XPS 8910, new NVMe M.2 SSD, clone

Question

Hi, hoping for some clarification here.

So I'm trying to clone my 1TB HDD to a 500GB 970 EVO SSD, but I have some confusion in my little brain.

The most important thing to me is, I want to CLONE, not do a fresh install of WIN10. I have been very good at keeping this thing clean, and I really don't want to start all over with apps, settings, etc. I will be using Macrium Reflect to do the job.

So-o-o, what I did first was create an IMAGE, and stored it on a 256 GB USB stick. Next created Rescue Media through Macrium, and I also have a Win10 bootable USB on hand.

I then took a 640GB HDD to use as a test subject, and used Macrium to CLONE the 1TB HDD. I figured if his worked, I would go ahead and repeat the process using the SSD. I cloned ALL partitions, in the same order.

Next shut down, disconnected the 1TB (original) HDD, and tried to boot from the 640 GB, with no success. I did NOT change the SATA connections, FWIW.

All of my research seems to be telling me that I have to disable Secure Boot in the BIOS, but I'm a little concerned that if I do that, and things don't work out, I could potentially not even be able to boot from the original 1 TB HDD. It seems I also won't be able to use either my Rescue or even bootable WIN10 USBs unless I turn Secure Boot off.

Are my fears of turning Secure Boot off, and maybe back on later, founded in any sort of reality? Am I right in my assumptions?

BTW, BIOS is 1.1.11, the latest.

Vic384 · Accepted Answer

@dannoc76 I am happy that Macrium worked for you.

PCH is Platform Controller Hub. Here is a wikipage on the subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_Controller_Hub

This poster also had an issue loading the NVMe driver because of RAID.

If you are not comfortable running the procedure to switch from RAID to AHCI you can just leave it alone. You can do without Samsung Magician but to use all the features of Magician (firmware update, over provisioning, etc.) I think you need to switch to AHCI. Instead of Magician you could run CrystalDiskInfo. Firmware can be updated using a USB flash drive. If you decide to run the procedure to switch to AHCI and for some reason it fails remember your 1TB HDD is your backup and you could clone to the SSD again.

If you wish to use the 1TB HDD as additional storage you have to reinitialize the disk. If you don't you will need to boot using the F12 Boot Menu to boot to the SSD. You can use DiskPart to reinitialize the HDD. Here is the procedure after booting from the SSD. https://macrorit.com/partition-magic-manager/initialize-disk-gpt-mbr-from-cmd-diskpart.html

Use the 'list disk' command to determine the number of the HDD. Use the 'select disk #' command to select the disk to initialize.

dannoc76 · Answer

If it was as relatively painless as that, I'll take it!

Vic384 · Answer

It appears that you followed the proper procedure, but since your target disk (640GB) is smaller than your source disk (1TB) did you use the 'Cloned Partition Properties' option to adjust the size of the C: partition on the target disk?

dannoc76 · Answer

Yes, I did use the 'Cloned Partition Properties' option. C: drive only had about 225GB used, so plenty of room. I'm actually trying the same process again right now, it's a little over half done. Using the 640 GB HDD as the target drive again.

I guess my REAL question is in regards to Secure Boot, and RAID (default BIOS setting, not sure exactly where). My suspicion as to why the 640 HDD wouldn't boot is that somehow Secure Boot picked up some difference between it and the original. I also suspect that if I turned Secure Boot off, the 640 HDD would boot just fine, which I also suspect would happen with the SSD.

My concern is that, if neither work (which IS a possibility), I would not be able to get back to the original configuration. In other words, turn Secure Boot off, be unable to boot to either of the new drives, and then go back to the original 1 TB HDD, either with or without Secure Boot. I really don't care what happens with either the 640GB or the SSD; I need to KNOW I can get back to the same starting point with the 1 TB HDD if things go haywire.

I, like many others right now, am working from home, and if I lose this current HDD I'll be . Not looking forward to that. Maybe I'm being a bit paranoid, but I've found that computer upgrades and things such as this have a tendency to not work so well the more you need it to.

Thanks for the help.

dannoc76 · Answer

So here's the latest update...

Macrium completed the CLONE operation from 1 TB to 640 GB HDD. According to Macrium, the disks look identical (I can't seem to post an image of it).

1. Shutdown computer

2. Disconnect power and SATA from 1 TB HDD

3. Restart

Problem, no boot. This was on screen...

>> Checking Media Presence......

>> Media Present......

>> Start PXE over IPv4.

>> Start PXE over IPv6.

Then Dell Support Assist, says "No bootable devices"

Choices are Continue, BIOS Setup,Diagnostics.

Tried Diagnostics, it ran a system scan, found nothing amiss. Only real choice at that point was to shutdown.

On restart, it went right to Dell Support Assist, with the same 3 options. This time I chose Continue. The whole process started over.

Next time, it went right into BIOS Setup, but didn't see anything to change other than RAID to AHCI (did not do) or possibly changing Secure Boot (also did not change).

Getting tired of this , I shut the system down and switched locations of the SATA cables. Viola! She booted into Windows on the 640 GB HDD cloned drive.

Just to be clear, the 1 TB HDD was originally connected to SATA 1, while the 640 GB was connected to SATA 3. After cloning, 640 GB would not boot, until I switched it to SATA 1.

Now, onto cloning to my new SSD!

Any thoughts or comments?

Vic384 · Answer

The Dell default is Secure Boot is set the Enabled and SATA operation mode is set to RAID. I left those settings as is when I cloned my 2TB HDD to a 2.5' SSD about 3 years ago and it booted fine without changing the settings. Because my SSD is a Samsung SSD I used Samsung Data Migration software to do the cloning and did not use Macrium Reflect. I think I did switch the SATA  cable for the SSD over to SATA0 after cloning but I don't think that should make a difference as long as you disconnect the HDD. If you don't disconnect the HDD then to boot from the SSD (in your case the 640GB disk) you need to boot using the F12 Boot Menu.

dannoc76 · Answer

Looks like we crossed messages. I was messaging on my laptop while working on the 8910.

