Question Bought NVMe, having trouble cloning

[Quickless]

I bought a new NVMe drive that is a lot faster than the SSD I currently house my windows installation on. I cloned from a HDD to that SSD so I figured I could clone from the SSD to the NVMe. After countless troubles, trying with 3 different softwares (WD Acronis True Image, Samsung Migration Tool, Macrium Reflect), the process never seems to work. I ended my progress with a macrium reflect cloning, I can view the NVMe and all the file contents look to be correct, they have all of the windows files, etc, and I ran checks to see if there were any corrupted files and there aren't. But every time I try to boot from the NVMe it just bluescreens me for "INACCESSABLE_BOOT_DEVICE." I'm running out of options here, I'd much rather clone or atleast get most of my files back that are on my C drive. I am stumped and I don't want to have to reinstall windows from scratch. I wonder, is it possible to burn my C drive on an iso file and just boot up with it or something.

Solved: Fiddled around with it a bit more, I updated the bios to the most current, turned off fast boot and secure boot. Recloned the drive in Macrium Reflect (It only took 4 minutes which was really weird to me) but shut down, took out all other drives other than the NVMe I wanted to clone it on to. Booted it up and it worked.

 

[Lafong]

Will your PC still boot and run OK from the original SSD with the NVMe removed?

What motherboard brand and model?

 

[Quickless]

Will your PC still boot and run OK from the original SSD with the NVMe removed?

What motherboard brand and model?

Yeah, once i swap back to the main boot drive being the original SSD; I can boot just fine. My mobo is a MSI MPG B550 gaming plus

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Are you booting in UEFI MODE?

 

[Quickless]

Are you booting in UEFI MODE?

Nope, its just a normal boot, but the logo screen after it says what buttons i can press to go to bios and whatnot, that screen takes abnormally longer until it finally bluescreens and when it restarts, it gets stuck in the booting phase with the cpu debug light on and no monitor output, etc. So I have to hard restart

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

i DON'T BELIEVE the cloned nvme will boot in Legacy mode. Also shold be gpt.

 

[Quickless]

i DON'T BELIEVE the cloned nvme will boot in Legacy mode. Also shold be gpt.

what do you mean? And also it is gpt

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

NVME shold be Partitioned in GPT mode.

 

[Quickless]

NVME shold be Partitioned in GPT mode.

It is in GPT mode

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

is your system SETUP UEFI?

 

[Quickless]

is your system SETUP UEFI?

yes, it is UEFI

 

[Lafong]

You could try imaging rather than cloning.....using Macrium.

 

[Quickless]

You could try imaging rather than cloning.....using Macrium.

is imaging basically the same thing, do i do that from the creation tool or do i just boot from it

 

[SkyNetRising]

is imaging basically the same thing, do i do that from the creation tool or do i just boot from it

Can you show a screenshot from Disk Management?
(upload to imgur.com and post link)

Note - first boot from cloned drive has to be done with old drive (clone source) physically disconnected.
This step can not be skipped or you'll have to redo cloning.

 

[TerryLaze]

If the nvme is much faster then it's a pci device and not a sata device so cloning will not work due to the difference in needed driver.

Maybe "clone to dissimilar" (look it up on google) might help but a clean install should be the way to go here.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

You can clone SATA SSD to nvme. I use:
AOMEI BACKUP STANDARD
UEFI and GPT are needed to be successful.

 

[USAFRet]

If the nvme is much faster then it's a pci device and not a sata device so cloning will not work due to the difference in needed driver.

Maybe "clone to dissimilar" (look it up on google) might help but a clean install should be the way to go here.

"Clone to dissimilar" is, in theory, going to a whole new system.
Not different drives in the same PC.

Cloning from SATA to NVMe is almost never a problem, unless there is a lack of driver issue.

 

[Quickless]

Can you show a screenshot from Disk Management?
(upload to imgur.com and post link)

Note - first boot from cloned drive has to be done with old drive (clone source) physically disconnected.
This step can not be skipped or you'll have to redo cloning.

