TI2016 with Samsung 950 Pro SSD
I have a Dell XPS 8500 computer which Dual boots Windows 7 and Windows 10, and a Dell XPS 8900 which dual boots Windows 8.1 and Windows 10.
I installed a Samsung 850 Pro SSD drive (SATA) in the 8500 and attempted to use the Samsung Data Migration software to setup the 850 Pro, but was unable to get it to work since there are 9 partitions (two for Windows 7 and 10, and 7 partitions which have to do with the operating system), and the Data Migration software only creates 4 partitions, so it won’t boot up on the drive. With the 8500, I was able to use the Acronis True Image 2016 disk clone feature to setup the 850 Pro and it worked OK.
The 8900 has the Samsung 950 Pro (M.2 form), and again, even with the latest versions of the Data Migration and Samsung Magician software and the latest driver for the 950, I again have the problem with only getting 4 partitions. However, even with the latest 2016 True Image software, I am unable to use the disk clone feature since, in order to clone the disk it has to reboot in order to clone, and True Image can only see the 950 while in Windows. When the computer reboots, it can’t see the 950, so it doesn’t complete the clone process. If I boot the computer with the latest True Image rescue media, it is unable to see the 950 drive. I found some info on the Acronis forums about using the Bart-PE plug-in, however, I need a Bart-PE for dummies to understand how to set it up.
It seems I have two problems, the Samsung software needs to be able to make an exact clone of the original hard drive, and the True Image software needs to be able to recognize an SSD drive with the M.2 connection when not in Windows. Any help would be appreciated. If I can’t get TI 2016 boot media to see the drive, the software is useless for backup.

- Log in to post comments

Not exactly a how to step by step guide but the link below may be of some use to you.
- Log in to post comments

From what I've read in some of Mustang's other posts, if you have Windows 10 installed, and download the latest windows ADK to the machine, if you create bootable offline recovery media in Acronis as Windows PE (instead of the default Linux), it will automatically include the latest NVME drivers for the Samsung 950 Pro's (the intel drivers - which are sufficient). That should allow you to boot to Acronis offline recovery media as WinPE and have support for your Samsung 950 drive.
For some reason, if it doesn't find the drive (which it should), you can easily slipthe drivers into the Acronis WinPE "boot.wim" using the Windows ADK DISM commands. Even easier, there is a tool called DISM GUI that is all GUI based and makes the process all that much easier. You would just need to have the ADK installed in Windows first. You would want to create your windows PE to a USB drive, not an ISO so that it could easily be modified. Once ADK is installed, and your Acronis WinPE created to your USB drive, launch the DISM GUI tool and point it to the boot.wim file and mount it to a folder. The second tab of the tool has an add driver option so point to the correct .inf files and let it add them. Once added, close up the boot.wim with the GUI and you're good to go. Probably not necessary if you use the Windows 10 ADK to create your Acronis PE in the first place, but good to have the option to add the drivers if you need to.
- Log in to post comments