[SOLVED] HDD boot drive to NVMe SSD boot drive. | How to move my current C drive files, to SSD, and make that my C Drive.

[Daniel Phantomhive]

I bought a Pre-Build system back in early 2016.
That came with a "TOSHIBA DT01ACA100" a 1TB HDD.
(Which has been partitioned. | C Drive is "151GB free of 344GB")

And i've recently been interested in NVMe SSDs.
My Motherboard the "Z170A PC MATE" Has a M.2 connector.
And supports NVMe drives. So ive been meaning to get one.

However i posses no knowledge on how to/or if i can
Copy everything thats on my HDD C drive onto the NVMe SSD.

These are the 2 drives ive been interested in the most

1. Adata XPG SX8200 PRO 1TB (135 Euro)
2. Samsung 970 EVO 1TB (150 Euro)

(These drives would later become the boot drive of a future, new build)

OH AND ALSO.
Would i need to download any like..Device Driver for the SSD, for it to work.
Or is it same as a HDD.
Just connect it, go to Disk management, and initialize from there.

 

[USAFRet]

A Samsung drive and the Samsung Data Migration tool might make this easier.
But going from an old SATA install to a new NVMe drive can be problematic.

So....
Download and install the actual driver for your chosen target SSD.

Then...
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Specific steps for a successful clone operation:
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Verify the actual used space on the current drive is significantly below the size of the new SSD
Download and install Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration, if a Samsung SSD)
Power off
Disconnect ALL drives except the current C and the new SSD
Power up
Run the Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration)
Select ALL the partitions on the existing C drive

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 specifiy the resulting partition size, to even include the whole thing

Click the 'Clone' button
Wait until it is done
When it finishes, power off
Disconnect ALL drives except for the new SSD
This is to allow the system to try to boot from ONLY the SSD
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.
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