Question Unable to migrate to an SSD owing to "Device does not exist" error ?

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wscrossman

wscrossman

Apr 10, 2025
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I've been attempting to migrate my system to an SSD, receiving "device does not exist" error. I've attempted it to 2 different SSD SATA drives, then an NVME M.2, now an NGPP M.2. I've returned the earlier hardware, but I keep getting the error. Also, I've tried DiskGenius, Hasleo, Aoemi, and several EaseUS products. I've attempted to do a Windows 11 backup and receive the same error. I purchased Windows 11 Pro, installed it, then started using Teracopy to copy files from the old drive. During the third batch, failure with the same error. It almost seems the drive is sleeping, but it's set to never sleep. I've been in bios a lot, in control panel, and device manager. I purchased a used 3.5 Sata drive on ebay, to eliminate the SSD issue.

First question -- does anyone have any tips on getting past this error? Feel free to suggest anything.

Second question -- assuming this is a hardware issue - which piece would you expect? I'm thinking it could be power supply, motherboard, memory, or processor. I've attempted different cables, so it's not them. I've run chkdsk on source and target drives, no errors on either of them.

Thanks for any and all help.
 
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wscrossman said:
I've been attempting to migrate my system to an SSD, receiving "device does not exist" error.
I've attempted it to 2 different SSD SATA drives, then an NVME M.2, now an NGPP M.2.
Click to expand...
1st - what are specs of computer, you're using?
Is it a laptop? desktop? what?

At what stage are you getting this error?
Can you show a screenshot from Disk Management after cloning is done? - with both clone source and target drives connected.
(upload to imgur.com and post link)

How are you doing the cloning? Are you using any external drive adapters?
 
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Sorry I left out the details. It's a desktop running an AMD Ryzen 7 5700G with 32 GB memory.

Regarding cloning, I've used all the tools listed with the same error. Best I can tell is that it happens about an hour into the process. I've tried hot migrations and booting to PE(?). Think that's what it's called.

Disk Management is a bit sporadic. Results tend to vary. Sometimes the target drive has an exclamation mark, other times it disappears. Sometimes I have to power off the system, disconnect the power and restart the system. I do have both a SATA and M.2 SSD. I tried migrating today with failures. I'll migrate using DiskGenius. All my other products have had their trial licenses expire.
 
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wscrossman said:
Sorry I left out the details. It's a desktop running an AMD Ryzen 7 5700G with 32 GB memory.

Regarding cloning, I've used all the tools listed with the same error. Best I can tell is that it happens about an hour into the process. I've tried hot migrations and booting to PE(?). Think that's what it's called.

Disk Management is a bit sporadic. Results tend to vary. Sometimes the target drive has an exclamation mark, other times it disappears. Sometimes I have to power off the system, disconnect the power and restart the system. I do have both a SATA and M.2 SSD. I tried migrating today with failures. I'll migrate using DiskGenius. All my other products have had their trial licenses expire.
Click to expand...
You need to give more details than that. What is your motherboard (brand and model)? What are the drives exactly (brand, model and capacities for both source and target)? How are they connected (are you using a usb enclosure or are they both connected directly to the motherboard)?

Details are very important. For example, if your target drive has a smaller capacity than your source drive it's not gonna work.

I personally always use Clonezilla to clone drives and it rarely fails. You could also create an image of the drive instead of cloning and then restore the image to the new drive. You may have more luck.

And if you got some cheap NVMe from a shady brand it's the kind of things you have to expect. It may not even be the size it's advertised.

By the way the drive has to be formatted to do a Windows backup on it. If it's formatted (and empty), try to manually copy-paste some files to it. If it works but the windows backup fails, it might really be that you drive is actually smaller than advertised (fake drive). But it's hard to say without the details.
 
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wscrossman said:
Disk Management is a bit sporadic. Results tend to vary. Sometimes the target drive has an exclamation mark, other times it disappears. Sometimes I have to power off the system, disconnect the power and restart the system.
Click to expand...
And you wonder that you get a device does not exist error?!?!
If a drive disappears randomly then of course you are going to have issues.
This is most probably a physical problem with the mobo, the drive controller has probably developed some faulty caps.
 