Looks like the SSD is the next victim. One thing I'm curious about; I saw someone's post where they said the Samsung software basically wouldn't work unless they changed SATA operation mode to AHCI. Curious. I am installing a Samsung 970 EVO NVMe M.2, if I didn't mention that already.

Thanks for the help, and I'll let you know how the next step works out. Maybe not till tomorrow, though. It's getting late early around here, and the previous cloning took over two hours. Wish me luck!

Vic384 · Answer

@dannoc76 For cloning, Samsung Data Migration software should work. I used it three years ago on an XPS 8910 with SATA operation mode set to RAID. The problem is that Samsung Magician complains and wants SATA operation mode set to AHCI. I switched from RAID to AHCI using the following procedure: http://triplescomputers.com/blog/uncategorized/solution-switch-windows-10-from-raidide-to-ahci-operation/

Note that in the procedure, SATA operation mode is not changed until step 4.

I don't understand why you had to switch SATA ports to get the 640GB disk to boot. Perhaps you had a bad or intermittent connection with the SATA cable and making the switch fixed the problem but that doesn't explain why you were able to clone with a bad connection. It is possible the connection was intermittent and then you could clone. You could have left the 1TB connected and tried the F12 Boot Menu.

dannoc76 · Answer

Thanks for all the help, Vic384. I've found lots of helpful advise from you all over the place here, one of which is in regards to RAID vs AHCI.

Anyway, the cloning (using Macrium) completed overnight. I shut down the system, disconnected all HDDs, and restarted. System booted from the 970 Evo in maybe 10-15 seconds, vs almost 90 seconds before the switch. AWESOME! Everything else is SO much faster!

Downloaded and ran latest Samsung Magician, but the EVO shows as unknown (due to the RAID setting?). I still had the option of running Benchmark, did so and it shows 3346 Read, 2474 Write. Not too shabby!

Now, back to RAID vs AHCI. I found this in the NVM driver documentation, page 4, Samsung_NVMeDriver_InstallationGuide

System Configuration
Windows Operating System shall successfully load the driver only when Samsung NVMe SSD 970 PRO, 970 EVO, 970 EVO Plus, 960 PRO, 960 EVO or 950 PRO is installed to
 PCIe slot directly connected to CPU or
 M.2 or PCIe slot connected to PCH.

However, in the PCH case, Windows Operating System cannot load the driver under following BIOS configurations where
 PCH Storage Configuration is set to “Raid Mode, or
 NAND/Storage Remapping option*” is enabled.

Unfortunately, I don't know what "PCH" is, but I'm guessing it applies to the XPS 8910. I haven't downloaded and installed the Samsung driver yet.

For some reason, I'm hesitant to switch from RAID to AHCI. And yes, I have the links you've previously supplied for the procedure to do so.

Vic384 · Answer

@dannoc76 I am glad everything is working. Enjoy your new M.2 NVMe SSD. I am still puzzled by the problem with initially booting from the 640GB disk, probably just an intermittent SATA cable connection when you went in the disconnect the 1TB disk.

dannoc76 · Answer

Dude, don't you ever sleep?

I went ahead and did the switch from RAID to AHCI, this way Magician works as it should, as does the Samsung driver. Pretty simple process. I actually went through the it twice in order to keep the original 1 TB functional (as AHCI), along with the EVO, at least for now.

I went ahead and ran DISKPART CLEAN command on the 640 GB HDD that I used as my guinea pig. It is now doing time as the recipient of scheduled EVO image full and differential backups using Macrium Reflect.

I want to thank you again for all of your help. It is greatly appreciated.

dannoc76 · Answer

I'm not so sure about that. If I hadn't already wiped out the 640 GB disk, I would experiment with it further. As far as the cable connections are concerned, I was disconnecting at the drive, not the mobo. Both HDDs were also properly mounted in the computer at the time.

One interesting bit of info from the service manual, page 12 System-board components.

4. SATA 6 Gbps for hard drive (SATA1)
5. SATA 6 Gbps for optical drive (SATA2)
6. SATA 6 Gbps drive connector (SATA3)
7. SATA 6 Gbps drive connector (SATA4)
8. solid-state drive slot (M.2 SSD)

Note that item 4 specifies HARD DRIVE, while 6 (where the 640 GB lived while becoming a clone) & 7 both say DRIVE CONNECTOR. Does that mean anything? I don't know. I also have a hard time believing the cloning process would have worked as well if it did if there was a bad connection.

Maybe I'll go mess with it again some time in the future, now that I have my mojo back. If I do, I'll try to remember and let you know what happens if I do.

Vic384 · Answer

I don't think there is a difference between the SATA ports being called HARD DRIVE vs DRIVE CONNECTOR. Note that in the BIOS, the SATA ports are listed as First HDD, SATA ODD, Second HDD, and Third HDD. As far as I know, all the SATA ports are the same, it should not matter which port the drives are connected to and that includes the optical drive. The specs indicate all SATA ports are 6Gbps. In some systems, you connect the optical drive to the slowest port, the 3Gbps port.

There are some that say that the boot drive should be connected to the first SATA port. I have not seen that document anywhere although I think a lot of folks do that as standard practice. I guess you have to make an exception if you have a bootable M.2 drive. If you have more than one boot drive, then you must use the F12 Boot Menu.

XPS Desktops

XPS 8910, new NVMe M.2 SSD, clone

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