Question Upgrading my M.2 SSD with only one M.2 slot HELP ME PLS

[IAMCONFUSED404]

Hi everyone,
I'm a noob when it comes to PC stuff. I've built a couple PC's and I know some basic troubleshooting knowledge but that's about it. Right now, I'm trying to upgrade my girlfriends' ~500GB SSD to a 2TB SSD. Her motherboard only has one M.2 slot though so I bought a USB to M.2 adapter and I'm using that to clone the old drive to the new one.

I've done this before a few years ago for myself and don't remember having any issues. This time however, after completing the clone in Macrium Reflect (I also tried Disk Genius), I can't simply swap the old SSD for the new one because the new one won't boot! In fact I can't even get into the bios when I put the new SSD into the motherboard slot! Please help me I have no idea how to make this new drive bootable. Thank you in advance

https://imgur.com/a/9SiKCPB

View: https://imgur.com/a/9SiKCPB

 

[evermorex76]

Model of the old drive, new drive, and motherboard or PC?

 

[IAMCONFUSED404]

Model of the old drive, new drive, and motherboard or PC?

Motherboard: ASRock B450M Steel Legend
Old drive: Silcon Power 512GB NVMe (I think the model is called the A60)
New drive: inland TN470

 

[evermorex76]

P34A60 maybe? That board actually has two M.2 slots but it looks like the second only supports SATA drives so it doesn't matter (yay for keying that doesn't actually differentiate). Is the BIOS up to date? Does it just never display anything when you try to boot with the new drive? Maybe clear the BIOS? This is the type of problem where I end up just fiddling with things for an hour before finally hitting on the fix.

 

[IAMCONFUSED404]

P34A60 maybe? That board actually has two M.2 slots but it looks like the second only supports SATA drives so it doesn't matter (yay for keying that doesn't actually differentiate). Is the BIOS up to date? Does it just never display anything when you try to boot with the new drive? Maybe clear the BIOS? This is the type of problem where I end up just fiddling with things for an hour before finally hitting on the fix.

Yeah I've been fiddling with things for like 5 hours, mostly within the cloning softwares and disk management, but tbh I have very little idea what I'm doing lol. I'll try updating the BIOS next I guess. The only thing that displays when I slot the new drive into the motherboard is the ASRock screen that has the prompts to access the BIOS and boot manager etc. but I can't actually access anything because nothing happens when I press F2 or F11 or delete or anything for that matter.

 

[IAMCONFUSED404]

P34A60 maybe? That board actually has two M.2 slots but it looks like the second only supports SATA drives so it doesn't matter (yay for keying that doesn't actually differentiate). Is the BIOS up to date? Does it just never display anything when you try to boot with the new drive? Maybe clear the BIOS? This is the type of problem where I end up just fiddling with things for an hour before finally hitting on the fix.

Updating the BIOS worked! Thank you very much for your help, I feel a large dark cloud lifted away from above my soul. This issue was driving me crazy

 

[evermorex76]

I'll never understand issues like that where something totally standard that should work because it's technically the exact same as the previous unit just doesn't until a BIOS update that shouldn't change anything but somehow does. It's not even like it was some extreme drive size that might not have existed or been conceivable when the board's original BIOS was created.

 

[SkyNetRising]

With BIOS update - boot settings and secure boot settings got reset.
My bet - secure boot was interfering with boot process from cloned drive.

 

[evermorex76]

Secure Boot wouldn't be causing the motherboard to not even allow them to reach the BIOS. I don't know why people try to blame Secure Boot for everything.