Windows 10: Trying to Clone SSD Drive to another SSD Drive

Okay,

So here's the thing. Laptop with small (16GB) Optane SSD & 1TB Seagate HDD failed. Retailer tried to repair, repair failed. Retailer replaced machine with new (lower spec) machine that only has m.2 NVMe PCIe sockets.

Bought a small 'Proof-of-concept' SSD to check the 'spare' m.2 socket could access a SSD as a drive.

Have determined that BOTH m.2 NVMe PCIe sockets work and can access the SSDs (read & write).

Problem is this. I'm using Acronis True Image to clone the OEM SSD (a 256GB drive) to another SSD. However, Acronis can't see the OEM drive - only the new empty drive.

So, OK, I bought a USB to m.2 NVMe PCIe adapter.

Put the new SSD in the external USB adapter, ran Acronis again - STILL can't see the internal SSD.

Disk Management sees both disks, so does 'This PC'.

Before someone suggests taking out the OEM SSD - that isn't an option. Laptop is 3 weeks old and the SSD has an anti-tamper sticker on the retaining screw. Removing that would invalidate the laptop's 3 year warranty, which is something I'm not prepared to do.

Any ideas what's going on?

Will try to post images of Disk Management and 'This PC' (once I've resized the images to get over the 680px-wide limitation of the forum).

Laptop is Lenovo IdeaPad S540-12IWL 8GB RAM running Windows 10 Home / 1909 (OS Build 18363.657)

Thanks in advance,

Art

:)

 

Moving to SSD. Clone or not to clone?

Part of how I keep my SSD fast is to clone it to a platter drive, then clone back. You just want to make sure that you are only cloning teh used space, and not the empty space.


So, again, I isntall Windows to the ssd. Clone to platter drive, then clone back.

I am not sure why, but if I do not do the clone step, the drive's speed, and windows booting, decreases substantially within a week or so.

I am using a Corsair F60 SSD and a Western Digital 500AAKS as drives, and using the free version of Acronis that WD provides, if any of that matters. I am not sure, at this point.

 

boot from cloned ssd installed on cd drive

I have to assume that the cloning software you used made the SSD bootable. You can only confirm that by checking the software's documentation and confirming that you followed the procedure correctly.

I also assume that you have made a system image of the HDD. I also assume that you made a Recovery drive or a System repair disk unless you have an installation disk [which can also do the same job]. You will need this if the cloning has not worked correctly
and you need to restore your system.

The BIOS might not be capable of booting from a SSD/HDD in the CD bay. Whilst that can be a convenient location for doing the cloning, you will almost certainly need to remove the original HDD and fit the SSD
in its bay instead.

Put the old HDD in a USB enclosure so that it can be used as a storage drive but do not connect it to the computer while you are trying to get the SSD to boot. Bootable HDDs & SSDs have "signatures" that the system will look for during booting and finding
multiple signatures will confuse it & probably stop it booting at all.

If, when the SSD has proved itself, you decide to fit the old HDD in the CD bay as an onboard additional storage drive then you will need to format it first so hold off on this until you are completely confident in the SSD.

- - - - - - - - -

When I did this job last year, I used Acronis TI to "clone" to the SSD. Actually, what I did was use Acronis TI to restore a system image to the SSD. That is, in effect, cloning it but I thought that it would be a more reliable way of doing it as TI system
images are tolerant of changed hardware being found.

• I put the SSD in the CD bay to do the image restoration.
• I removed the old HDD and put the SSD in its bay.
• The SSD booted correctly.
• After a while, I reformatted the old HDD and fitted it in the CD bay as an onboard additional storage drive.

Best of luck,

Denis

 

Moving to SSD. Clone or not to clone?

I kinda agree with you, but on a wholr, do not. While I have done things a bit differently than this specific situation, by installing Windows directly to the SSD, and cloning after, my testing shows that there are no issues doing this, very little that can go wrong, provided your system is stable.

There are certain features that must be disabled in this situation, like auto defrag and such, but even with a fresh install to the SSD, you need to take steps to ensure that you SSD performs properly, regardless of how the data got there.

Arming yourself with a bit of knowledge can go a long way.

Installing the latest chipset driver, and the RST Tools, will ensure optimal performance of the SSD. but rather than taking my advice, I suggest the OP takes a look here:

http://blogs.dirteam.com/blogs/sand...7-and-ssds-to-clone-windows-or-reinstall.aspx

Installing The SSD - Install A Solid State Drive In Your Notebook | Tom's Hardware

Keep in mind, also, Digibucc, that many retail drives include software and such that very specifically is to be used to ttranser the OS from an existing mechanical drive to an SSD, and if there really was alot fo issues stemming from the cloning process, they would not have packages like that, simply to eliminate tech support costs. While not the optimal option, cloning is NOT a bad thing, as long as you take the nessecary steps.