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Area 51 R5 - transferring Windows to Samsung 970 EVO Plus M2 SSD
My machine was bought with a hard drive in it, although it was an official refurb and when first sold it actually had a 256Mb M2 SSD in it. Why they took it out and reinstalled Windows to HDD before they sold it again (dragging a very fast machine right down) is anyone's guess.
When I first bought the machine I wasted no time in imaging the hard drive with Macrium Reflect and transferring the installation to a SATA SSD. If I remember correctly, after imaging I unplugged the hard drive and ran Reflect from a USB stick to copy Windows across to the SSD. The transfer worked first time and perfectly.
I thought I'd do the same again with SATA SSD to M2 SSD, so bought a Samsung 970 Evo Plus 500Gb SSD.
Today, I ran Macrium Reflect, imaged my SSD and and copied the install over to the newly fitted and recognised M2. This worked without hitch.
As per a YouTube video I watched I tried leaving both SSD's connected and thought I'd be able to go into the BIOS and change the boot drive to the new M2 drive. In the video the new drive is reassigned to C and the old drive can then be repurposed ( https://youtu.be/CHCENfs87F4?t=732 ) .
I couldn't find an equivalent of 'Boot sequence' in the video above in the R5 BIOS, but used the menu in F12 (the same as I was doing to boot from Macrium USB stick) to change boot drive to the M2 and to cut a long story short the M2 tries to boot (alien head and spinning dot wait screen appears) then blue screens before it gets to the Windows log on screen. This also happens with the SATA drive disconnected leaving the M2 the only drive fitted with a Windows install on it.
As a result I've had to remove the M2 drive to get Windows to boot. Rigjt now it's running fine from SATA SSD again.
Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong? It was so easy from SATA HDD to SSD, but I'm stuck this time...
JOcean
9 Legend
9 Legend
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12.2K Posts
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May 1st, 2021 15:00
After you image or clone the old SSD to the new one did you disconnect the old drive before booting up? You have to shut down the system and disconnect the old drive then boot with only the new drive connected.
RTID75
87 Posts
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May 1st, 2021 15:00
I didn't as the video I linked to shows otherwise, but as I said - I couldn't find an R5 equivalent of 'Boot sequence', and initially let it boot untouched before trying again and changing boot drive to the M2 via F12.
I was a little concerned the M2 drive wouldn't be 'C' if I disconnected the SATA drive before first boot, hence trying to follow the video linked above.
I *think* I've already tried as you suggested as I did a second image transfer booting from the Macrium USB stick to avoid the blue screen with both drives attached, but if I'm honest I've forgotten whether I did try it with the SATA SSD immediately disconnected.
I'll give it one last go with the SATA drive definitely immediately disconnected after image transfer and see what happens.
Vanadiel
6 Professor
6 Professor
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6.4K Posts
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May 1st, 2021 16:00
Something else to try if you have a good backup: Macrium boot repair
I have never used Macrium, but the software package I use for cloning drives has the option that Macrium seems to have, to avoid boot issues.
speedstep
9 Legend
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47K Posts
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May 1st, 2021 16:00
970 is PCI-E GPT and HDD is SATA.
You cant transfer VHS to Beta tape and force feed Beta Tape into the VHS player and it works either.
Samsung has its own Driver for the SSD thats not native to windows.
PCI-E GPT is not Sata MBR
https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/download/tools/
NVMe™ Driver
NVMe™ Driver Installation Guide
* Notice : The driver supports Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10.
Recommended minimum system configuration is Intel Haswell Refresh Processor, 2GB RAM, 50MB free disk space and UEFI Bios v2.3.
* Enhanced security Secure boot should be OFF.
SATA operation should be AHCI
Otherwise you MUST install the F6 intel RST drivers during initial install.
CLONING is not supported by Dell or Microsoft and will cause SSD to be un optimized and written to death very quickly.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-server/backup-and-storage/windows-installations-disk-duplication#
Tesla1856
8 Wizard
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17K Posts
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May 1st, 2021 19:00
@JOcean has the answer. That is the variation with a direct Clone.
Or, you can Image-to-File to external USB HDD.
disconnect the old drive
Install M.2/NVMe SSD (only)
Boot with Macrium USB Recovery Flash-Drive (one-time with F12 boot-menu)
Restore image from external USB HDD.
RTID75
87 Posts
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May 2nd, 2021 08:00
I think my problem lied with not installing Samsung's driver.
I had to use diskpart from command line via the Macrium USB boot drive to select then 'clean' the M2 drive to get around the clash with Windows not booting with both SSD's with Windows installs fitted.
With that accomplished I was able to install the Samsung driver to my SATA drive.
After that I tried Samsung's own data transfer utility, which resulted in a Windows that booted, but on closer inspection with Macrium it hadn't copied all the partitions from the SATA drive.
Another Macrium backup, followed by immediate disconnecting of the SATA drive, then another image transfer with Macrium booted from USB drive and we're all back and working again on the M2 drive!
Thanks for all your hints and help.