section (photo) Clean Disk / Wipe / Delete All Partitions etc; having never used that software I'd play around in there since many sections of their Manual otherwise accomplish the same thing (delete all partitions & erase / format drive);

I generally use Windows Disk Management &/or Command Prompt to do same; however, if an OS is installed, generally Disk Mngmnt will not delete all partitions, where CmndPrompt (Clean Disk) will --> play w/ MiniTools, do some reading & see what happens; step-by-step instructions will have to come from a member familiar w/ that software

You will want to back up your new SSD of course, as in backup your Windows install on something in case of need for recovery later

edit: I didn't see Tesla answer b4 I started to type & post here --> DiskPart is part of CmndPrompt I linked to

edit: if your SSD is on a riser card, it is an X51 R3, not an A51. The M.2 SSD (size of a stick of bubblegum) is generally considered (a fraction) faster than a basic 2.5" SSD, where next time u may look at 512 M.2 SSD as your boot drive (Samsung 970 EVO / Pro etc)

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