Question Error at boot after cloning Windows 11 from an NVMe SSD to another NVMe SSD ?

[washburn_it]

Hi,

my system is assembled with:

Asus PRIME B560-PLUS motherboard
Intel i7-11700 CPU
32GB DDR4 RAM
and since day 1, the OS was installed on a Samsung 870 EVO 1TB SSD.

After some months I added a Western Digital Blue SN550 (Gen3, 500 GB) to use with Hyperview and some virtual machines.

Favorably impressed by the SN550 performances, I swapped it with the Samsung 870 EVO so I cloned it to the SN550 (with Acronis True Image) with success.

After a few other months, last week I bought a Samsung 990 PRO (NVME Gen4, 1 TB) to get advantages of the Gen4 NVME slot and performances (I'm a developer and I need to compile large applications) then I cloned the SN550 to the 990 PRO without error.

I rebooted at the end of the cloning and set the 990 PRO as first boot device but...a "restore installation" error (or something like that) appeared on the screen.
I have a "non-English" version of Windows11
I thought there were some defective sectors so I launched a diagnostic check with both SSDs but there weren't any errors.

So I prepared a bootable USB pen with Acronis, cloned from "outside" the OS but also in this case at first boot the 990 errors appeared.

Then I temporarily disconnected the SN550, formatted the 990, installed the OS from zero and, when I reconnected the SN550, everything worked without errors.
Well...I had to reinstall everything and migrate all data but...ok.
Now the 990 PRO is the main/boot disk, the SN550 turned back to virtual machines and the 870 EVO as a secondary disk for data.

I wonder why the cloning between SSD and NVME worked and cloning between NVME (Gen3) and NVME (Gen4) failed...any idea?
Thank you, regards.


Roberto

 

[Aeacus]

I wonder why the cloning between SSD and NVME worked and cloning between NVME (Gen3) and NVME (Gen4) failed...any idea?

Issue could be with Acronis True Image, whereby it has compatibility issues with Gen4 NVMe drives. Or you could have older version, which doesn't support Gen4.

E.g i also have Acronis True Image (legit CD), but since the version of it is fixed and it's quite old, it flat-out, will not support any NVMe drives. Be it Gen3, Gen4 or Gen5. Mine is only good to clone SATA drives.

Oh, if you need to clone and target drive is Samsung, better to use Samsung Magician, where Data Migration is part of it,
link: https://semiconductor.samsung.com/consumer-storage/magician/

Samsung Data Migration tool is one of the best out there (if not the best), but it has one caveat, whereby target drive must be Samsung drive. Source drive can be any (WD, Seagate, Kingston, Adata, Samsung etc).

 

[washburn_it]

I had Samsung Magician installed but didn't remember that it had a "migration data" utility !
Probably it would have saved me a whole day to reinstall and copy everything !
Thanks for the info, regards.


Roberto

 

[USAFRet]

I had Samsung Magician installed but didn't remember that it had a "migration data" utility !
Probably it would have saved me a whole day to reinstall and copy everything !
Thanks for the info, regards.


Roberto

Samsung Magician does not have a clone function.
That would be Samsung Data Migration. Different tool.


For future referenec:

-----------------------------
Specific steps for a successful clone operation:
-----------------------------
Verify the actual used space on the current drive is significantly below the size of the new SSD
Both drives must be the same partitioning scheme, either MBR or GPT
Download and install Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Magician (which includesData Migration), if a Samsung target SSD)
If you are cloning from a SATA drive to PCIe/NVMe, you may need to install the relevant driver for this new NVMe/PCIe drive.
Power off
Disconnect ALL drives except the current C and the new SSD
Power up

Verify the system boots with ONLY the current "C drive" connected.
If not, we have to fix that first.

Run the Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration)
Select ALL the partitions on the existing C drive

[Ignore this section if using the SDM. It does this automatically]
If you are going from a smaller drive to a larger, by default, the target partition size will be the same as the Source. You probably don't want that
You can manipulate the size of the partitions on the target (larger)drive
Click on "Cloned Partition Properties", and you can specify the resulting partition size, to even include the whole thing
[/end ignore]

Click the 'Clone' button
Wait until it is done
When it finishes, power off
Disconnect ALL drives except for the new SSD. This is not optional.
This is to allow the system to try to boot from ONLY the SSD

(swapping cables is irrelevant with NVMe drives, but DO disconnect the old drive for this next part)
Swap the SATA cables around so that the new drive is connected to the same SATA port as the old drive
Power up, and verify the BIOS boot order
If good, continue the power up

It should boot from the new drive, just like the old drive.
Maybe reboot a time or two, just to make sure.

If it works, and it should, all is good.

Later, reconnect the old drive and wipe all partitions on it.
This will probably require the commandline diskpart function, and the clean command.

Ask questions if anything is unclear.
-----------------------------

 

[Aeacus]

I had Samsung Magician installed but didn't remember that it had a "migration data" utility !

Samsung Magician does not have a clone function.
That would be Samsung Data Migration. Different tool.

Samsung Data Migration Tool used to be separate software that you could download, in order to clone the disk over. But starting from Samsung Magician 8.1, the Data Migration is now part of the Samsung Magician software. And 8.1 is currently the latest version of Magician software as well.

Download and install Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration, if a Samsung target SSD)

@USAFRet take a look on your link. It does not contain Samsung Data Migration Tool anymore.

 

[USAFRet]

Samsung Data Migration Tool used to be separate software that you could download, in order to clone the disk over. But starting from Samsung Magician 8.1, the Data Migration is now part of the Samsung Magician software. And 8.1 is currently the latest version of Magician software as well.

Ah.
I'll have to upgrade mine. I think mine is 7.x something.

 

[Aeacus]

Here's how Magician 8.1 now looks like, with Data Migration option;