Question I have a sata ssd boot drive with a m.2 nvme sitting in the only m.2 spot on the mainboard . . . ready to clone the sata. Open to any and all advice?

[garryt53]

First time cloning . . .

 

[geofelt]

What is the purpose of the clone?
Increase capacity?
Performance?
What is the make/model of the drives involved.

Some thoughts:

You will detect no difference in performance if that is your objective.
Ff your target drive is Samsung, use their ssd migration aid to move your C drive to the new ssd.
App and directions here:

Tool & Software Download | Samsung Semiconductor Global

Download various software related to your product, including Samsung Magician, designed for use with Samsung's memory products, and find related information.

semiconductor.samsung.com

When done, remove the source drive and boot to the m.2 verify correct copy.

 

[ubuysa]

If it's to move Windows to the NVMe I drive I would caution against cloning and do a clean install. Cloning should work, and does most of the time, but I've also seen lots of weird issues caused by cloning. I would never do it.

 

[USAFRet]

First time cloning . . .

More details needed.

Make/Model of everything.

Cloning can be done, I've done it numerous times.
Usually it works.

Details to follow.

 

[garryt53]

What is the purpose of the clone?
Increase capacity?
Performance?
What is the make/model of the drives involved.

Some thoughts:

You will detect no difference in performance if that is your objective.
Ff your target drive is Samsung, use their ssd migration aid to move your C drive to the new ssd.
App and directions here:

Tool & Software Download | Samsung Semiconductor Global

Download various software related to your product, including Samsung Magician, designed for use with Samsung's memory products, and find related information.

semiconductor.samsung.com

When done, remove the source drive and boot to the m.2 verify correct copy.

Increase capacity from 120gB sata to 250gB M.2 . . . both Kingstons. Macrium was suggested for the cloning . . .

 

[USAFRet]

Increase capacity from 120gB sata to 250gB M.2 . . . both Kingstons. Macrium was suggested for the cloning . . .

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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
Both drives must be the same partitioning scheme, either MBR or GPT
Download and install Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data 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.
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