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wscrossman said:
Disk Management is a bit sporadic. Results tend to vary.
Sometimes the target drive has an exclamation mark, other times it disappears.
Sometimes I have to power off the system, disconnect the power and restart the system.
Click to expand...
Show requested screenshots.
There are no exclamation marks in Disk Management. You're probably referring to Device Manager.

And yes - if you're getting a device disconnect, then suspect faulty hardware.

www.howtogeek.com

5 Ways to Open Disk Management on Windows 10 or 11

Disk Management is an essential utility if you've got multiple hard drives or partitions.
www.howtogeek.com www.howtogeek.com
 
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SkyNetRising said:
What model drives are you using to clone to?
They could be just fake drives with small actual capacity (flashed to firmware reporting a larger capacity).

If those were some noname drives for extremely low price, then suspect fake product.
Click to expand...
It could also be some overclock that messes with the pci slots, maybe expo or PBO, if the mobo does FCLK it could definitely be an issue.
 
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SkyNetRising said:
Show requested screenshots.
There are no exclamation marks in Disk Management. You're probably referring to Device Manager.

And yes - if you're getting a device disconnect, then suspect faulty hardware.

www.howtogeek.com

5 Ways to Open Disk Management on Windows 10 or 11

Disk Management is an essential utility if you've got multiple hard drives or partitions.
www.howtogeek.com www.howtogeek.com
Click to expand...

Hi. Sorry, it was a down arrow in a red circle, not an exclamation point, in Disk Management. After reboot, the drive showed up in BIOS and in Disk Management. I was able to create the simple volume and format it. The volume creation menu was grayed out when the device was determined to be unavailable.
 
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TerryLaze said:
It could also be some overclock that messes with the pci slots, maybe expo or PBO, if the mobo does FCLK it could definitely be an issue.
Click to expand...
Thanks the BIOS has overclocking set to Auto. Would disabling all of them be a good test? I've been in BIOS and Disk Management so many times, that would be easy for me. I'll even save the current profile (my BIOS allows for 4 saves).
 
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SkyNetRising said:
What model drives are you using to clone to?
They could be just fake drives with small actual capacity (flashed to firmware reporting a larger capacity).

If those were some noname drives for extremely low price, then suspect fake product.
Click to expand...
They are no name SSD's, though I think the DIGE Green drive may be WD's off brand. I understand the issues with no names, but I find it odd this has happened to so many drives. 2 SATA SSD, an M.2 NVME, and now an M.2 NGFF (mobo manual said it was an NGFF slot, but could hand NVME) While I'm not discounting the no name variable, the fact that all 4 SSD drives fail seems suspect. I actually ordered a 3.5 2TB used drive off ebay to test if SSD is the issue or maybe even the source drive.
 
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TerryLaze said:
And you wonder that you get a device does not exist error?!?!
If a drive disappears randomly then of course you are going to have issues.
This is most probably a physical problem with the mobo, the drive controller has probably developed some faulty caps.
Click to expand...
Thanks. Yes, I know I'm getting the errors because the drive becomes unavailable. I'm thinking it's a motherboard issue. Though I've never heard of a drive controller developing faulty caps. Is there a way I can tell if this happened? Even better, if it exists, is there a way to reset it? I've tried deleting the drivers and then the drives in Device Manager. Problem still exists.
 
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SkyNetRising said:
1st - what are specs of computer, you're using?
Is it a laptop? desktop? what?

At what stage are you getting this error?
Can you show a screenshot from Disk Management after cloning is done? - with both clone source and target drives connected.
(upload to imgur.com and post link)

How are you doing the cloning? Are you using any external drive adapters?
Click to expand...
JayGau said:
You need to give more details than that. What is your motherboard (brand and model)? What are the drives exactly (brand, model and capacities for both source and target)? How are they connected (are you using a usb enclosure or are they both connected directly to the motherboard)?

Details are very important. For example, if your target drive has a smaller capacity than your source drive it's not gonna work.

I personally always use Clonezilla to clone drives and it rarely fails. You could also create an image of the drive instead of cloning and then restore the image to the new drive. You may have more luck.

And if you got some cheap NVMe from a shady brand it's the kind of things you have to expect. It may not even be the size it's advertised.

By the way the drive has to be formatted to do a Windows backup on it. If it's formatted (and empty), try to manually copy-paste some files to it. If it works but the windows backup fails, it might really be that you drive is actually smaller than advertised (fake drive). But it's hard to say without the details.
Click to expand...
Ralston18 said:
@wscrossman

Update your post to include full system hardware specs and OS information.

