Optiplex 7050 cannot clone HDD to SSD without recovery mode errors

Hi,

I am trying to clone a Seagate 500GB HDD to a Crucial 500GB P2 NVMe, and no matter what I do I am constantly running into errors.

If I use the Acronis software from Crucial, I get an error "unable to lock the disk" when it looks for the destination disk, this on a blank P2.

If I use Macrium Reflect 8, no matter what I do, when I reboot, it goes into recovery mode. It makes no difference if I leave the Seagate connected, disconnect it, or use the Fix windows boot problem option from the bootable Macrium rescue disk, it always goes into recovery mode.

Is it something with the 7050 BIOS that's interfering?

I'd like to troubleshoot the 2nd scenario, Macrium.

Let's see -

RAID is off, AHCI is on, booted into safe mode before the clone and with the P2 installed to make sure it would boot off the HDD.

Crucial NVMe driver is installed, before the clone.

Then I clone it using bootable Macrium rescue USB stick.

After the clone, I absolutely have to restart, with the HDD still cabled, into F12, and explicitly select the Crucial as the boot device. Let it boot up, go into Disk Management, verify it's booted from the Crucial, and then shut down.

Only then can I disconnect the Seagate HDD, power it up, and it will successfully boot to the NVMe.

if I do anything different from the above, such as shut down right after the clone and disconnect the HDD, or run Macrium's Fix Windows boot problem - it will go into recovery mode next boot.

Any idea what's going on here?

Thanks in advance.