Question Windows Wont Boot To New SSD After Data Migration

[austino311]

Hello Toms Hardware! as the title suggests I am having difficulty booting into my new SSD.

I recently purchased a new NVME SSD. I wanted to migrate my current OS and some storage to my new drive. Both drives are Samsung. I downloaded the Samsung data migration utility and proceeded to run it as instructed. Once it was completed, I restarted my PC to see that it was still booting into the older drive. Naturally, I booted into my BIOS, changed the boot order to boot into the new drive, and my PC still boots into the older drive. I then tried to disable all other boot options in my bios, and it would just boot loop back into my bios.

I found that I can unplug the SATA cable for my old drive, restart, then I can then boot into my new drive just fine. I then reboot, plug the old drive's SATA cable back in (to wipe the drive and use it for other storage), and it automatically boots back into the original drive. Also, I should mention that even when I set the new SSD as the main boot drive, then manually override the boot order from the bios the PC still boots to my original SSD. The only way I can get it to boot to the M.2 is to unplug all my other drives, which defeats the purpose as I can't remove the data off the original drive.

Any suggestions for how this can be fixed? Is there a setting in my BIOS that I'm missing? In summary, I would like my NVME drive to be my main OS drive, I would then wipe my old SSD and use it for other storage, but ultimately I can't consistently boot into the new drive.

Thank you!

 

[USAFRet]

Details needed.

What specific drives?
What motherboard?
What migration tool did you use?

 

[austino311]

Details needed.

What specific drives.
What migration tool did you use.

The original drive is a Samsung 850 Evo, I used Samsungs Data Migration Tool to "copy" that image of the drive, new drive is a Samsung 970 evo.

 

[USAFRet]

The original drive is a Samsung 850 Evo, I used Samsungs Data Migration Tool to "copy" that image of the drive, new drive is a Samsung 970 evo.

I don't know why they leave off this step, but at the end of the migration process, you NEED to power off and disconnect the old drive.
Allow the system to power up from ONLY the new drive, adjusting the BIOS boot order if needed.

But you do NOT want both bootable drives in there.

 

[austino311]

I don't know why they leave off this step, but at the end of the migration process, you NEED to power off and disconnect the old drive.
Allow the system to power up from ONLY the new drive, adjusting the BIOS boot order if needed.

But you do NOT want both bootable drives in there.

Yeah, I've seen something similar to your response, I wondered that too, I've used this utility in the past and had no issues what so ever, but the problem lies in that once I plug the new drive back in to manage it, it will revert the bios changes and boot orders that I have created. I have also tried plugging the drive in while I'm already into the new drive, and the drive is not seen in any management tool.

 

[austino311]

Details needed.

What specific drives?
What motherboard?
What migration tool did you use?

Asus Z270 AR, old - Samsung 850 evo, new - Samsung 970 Evo

 

[USAFRet]

Yeah, I've seen something similar to your response, I wondered that too, I've used this utility in the past and had no issues what so ever, but the problem lies in that once I plug the new drive back in to manage it, it will revert the bios changes and boot orders that I have created. I have also tried plugging the drive in while I'm already into the new drive, and the drive is not seen in any management tool.

Migrate
power off
remove the old drive
power up, adjust the BIOS so that ONLY the new drive is in there
Verify functionality
Power off
Reconnect the old drive
Boot up...it should not interact with the old drive.

 

[austino311]

Migrate
power off
remove the old drive
power up, adjust the BIOS so that ONLY the new drive is in there
Verify functionality
Power off
Reconnect the old drive
Boot up...it should not interact with the old drive.

Ill give this a shot and report back. thanks again for all the suggestions so far.

 

[austino311]

Migrate
power off
remove the old drive
power up, adjust the BIOS so that ONLY the new drive is in there
Verify functionality
Power off
Reconnect the old drive
Boot up...it should not interact with the old drive.

Did everything as instructed, was able to boot into the new drive twice, then reconnected my older drives, still running into the same issue.

Other notable items, when the original drive is plugged in with the newly imaged M.2, in my bios, the boot manager lists the old drive as "Windows Boot Manager (P3: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB)", this is listed twice, then the ethernet connection, then the M.2, then the Samsung drive again. If I have just the M.2 plugged in, it will then list in the bios as "Windows Boot Manager (P3: Samsung SSD 970 EVO 1TB)". Even when I manually override the boot order through the bios it still defaults back to the original drive.

 

[austino311]

Did everything as instructed, was able to boot into the new drive twice, then reconnected my older drives, still running into the same issue.

Other notable items, when the original drive is plugged in with the newly imaged M.2, in my bios, the boot manager lists the old drive as "Windows Boot Manager (P3: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB)", this is listed twice, then the ethernet connection, then the M.2, then the Samsung drive again. If I have just the M.2 plugged in, it will then list in the bios as "Windows Boot Manager (P3: Samsung SSD 970 EVO 1TB)". Even when I manually override the boot order through the bios it still defaults back to the original drive.

Another thing I'm noticing as I'm booted into the old drive when looking into the disk manager, the M.2 doesn't show up as any active partitions, it's only showing my original drive and my backup HDD. any thoughts on this?

 

[SkyNetRising]

as I'm booted into the old drive when looking into the disk manager, the M.2 doesn't show up as any active partitions, it's only showing my original drive and my backup HDD.

Can you show screenshot from Disk Management?
(upload to imgur.com and post link)

 

[austino311]

Here is the link as requested, As I opened it again, I noticed that Disk 2 was marked as "offline" I changed it to online and am able to confirm that its the 970. let me reboot and see if I can get into it now.

https://imgur.com/a/VKnHU7e

View: https://imgur.com/a/VKnHU7e

 

[austino311]

Here is the link as requested, As I opened it again, I noticed that Disk 2 was marked as "offline" I changed it to online and am able to confirm that its the 970. let me reboot and see if I can get into it now.

https://imgur.com/a/VKnHU7e

View: https://imgur.com/a/VKnHU7e

Looks like marking "Disk 2" as "Online" helped windows detect the boot manager, I'm able to boot into the 970 and see my other drives now! I'm going to proceed with wiping the other drive.