Certainly:

https://imgur.com/guFyhyH

View: https://i.imgur.com/guFyhyH.png


Drive C: is the cloned drive, drive E: is the destination drive.
(Destination drive still has all of the cloned files on it as I havent formatted and deleted the partitions yet)



Also, I made sure to completely physically disconnect the cloned drive before the first boot.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Drive C: is the cloned drive, drive E: is the destination drive.
(Destination drive still has all of the cloned files on it as I havent formatted and deleted the partitions yet)
Also, I made sure to completely physically disconnect the cloned drive before the first boot.

Try recreating bootloader on 1TB drive.
Execute from elevated command prompt. Regular command prompt will give error on last step.

diskpart​

list disk​

select disk 2​

list partition​

select partition x​

(select 100MB EFI system partition, x=1 or x=2)​

assign letter=H​

exit​

bcdboot E:\windows /s H:​

Last message should be "Boot files created sucessfully".
Shutdown,
physically disconnect 500GB drive,
set Boot priority to Windows Boot Manager on 1TB drive.
Try to boot into windows.

Also - please list full specs of your system (including model names of all drives).

 

[Quickless]

Try recreating bootloader on 1TB drive.
Execute from elevated command prompt. Regular command prompt will give error on last step.

diskpart​

list disk​

select disk 2​

list partition​

select partition x​

(select 100MB EFI system partition, x=1 or x=2)​

assign letter=H​

exit​

bcdboot E:\windows /s H:​

Last message should be "Boot files created sucessfully".
Shutdown,
physically disconnect 500GB drive,
set Boot priority to Windows Boot Manager on 1TB drive.
Try to boot into windows.

Also - please list full specs of your system (including model names of all drives).

I will try the bootloader thing now, in the meantime, heres my full build: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/sr9T4s

 

[Quickless]

Try recreating bootloader on 1TB drive.
Execute from elevated command prompt. Regular command prompt will give error on last step.

diskpart​

list disk​

select disk 2​

list partition​

select partition x​

(select 100MB EFI system partition, x=1 or x=2)​

assign letter=H​

exit​

bcdboot E:\windows /s H:​

Last message should be "Boot files created sucessfully".
Shutdown,
physically disconnect 500GB drive,
set Boot priority to Windows Boot Manager on 1TB drive.
Try to boot into windows.

Also - please list full specs of your system (including model names of all drives).

tried the above steps, ended with the same conclusion; booted up into a BSOD for “INACCESSABLE_BOOT_DEVICE.” Would I need to restart the entire cloning process before I do all of the steps above, maybe? and THEN reboot and disconnect the drive?

build: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/sr9T4s

 

[SkyNetRising]

Were all those commands completed successfully?
Were there any errors?
Did you physically disconnect 500GB drive afterwards?

Make sure sata controller is set to AHCI and
NVME raid is disabled,
Fast Boot is disabled
(in BIOS).

Try with CSM enabled.

 

[Quickless]

Were all those commands completed successfully?
Were there any errors?
Did you physically disconnect 500GB drive afterwards?

Make sure sata controller is set to AHCI and
NVME raid is disabled,
Fast Boot is disabled
(in BIOS).

Try with CSM enabled.

Yes, all of those steps were followed, no errors.

Tried all the new steps (only changes were swapping to CSM and turning off fast boot). Ended with same result

 

[Quickless]

Were all those commands completed successfully?
Were there any errors?
Did you physically disconnect 500GB drive afterwards?

Make sure sata controller is set to AHCI and
NVME raid is disabled,
Fast Boot is disabled
(in BIOS).

Try with CSM enabled.

Fiddled around with it a bit more, I updated the bios to the most current, turned off fast boot and secure boot. Recloned the drive in Macrium Reflect (It only took 4 minutes which was really weird to me) but shut down, took out all other drives other than the NVMe I wanted to clone it on to. Booted it up and it worked; thanks for your help, I really appreciated it. Have a great night, take it easy.