Question Cloning PCIe plan/comments

[silsurf]

I am planning to clone my:
Carbon X1 6th Gen PCIe card. 256 GB Solid State Drive, PCIe-NVME OPAL2.0 M.2.

To a Samsung SSD 970 PRO 512GB - NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 SSD

Using MyDigitalSSD M2X Portable USB 3.1 Gen 2 M.2 PCI Express SSD External Enclosure Adapter for the 512 SSD

I was planning to use Macrium Reflect for the clone and I will disable Bitlocker prior to starting the process.

This would be my first Windows based clone and looking for thoughts, guidance and support. The sole purpose of the job is to get more storage on the Lenovo X1. If all else fails Inplan to do a clean install on the new PCIe SSD.

Thanks vey much

 

[USAFRet]

NVMe -> NVMe should be no problem.

Assuming Macrium can recognize that drive in the enclosure, it should go pretty easy.

At the end of the clone process, resist the urge to look around in the new 512GB to see if everything is there.
If you selected the correct partitions, and the clone finished with no errors, it is all there.

Power off, swap drives, power up.
It should work.

 

[silsurf]

Is there a way to know if Marcrium will recognize the drive and if not, what is considered the next best option for software?

I am also a little unclear on how to male sure the source 256 SSD takes full advantage of the 512 SSD? That the partition is configured to use the entire drive?

Thanks for your feedback

Henry

 

[silsurf]

The clone went fine, but the extra space on the new SSD shows up as unallocated space and is not adjacent to the C drive? I bought a license to MinTool Partition Wizard, but still not sure how to merge the unallocated space into the new setup. It seems the unallocated space must be adjacent to the C drive? Current the partition setup shows this:

Disk 1 476.94 GB - SYSTEM 260 MB - Other 16 MB - C: Windows (NTFS) 237.2 GB - Win-RE 1000 MB - (Unallocated) 238.5 GB

I remember reading somewhere that this moght happen and what the fix was, but I cannot find that post now, I believe it was a BIOS setting?

 

[USAFRet]

Minitool should be able to do it, even though they are not right next to each other.

 

[silsurf]

I then purchased a license to MinTool Partition Wizard, but it is my understanding that the only way to "extend" my main drive to absorb the 238GB of unallocated space is to boot from an external source and run Partition Wizard form there.

I have created a bootable USB stick using the Partition Wizard tool set, but I cannot get the laptop to reboot from the USB. It shows up in BIOS, but when I select it and hit enter it just goes right back to the "select external startup" screen. I am in conversation with MinTool about how to resolve this, but I would love to get my entire 512 GB drive available to my root system. I upgraded becasue I was severly out of storage space.

Would love other suggestions on either a way to extended my partition to accept the unallocated space and/or enabel the USB to boot the unit?

Thanks,

 

[popatim]

Leave the bios set to the SSD
When booting up, and when the option to enter setup is presented, there is also an option to select or override the boot device. Press that key and then select the UEFI version of the flash drive when it lists the different bootable drives it finds.