Info Samsung Data Migration Issues - Resolved

[R_Williams]

Hi all! First-time poster here! I wanted to relay my experience with installing a new Samsung Evo 970 M.2 SSD and cloning a HDD to it.

Quick background on me: I've been a Computer Tech/It person for more than 20 years and feel qualified to install hardware without much support!

I recently assembled a new computer for personal use, consisting of an Asrock Mini-itx motherboard and a Samsung Evo 970 m.2 SSD. I first decided to install Windows 10 to a WD 500G hard drive, just to be sure everything was working as it should and then clone the HDD to the new m.2 using Samsung Data Migration software. This ended up being the biggest PITA I've ever dealt with! The migration software said it cloned the drive, but after removing the HDD, the computer would not boot, stating that there was no boot drive found! And, yes, I did install the Nvme drivers first.

The Migration software would not copy the HDD properly, even though it said it did! The only way to boot with the new m.2 drive was to keep the HDD installed. It's as if the OS and all partitions were spread across two drives! The migration software never copied the boot information or the Recovery Partition to the m.2 SSD. After doing some online searching, I found this issue reported quite a bit, with lots of frustration from users. I finally stumbled onto a forum that suggested using a program known as Macrium Reflect. There is a free version that included simple to use cloning. After downloading, I ran the program to clone from the HDD to the new 970 Evo m.2 SSD. The software worked flawlessly! I shut down the computer, disconnected the HDD and my new computer booted up from the 970 EVO m.2 with no issues whatsoever!

I hope my experience will help others who are frustrated with Samsung's Data Migration Software.

 

[Bob.B]

Hi all! First-time poster here! I wanted to relay my experience with installing a new Samsung Evo 970 M.2 SSD and cloning a HDD to it.

Quick background on me: I've been a Computer Tech/It person for more than 20 years and feel qualified to install hardware without much support!

I recently assembled a new computer for personal use, consisting of an Asrock Mini-itx motherboard and a Samsung Evo 970 m.2 SSD. I first decided to install Windows 10 to a WD 500G hard drive, just to be sure everything was working as it should and then clone the HDD to the new m.2 using Samsung Data Migration software. This ended up being the biggest PITA I've ever dealt with! The migration software said it cloned the drive, but after removing the HDD, the computer would not boot, stating that there was no boot drive found! And, yes, I did install the Nvme drivers first.

The Migration software would not copy the HDD properly, even though it said it did! The only way to boot with the new m.2 drive was to keep the HDD installed. It's as if the OS and all partitions were spread across two drives! The migration software never copied the boot information or the Recovery Partition to the m.2 SSD. After doing some online searching, I found this issue reported quite a bit, with lots of frustration from users. I finally stumbled onto a forum that suggested using a program known as Macrium Reflect. There is a free version that included simple to use cloning. After downloading, I ran the program to clone from the HDD to the new 970 Evo m.2 SSD. The software worked flawlessly! I shut down the computer, disconnected the HDD and my new computer booted up from the 970 EVO m.2 with no issues whatsoever!

I hope my experience will help others who are frustrated with Samsung's Data Migration Software.

Just an add on.
Open task manager.
Notice you have a few extra macrium task now running?

 

[R_Williams]

Just an add on.
Open task manager.
Notice you have a few extra macrium task now running?

Thank you for pointing that out! This is something I normally do, but in my extreme pleasure that I finally cloned the HDD to the SSD, I completely forgot to check. Will do so later today!

 

[R_Williams]

A quick follow-up. I went ahead and checked Task Manager and found three "macrium" processes. Went to Services and saw the one Macrium service set to Automatic and that it shouldn't be disabled. Went ahead and used a good program removal utility to remove Macrium, since it was no longer needed. All traces of Macrium are gone. Makes me wonder if it's designed to "phone home" with certain information. Anyway, it's gone and my PC is working great. Still don't understand the issue with Samsung's own migration software that doesn't work!

 

[USAFRet]

A quick follow-up. I went ahead and checked Task Manager and found three "macrium" processes. Went to Services and saw the one Macrium service set to Automatic and that it shouldn't be disabled. Went ahead and used a good program removal utility to remove Macrium, since it was no longer needed. All traces of Macrium are gone. Makes me wonder if it's designed to "phone home" with certain information. Anyway, it's gone and my PC is working great. Still don't understand the issue with Samsung's own migration software that doesn't work!

Macrium does leave a couple of processes running. Checking for updates, etc.
It does not, AFAIK, send any personal or system info back to home base.

Macrium is the basis for my whole backup routine, I use it daily.
And just last night, cloned a Win 11 Pro install from a SATA SSD to a 980 Pro SSD.
No problems.

 

[Bob.B]

A quick follow-up. I went ahead and checked Task Manager and found three "macrium" processes. Went to Services and saw the one Macrium service set to Automatic and that it shouldn't be disabled. Went ahead and used a good program removal utility to remove Macrium, since it was no longer needed. All traces of Macrium are gone. Makes me wonder if it's designed to "phone home" with certain information. Anyway, it's gone and my PC is working great. Still don't understand the issue with Samsung's own migration software that doesn't work!

Yup.....if you don't plan on using the app again get rid of it.

A clone is my backup method so I use it often.
I did not want this extra macrium stuff running all the time so I just stopped it from loading at start up.

Just making you aware that it was there.