Windows 10: Upgraded to an NVME drive, cloned my old boot SSD to the new drive, now my Windows...

I did a full PC upgrade last night, mobo, CPU, RAM, GPU, PSU etc. One of the things I upgraded was my boot drive, from a regular SSD to an NVME drive. I used the Macrium Reflect software to clone the SSD with my legitimate, purchased copy of Windows 10 Home to the new drive, and then I booted from it.Now neither drive has an "activated" copy of Windows 10 on it. If I boot from the new NVME drive, Windows isn't activated and running the troubleshooter results in "Windows cannot be activated right now". Even if I boot from the ORIGINAL DRIVE I get the same thing. I purchased this copy of Windo

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Clone present nvme pcie ssd to replacement nvme pcie ssd?

I have a 500GB M.2 2280 NVMe PCIe SSD (boot drive) that I want to replace with a higher capacity M.2 card.

Where do I put the new SSD during the NVMe to NVMe cloning process? My mobo only has one M.2 slot for NVMe SSD's so do I want to use an external adapter for one of the M.2 cards? If so, do you have a recommendation?

If you have solved this issue for your desktop or laptop I would like your advice on if and what extra hardware you needed during the cloning.

please remember that I am dealing with PCIe NVMe drives ONLY. NO Sata is involved except possibly for a connecting cable from the desktop to an adapter. I am experienced with cloning SATA III drives but cloning NVMe is a little
new to me.

Computer: Dell XPS 8920, 32GB ram.

Present SSD: KXG50ZNV512G NVMe Toshiba 512GB

New SSD: CT13049074 Crucial P1 NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD 1TB (or 2TB if available soon) or similar storage device.

Windows 10 Pro for Workstations, version 1809.

 

Use Windows 10 on new SSD while accessing files on "old" drive without cloning

Hi,

I have 2 drives in my system: 1 main drive C) with Windows installed, and 1 storage drive. If I now would like to switch my main boot drive to a newer, faster Nvme drive, do I have to clone my old main boot drive or can I just install Windows on the new Nvme
drive and access all the data on my old main and storage drive without any complications?

Thanks in advance!

 

Missing Boot record (Error code: 0xc000000e) after cloning OS from an NVMe SSD to a SATA SSD

Hi,

I'm having a bit of trouble following what you have done so far, but might suggest a trick that might work..

Your one picture says Disk 0 is the new cloned drive, but is showing a 256gb, not 1tb... Not a big deal, but I just wanted to make sure what I mention is correct..

Will the machine boot from the 256gb SSD with the NVMe and new 1tb removed ?

My impression is that you are now working with the new 1tb SSD that was a clone of the NVMe, and the NVMe that had the new 1tb SSD cloned back to it..

This is my suggestion that has worked for me in the past, but not always.. The way windows lays out the partitions in UEFI machines can be tricky.. Sometimes just 1mb of free space before the first partition can break the deal..

If your machine boots properly from the temp 256gb SSD, try this.. It will require that you make an image of the 256gb SSD and use bootable Macrium to restore part of it to the NVMe.. I chose the NVMe for this because it is a copy of a copy.. The best original
you have is now the new 1tb SSD..

Remove all other drives before attempting to boot with the NVMe after doing this..

After imaging the 256gb SSD, try recovering it's first Recovery partition to the NVMe and see what happens.. If that does not work, try Recovering both the Recovery and EFI.. If that fails, try all three of the partitions prior to the Windows partition..

If you still need to create the bootable media, don't even bother messing with the WinPE\Re version.. It is a real pain to create, and in my opinion, does not work as well as the Linux version.. The Linux version pretty much ignores any type of Windows fussiness,
and just does the job you request..

BTW.. Another method might be to wipe the NVMe and reinstall Windows... Then once installed and functioning, image the cloned 1tb SSD, then restore the windows partition to the NVMe overwriting what has just been installed..