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XPS 8930, new boot 1TB M.2 drive
Hi,
I wanted to upgrade my original 256G M2 boot drive to something larger. I purchased a 1 TB M.2 Crucial drive and successfully cloned my original drive using Macrium and a PCI M2 card. I've seen different advice about how to change my boot drive, and none of the procedures seem to match the Bios options I'm seeing in my system. Ideally, I'd like to take the new drive off the PCI card and insert it into the M2 slot on the motherboard so that it is the new C:. Simple question: How do I do that? I can do it physically, obviously, but what changes do I need to make in the Bios?
Thanks
Jeremy
Vic384
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June 16th, 2022 16:00
@JeremySC If you have successfully cloned your boot drive then you just physically remove the 256 GB M.2 and replace it with the 1 TB M.2. No changes to the BIOS should be made. Windows Boot Manager should be Boot Option #1 in the BIOS and should remain that way. The BIOS should detect the new M.2.
SATA Operation in the BIOS may be set to RAID which is the Dell default and your new M.2 may work fine with that setting, but I believe Crucial recommends the AHCI setting. Because Windows was installed in RAID mode you cannot just change the setting in the BIOS to AHCI, you have to run the procedure described here. Note that the BIOS setting is not changed until step 4.
Tesla1856
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June 17th, 2022 09:00
That's a long way to go just to be able to clone M.2/NVMe to M.2/NVMe (and then it doesn't work for you anyway).
You could have just created a (verified) image-file to external drive (and then restored it to "bare metal"). That's how I use it on all systems here.
Macrium Reflect Free is designed for imaging/restore of same-or-close hardware ... and in same config. Only the higher paid versions support deployment to new hardware. Not sure any truly support what you are trying ( changing boot drives around ).
Clones are often flakey (just like in Science Fiction). If it doesn't work, you just clean-install Windows and move on with your life.
XPS_Man
5 Practitioner
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June 17th, 2022 22:00
You have already done 90% of the job
Just remove your old SSD and install the new one in it's place, No changes in BIOS required.
BIOS will automatically switch to next available boot option.