Question Trouble making my SSD my boot/main drive

[Sinzee]

Hello, I apologize as I'm not too tech savvy. So I recently got a new SSD and wanted to make it my boot/main drive and just use my old HDD as storage for videos, photos, etc. I cloned the HDD to my SSD and then when I tried to run the SSD by itself, I unplugged the HDD SATA cable and plugged the SSD SATA cable where the HDD cable used to be. When I tried booting it up, this popped up:

https://imgur.com/a/8MewAmp

View: https://imgur.com/a/8MewAmp

I'm not really sure what to do at this point. I also previously tried making my SSD my boot drive from the BIOS, but it seemed to not have worked as boot times were still the same.

 

[USAFRet]

If the clone did not work, you did something wrong.

Please list your motherboard and the make/model of the new SSD.

If you put it back together with ONLY the old HDD, does it boot up?

 

[Sinzee]

If the clone did not work, you did something wrong.

Please list your motherboard and the make/model of the new SSD.

If you put it back together with ONLY the old HDD, does it boot up?

I'd like to imagine I didn't, I used Macrium Reflect which was pretty simple to use.
Anyways, the motherboard is a GA-78LMT-USB3 R2 and the new SSD is Crucial MX500 with 500gb (also forgot to include, the HDD is 1tb, if that matters at all)
Also yes, my pc boots just fine without the SSD plugged in.

 

[USAFRet]

Also yes, my pc boots just fine without the SSD plugged in.

Please show us a screencap of your Disk Management window.

 

[Sinzee]

Here you go.

https://imgur.com/a/dSDZwL5

View: https://imgur.com/a/dSDZwL5

 

[USAFRet]

Disk 0 is the original drive, the 1TB HDD?

Redo this clone operation.
In the process, delete ALL existing partitions on the 500GB SSD, Disk 1.

-----------------------------
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.
-----------------------------

 

[Sinzee]

Disk 0 is the original drive, the 1TB HDD?

Redo this clone operation.
In the process, delete ALL existing partitions on the 500GB SSD, Disk 1.

Yes, Disk 0 is the original drive. Thanks for your help so far, I will let you know if that works.

 

[Sinzee]

In the process, delete ALL existing partitions on the 500GB SSD, Disk 1.

-----------------------------

Actually, I do have a question. I can't delete the EFI System and Recovery partitions from the SSD from the disk management window, so would it be safe to use the command prompt to do so? In advance, thanks!

 

[USAFRet]

Actually, I do have a question. I can't delete the EFI System and Recovery partitions from the SSD from the disk management window, so would it be safe to use the command prompt to do so? In advance, thanks!

Yes.

Commandline function diskpart, and the /clean command will delete everything from that drive.
Then, in Disk Management, Initialize
Then, proceed on with Macrium.

 

[Sinzee]

Redo this clone operation.

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Hey, just wanted to let you know this worked! You cannot imagine the number of headaches I got trying to find the answer through google when I first encountered the problem and finding no solution. I thank you very much and hope you have an amazing day!