Question How to clone an Optane+SSD drive without disabling Optane

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E

Ed LaCrosse

Commendable
Jan 11, 2023
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Hello all,

I've been searching all over the internet to figure out how to replace the Optane+SSD in my Dell Inspiron 13 7390 2n1 laptop running Windows 11 with a new SSD (without Optane). The laptop is 5 years old. By way of background, my Optane+SSD has both Optane and SSD on the same physical card, and that card fits into a single M.2 slot. I've come to understand from my research that you cannot disable Optane with this architecture.

Meanwhile, I'm getting notifications that my SSD is failing and needs to be replaced and, most recently, I've also been getting notifications that Optane is "degrading" and I need to disable it to avoid data loss. But I can't disable Optane...

I've read in numerous articles and posts that you must disable Optane before cloning a drive in order to flush any data in Optane back to the drive. If you don't do that, then some data might be lost in the cloning process and the new, cloned drive might not "work". I haven't tested that, but it concerns me.

I'm looking for anyone who has successfully migrated from Optane+SSD to SSD for a steer on what I need to do. I have been taking backups of my data regularly and I'm working on cloning the drive right now (with Optane enabled, in case that might work). I'm about ready to order a new SSD plus an enclosure. My plan is to clone the existing drive to the cloud, recover it to the new SSD using the enclosure, replace the Optane+SSD with the new SSD in the laptop, then try to boot the laptop (with fingers crossed). If this fails, my only option appears to be reinstall Windows with a "blank" SSD installed in the laptop. I lose all my applications and settings that way, so I'd be looking for a way to not lose it all or to get it back economically. I'm also not sure what happens with the install Windows process when there is no copy of Windows on that new drive. Will I have to pay to license Windows 11 again?

I've been to the Dell and Intel community forums and haven't gotten much help beyond learning that you can't disable Optane on my drive.

I'd appreciate any feedback on my plans, in particular any recommendations to simplify or reduce the cost of the process.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.
 
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dev_cyberpunk said:
But when I was talking about not booted from the optane SSD, you don't want to clone from an os drive that is active. Because there are files and directories that are dynamically made and if copied can crash the install on the cloned drive. That is why the practice of cloning a drive is physically onto another drive with an os on a boot usb or cdrom.
Click to expand...
Current Windows tools can actually do that.
Clone from Source to Target, from a running Source.

Yeah, it shocked me as well. But it works.
 
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COLGeek said:
Rufus is used to write the Clonezilla ISO to a USB drive. You then boot your system using that USB drive.
Click to expand...
Sorry to be thick, but is the Optane+SSD still in the laptop when I do this? When to I replace that drive with the "new" one? How do I transfer the image to that new drive?

I appreciate your response; I just don't completely understant it.

Thanks!
 
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dev_cyberpunk said:
Its not as hard as you think, but there are premade linux disk tool usb boots that have easy menus to set up and clone a drive. Others mention them already (Macrium, Clonezilla). I would use Clonezilla since its free and doesn't try to sell you anything.

But when I was talking about not booted from the optane SSD, you don't want to clone from an os drive that is active. Because there are files and directories that are dynamically made and if copied can crash the install on the cloned drive. That is why the practice of cloning a drive is physically onto another drive with an os on a boot usb or cdrom.
Click to expand...
I'll look into a Linux solution if my iDrive experiment fails. I have some limited experience with it but not much.

To be clear, I'm not intending to boot from an Optane+SSD, rather, I plan to "clone" the exising Optane+SSD onto a "regular" SSD and try to boot from that. I understand this approach might fail in the sense that my computer might not boot when I install this new drive because it might be missing data that was held by Optane. Now, if there were a way to flush all the data out of Optane and into the SSD, I think the process would be successful. The published approach to doing this is to "disable" Optane using one of Intel's tools. But my research suggests that these tools won't work when Optane and SSD are on the same physical card, as is the case for me.

@JayGau mentioned "removing Optane" above. I'd really like to understand how to do that. My migration problem could well be solved if that can be done.
 
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Ed LaCrosse said:
Sorry to be thick, but is the Optane+SSD still in the laptop when I do this? When to I replace that drive with the "new" one? How do I transfer the image to that new drive?

I appreciate your response; I just don't completely understant it.

Thanks!
Click to expand...
Yes. You can actually do it either way under normal circumstances. Given the Optane aspect, I would leave the original device in place and then swap after cloning to the new SSD.
 
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Ed LaCrosse said:
@USAFRet I've just run Disk Management on the laptop and here is what it returns for my Optane+SSD.

I really appreciate all the helpful feedback and support. Thank you!
Click to expand...
Given that, you could almost certainly do a direct Clone, or Image in Macrium Reflect.

Assuming this laptop has only 1 M.2 port, this...
-----------------------------------------
1x m.2 slot with an Image

Assuming you have another drive (any type of drive) with sufficient free space to hold the entirety of your current m.2 drive:

1. Download and install Macrium Reflect
2. Run that, and create a Rescue CD or USB (you'll use this later). "Other Tasks". Create this on a small USB flash drive or DVD.
3. In the Macrium client, create an Image to some other drive. External USB HDD, maybe. Select all partitions. This results in a file of xxxx.mrimage.Select ALL partitions here.
4. When done, power OFF.
5. Swap the 2 drives
6. Boot up from the Rescue USB you created earlier.
7. Restore (on the toolbar), and tell it where the Image is that you created in step 3, and which drive to apply it to...the new m.2
8. Go, and wait until it finishes.
9. That's all...this should work.
 
