Upgrading laptop PCie M.2

[wonkycows]

I've just ordered a new Dell G5. It comes with a 128gb PCie M.2 drive and a 1tb conventional hard drive. I want to replace the M.2 with a 500gb samsung 970 and the hard drive with 1tb samsung sata. So my question is how do I clone the M.2 which is the boot drive. I know Samsung drives come with migrate and magician software, but I'm not sure the process of sorting this out although I've done this before with sata drives.
Any ideas folks?

 

[Lutfij]

1| Point to note, I'm an advocate of not using a cloning app since anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
2| You're best leaving your hair intact and just reinstall your OS.

Given you're buying a new laptop, the OSes licence key will be bound to the motherboard's BIOS. Essentially you can reinstall the OS as many times as you want without worry of having the licence key wipe out. Ofc, unless you have to change the entire motherboard out.

On another note, make sure you're on the latest BIOS update before you drop in the SSD. Secondly, what is the SKU to your laptop? Just to double check what drives will be compatible with your laptop.

 

[wonkycows]

1| Point to note, I'm an advocate of not using a cloning app since anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
2| You're best leaving your hair intact and just reinstall your OS.

Given you're buying a new laptop, the OSes licence key will be bound to the motherboard's BIOS. Essentially you can reinstall the OS as many times as you want without worry of having the licence key wipe out. Ofc, unless you have to change the entire motherboard out.

On another note, make sure you're on the latest BIOS update before you drop in the SSD. Secondly, what is the SKU to your laptop? Just to double check what drives will be compatible with your laptop.

Thanks Lutfij
I do already know that the drives are compatible with the Dell G5.
I've cloned a few times before with no problems, but things are a little different with these PCie M.2 as there's no way to connect them to a laptop from outside the machine.
Looks like it's gonna be a clean install then. It's been a while since I've had to do that, in fact the last time it was necessary I had to type the authorisation code in by hand. Lol. Fingers crossed then
Thanks again buddy

 

[Eximo]

I am still waiting on USB to NVMe adapters. I don't care about transfer rate USB 3.0 would be plenty, but it really is inconvenient that I can't do drive swaps easily for people without using my only multiple NMVe capable motherboard.

 

[Lutfij]

You're welcome!

You'll be good to go! If any hiccups do come about, just post on the forums, we'll be there. Good luck!

 

[wonkycows]

I am still waiting on USB to NVMe adapters. I don't care about transfer rate USB 3.0 would be plenty, but it really is inconvenient that I can't do drive swaps easily for people without using my only multiple NMVe capable motherboard.

It seems shocking to me that there's not a simple cheap connection device for PCie M.2 like there is for sata. I mean you don't need for the connection to be fast, just the ability to connect so you can copy. Big hole in the market there and I bet it does limit people upgrading too.

 

[Eximo]

I keep expecting something from Lacie at least, but nothing so far. Thunderbolt would be a pain, but better than nothing. Definitely a gap in the market. Either no one has manufactured a cheap USB - NVMe controller or they don't think there is a market for it.

 

[wonkycows]

Right so I've tried a couple of things now.
First up I thought I'd just see what happened if I cloned the drive using the Samsung migration software. This only works with Samsung drives, but since I have two of them, this was not a problem. So I cloned the original M.2 drive which win10 was on to my Samsung 1tb 860 evo ssd and then managed to remove the original M.2 and fit the 970 evo M.2 NVME and get windows to boot off the ssd. Then I managed to clone the ssd to the M.2 NVME. I then removed the ssd and booted from the M.2 NVME drive. This worked to a point, but the drive wasn't recognised by windows as being NVME and neither by the Samsung Magician software. It was just operating like a normal ssd. I'm not sure why this is, but I suspect there's supposed to be something that runs off the drive at start up that tells windows what it is and due to it being a clone didn't have this. I was going for a fresh install anyhow, but I just thought that I'd try a clone to see if it was even possible because it's something that's been discussed a lot on the internet.
So I cleared the M.2 NVME, formatted it and tried to do a fresh windows install from a usb drive. The drive was visible in the Bios, which is a good thing, but early in the installing process, when asked to select a drive to install windows onto, the M.2 was visible, but it then tells me that it cannot install windows onto this drive. There was no reason given. So that's where I am right now with it, so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated because I'm stuck at the moment.
Thanks guys

 

[wonkycows]

Ok, I've finally got things up and running with a fresh windows 10 install. My problem was that when I cleared the drive I then formatted it and I shouldn't have. Once I realised, I used win PE on the Macrium reflect software, which has a command prompt screen and therefore disk part utility, to clear the drive properly. I then just installed windows off a windows 10 creation usb and it flew from there. It's taken an evening of putting drivers into it, but after running the Samsung magician I'm getting some great speeds from the new drive. NVME all the way baby!