Include PSU: make, model, wattage, age, condition (original to build, new, refurbished, used)?

Disk drive(s): make, model, capacity, how full?

List all attached peripherals.
Click to expand...
I want to apologize for not giving enough detail. I've been working with desktops for a long time and this is the first issue I haven't been able to figure out. I'll reply with this information to the 3 people who asked for the details. Don't hesitate to ask for additional info.

I'm attempting System Migration using DiskGenius. I've attempted it with several software program trial versions, with the same error. Most of my attempts are with drives attached to the motherboard, though I also tried one in a USB enclosure out of curiosity.

I did install Windows 11 Pro onto the M.2. Then started copying files via Teracopy. Several folders went over fine, then I tried to copy a larger folder over and it died with device does not exist.

Hope this is everything (probably TMI).

Drives:
Source -- Hitachi HUA723020ALA641 2 TB (1.81 TB on Windows volume, 750 GB used); attached via SATA cable
Targets -- V-NAND 1080PRO M.2 NGFF 4 TB completely blank (3.63 TB available); in the motherboard NGFF/NVME slot
DIGE Green SSD SATA 4 TB completely blank (3.81 TB available); attached via SATA cable
Note: The DIGE drive is the one I attempted to use in my example. It was my first disk failure and the company told me to keep it. I set it up as a network share. I was able to back up data over WiFi and it stayed "live" for months. That's why I think it's internal to this box.

System, Motherboard and Hitachi drive are about 18 months old. I purchased a barebones desktop and migrated my old drive to the Hitachi using Disk Genius.

PSU is from original build. Apevia Venus 500W.

Peripherals:
- Sound and Video on motherboard, no additional cards
- USB Realtek WiFi adapter
- USB Printer cable
- USB Keyboard and Mouse
- One case fan; one CPU fan.


From System Information---

OS: Windows 11 Pro
Version: 10.0.26100 Build 26100
System Model: A520M-HDV
Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 5700G with Radeon Graphics, 3804 Mhz, 8 Core(s), 16 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS: American Megatrends International LLC P3.50, 5/9/2024
SMBIOS Version: 3.3
Embedded Controller Version: 255.255
BIOS Mode: UEFI
Motherboard: ASRock A520M-HDV
Secure Boot: Off
Hardware Abstraction Layer: Version = 10.0.26100.1
Total Physical Memory: 31.4 GB
Available Physical Memory: 25.5 GB
Total Virtual Memory: 36.1 GB
Available Virtual Memory: 30.3 GB
Kernel DMA Protection: Off
Virtualization based security: Not enabled
App Control for Business policy: Enforced
App Control for Business user mode policy: Off
All Hyper-V items set to Yes

Screenshots from this failure....

https://imgur.com/a/sdd
View: https://imgur.com/a/sdd-device-does-not-exist-error-iJgmsfg


I'll try to record my screen and see if I can identify the file where it dies.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
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wscrossman said:
They are no name SSD's, though I think the DIGE Green drive may be WD's off brand. I understand the issues with no names, but I find it odd this has happened to so many drives. 2 SATA SSD, an M.2 NVME, and now an M.2 NGFF (mobo manual said it was an NGFF slot, but could hand NVME) While I'm not discounting the no name variable, the fact that all 4 SSD drives fail seems suspect.
Click to expand...
You only list two target drives, not four? You've not been clear on if you've tested the eBay drive yet, or mentioned what make and model that one is.

Pretty much any no-name, high-capacity super-cheap SSD is going to be fake. It'd be more surprising to buy 4 and for one of them to actually be as advertised.

The DIGE one, umpteen "manufacturers" with drives out there that look like that, a drive with a WD-like sticker on it labelled "Green" or "Blue" to fool people into thinking it's related to WD somehow.

Your V-NAND 1080 Pro, designed to fool people into thinking it's related Samsung, even has its own video here:

Part 1:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwP8eTZ8ZeY

Part 2:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1FRwpjpxXE


In part 1 he identifies it as likely a Silicon Power drive that's been debadged and notices how it's light on chips. In part 2 the drive fails after trying to write more than 127 GB to it.

If you want 4 TB of SSD storage you have to put your hand in your pocket, that's all it comes down to. Sorry.
 
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