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Ed LaCrosse said:
I'll keep this in mind in case my iDrive experiment fails. I'm not tech smart on this topic (which is probably obvious to all by now:) ), so I'm not sure what you mean by "remove the optane, install a regular nvme and push the image to it." Could you elaborate a bit?
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I mean, the optane drive is in your computer right? You said it's connected to a M.2 slot. So, after your image has been saved to an external drive (USB drive), remove the old drive from the M.2 slot and connect a regular NVMe instead (WD, Crucial, Kingston, Samsung, whatever). Then push the image from the external drive to your new NVMe. You gonna need the bootable drive for the imaging tool you are using (clonezilla, macrium, Windows recovery, whatever) for both the image creation and to push it to the new drive. Here is a guide for clonezilla :

Save image:
https://clonezilla.org/show-live-doc-content.php?topic=clonezilla-live/doc/01_Save_disk_image

Restore disk from image:
https://clonezilla.org/show-live-doc-content.php?topic=clonezilla-live/doc/02_Restore_disk_image

I do this (with clonezilla) all the time at work (did three computers in the last three weeks and will do another one on Monday morning) and it always works.
 
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JayGau said:
I mean, the optane drive is in your computer right? You said it's connected to a M.2 slot. So, after your image has been saved to an external drive (USB drive), remove the old drive from the M.2 slot and connect a regular NVMe instead (WD, Crucial, Kingston, Samsung, whatever). Then push the image from the external drive to your new NVMe. You gonna need the bootable drive for the imaging tool you are using (clonezilla, macrium, Windows recovery, whatever) for both the image creation and to push it to the new drive. Here is a guide for clonezilla :

Save image:
https://clonezilla.org/show-live-doc-content.php?topic=clonezilla-live/doc/01_Save_disk_image

Restore disk from image:
https://clonezilla.org/show-live-doc-content.php?topic=clonezilla-live/doc/02_Restore_disk_image

I do this (with clonezilla) all the time at work (did three computers in the last three weeks and will do another one on Monday morning) and it always works.
Click to expand...
Sorry, I misunderstood what you meant by "remove optane". I thought you were referring to a way of removing Optane from the Optane+SSD. You were referring to removing the Optane+SSD from the computer.

I'm still a bit weak on the mechanics of this process. In particular, the process doesn't involve recovery to the new SSD, installing the new SSD and rebooting. It's more complicated than that, regardless what software you use to "clone" and "recover". I need to get that straight in my mind.
 
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Ed LaCrosse said:
Sorry, I misunderstood what you meant by "remove optane". I thought you were referring to a way of removing Optane from the Optane+SSD. You were referring to removing the Optane+SSD from the computer.

I'm still a bit weak on the mechanics of this process. In particular, the process doesn't involve recovery to the new SSD, installing the new SSD and rebooting. It's more complicated than that, regardless what software you use to "clone" and "recover". I need to get that straight in my mind.
Click to expand...
Most imaging tools (like clonezilla) have the options to either save an image or clone the drive directly to another drive. Cloning would do like you said (clone the drive to another one, swap them and try to boot). It may work, but since your optane+ssd is a little "special" you might have more luck by doing the image extra step (drive image - image restore) since the image restore will do some tweaking to comply with the new drive while the clone is really just a copy of the original. Also, another advantage is that you gonna have a backup image of your system saved on an external drive, while the clone doesn't leave anything besides the original and the clone.
 
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USAFRet said:
Current Windows tools can actually do that.
Clone from Source to Target, from a running Source.

Yeah, it shocked me as well. But it works.
Click to expand...
Its because they are loosing ground as the Os people commonly use.
And reduce the number of new tech's common 1st exposure to Linux. Which is copying Windows and memtest. They still write protect the UEFI so it would deter the user from setting up a dual boot but provide a virtual machine outlet to run it inside their inefficient OS.

I think they actually tried switching their copy protect strategy to use the TPM and secure boot. However, that was fleeting since Linux will find the key in TPM and decrypt the drive.

Techs will typically use one method that works for all, yes there could be special cases, but even then life is too short to memorize a here today gone tomorrow OS that will change those particularities at their will.
 
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dev_cyberpunk said:
Its because they are loosing ground as the Os people commonly use.
And reduce the number of new tech's common 1st exposure to Linux. Which is copying Windows and memtest. They still write protect the UEFI so it would deter the user from setting up a dual boot but provide a virtual machine outlet to run it inside their inefficient OS.

I think they actually tried switching their copy protect strategy to use the TPM and secure boot. However, that was fleeting since Linux will find the key in TPM and decrypt the drive.

Techs will typically use one method that works for all, yes there could be special cases, but even then life is too short to memorize a here today gone tomorrow OS that will change those particularities at their will.
Click to expand...
Windows tools (Macrium Reflect) have been able to do that for about a decade.
 
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USAFRet said:
Entirely unsure of what you mean here, but whatever.
Click to expand...
Sometimes-being-oblivious-is-a-blessing-115688.jpg
 
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