Move win 10 os from smaller ssd to larger m2 ssd on the same machine.
I am considering buying Acronis True Image to be able to swap my win 10 64 bit OS from a 320gb installed Samsung SSD to a 1TB newly installed Samsung 970 EVO plus NVMe.M.2, into my GA-Z270X-Gaming 7 Motherboard
My machine currently has 3 SATA drives:
1 x spinning 2TB drive, for data.
1 x 320gb ssd used for the operating system
1 x 1TB ssd drive for flight sim.
I need to increase my OS drive capacity. To achieve this, I have added the M.2 drive, it is visible, now that it is initialised.
I am a bit(lot) confused as to the process. I do not want to remove my current 320 gb operating system SSD (it will become a working drive) and "simply" want to move the os from it and migrate the os to the new M.2 disk. Fire up the machine and everything works, or more likely I have to go into the BIOS and change the boot order to the new M2 disk?
Can all this be achieved with all drives in place and connected? All videos I see refer to, state the original os drive has to be removed.
I have looked at the knowledge area but can’t see my answer.


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Hi Steve. Thank you for your very very detailed reply....$%^ hell...here is me thinking,.. with this Acronis tool, 30-45 minutes and all done...easy peasy....great tool...OK, my reading of my jobs to get this done.
Umm, I have approx. 160, 400 and 300 GB of data that needs separate backup image for my three drives? This can be done on my spinning drive, as its got 1.4TB free.
Your Item No's summarised..
1. Create the ATI 2018 rescue media and practise using it to boot the system. understand boot order and how to change.
2. My Bios are UEFI, and my 4 drives are using the GPT method.
3. I will need to disconnect my C: drive (320GB) (operating system disk) and my E: drive (1TB).
My 2TB drive will have the image backups, so it will be left connected, as well as the Samsung NVMe M.2 SSD that will receive the copy of the backup of the 320GB SSD.
4. Boot the PC in UEFI boot mode from the ATI 2018 rescue media.
5. Recover the backup of the 320GB SSD to the new NVMe SSD
6. Check the Log data straight away to confirm that all was done successfully.
7. Shut the system down and restart. Check that the PC will boot correctly from the new NVMe SSD. Hmmm, I thought I would need to get into the Bios settings to change the boot order from the ATI 2018 rescue media to the Samsung NVMe M.2 SSD ??
8. If all is still good, then shutdown again and reinstall / reconnect any drives that were removed or disconnected in step 3. above. Of course, do not refit the original 320GB SSD. Check all Drives letters etc.
9. Connect the 320GB SSD to the PC externally via a USB adaptor or dock etc, then reinitialise and reformat this to remove all the hidden / system partitions in preparation for using this as a data drive.
OK Steve, now I have calmed down a tad, the list does not look too hard, if read in bite size chunks. Again, thank you for such assistance.
I shall report back after purchase of Acronis and getting the job done.
Geoff
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7. Shut the system down and restart. Check that the PC will boot correctly from the new NVMe SSD. Hmmm, I thought I would need to get into the Bios settings to change the boot order from the ATI 2018 rescue media to the Samsung NVMe M.2 SSD ??
The Acronis recovery process will attempt to set the correct bootability options to allow the PC to boot from the new NVMe SSD.
If you are happy looking at the BIOS settings, then you should see 'Windows Boot Manager' as the EFI boot option with this coming from the NVMe SSD.
The main thing with this type of migration is to keep it as simple as possible and so avoid any mistakes. Unfortunately we see users who come to the forum after they have chosen the wrong drive to recover to and have no backup of the data that got wiped in the process! Having your extra drives disconnected or removed keeps them safe!
See the forum topic here for when I did an upgrade from a 128GB SSD to a new 500GB one where I documented the process I used and captured screen shots along the way.
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Thanks Steve. It seems many of us go on the M.2 journey.
When I first installed my M.2, I lost two of my drives ??? Then I remembered I had two choices of M.2 placement. I dive into the mb manual, and sure enough, I had placed my M.2 into the wrong location. Swapped it out, and all drives re-appeared.
So, this week, with your great help, I will attack my upgrade and report back...Scary, but, with little steps AND a back up of everything, as a fall back, pretty straight forward. I saw your comments about the Acronis will attempt to resolve the correct bootability in the bios.
Geoff
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Hi Steve. I eventually found an Australian vendor to sell me a copy of Acronis 2018 and not require a subscription. Super difficult to be able to find a copy of Acronis True Image that I can buy with a perpetual licence. Hopefully my version 2018, build No 15470 will do the job.
It seems, Acronis are forcing subscriptions for 12 months, rather than sell a product. My view is I buy things...not rent them. Subscribing means in 12 months, the software no longer functions at all.
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Geoff, perpetual versions of ATI are still available including for ATI 2021 but Acronis have tended to make them harder to find for whatever reason! I am not a subscription person and have no intention of becoming one!
Australia has been a country where Acronis perpetual versions have been harder to find and has been reported in these forums a number of times!
See the image below taken from the Acronis Australia web page showing where the perpetual version can be found!
ATI 2018 should do the job you need it for here!
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Hi Steve, Yeah...I never got that far at the bottom of the page, and the buy or upgrade part did not jump out at me, I just read the 3 subscriptions...
anyway, my 2018 perpetual version cost $69, so, hopefully, it will still do the job.
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Hi Steve. OK, thanks to your wonderful set of instructions, the system transfer went very well. I set up a work plan with each instruction separated, so that I could 'tick' off each item as done, and or provide a comment.
The only thing I need to tidy up, though, in the scheme of things, not a biggy, my C: drive now has a couple of partitions that do not appear to do anything!! See the attached pics.
I have two partitions that have a 1,000 MB and 560MB respectively in them, seemingly with no purpose or access. Both these partitions, in Disk Management, will only allow , Delete Volume.
Using Disk Management, I seem to have access to differing things.
The 350MB healthy (EFI System Partition offers no action. All right click options greyed out.
The Windows (C:) 929.52 GB NTFS healthy (boot, page file, Crash Dump, Basic Data Partition) offers a shrink option and change drive letters and paths.
Looking at the MiniTool Partition program, it displays a differing view of the C: partitions and offers more options:
Anyway, I will make sure now that I have a backup of my drives saved and stored on site as well as in the cloud, should a disaster happen again. While the process was a tad scary, it was more the unknown. Great how the USB boot stick worked so well, and the resultant write of the C: drive, automatically sorted out the master boot record in the BIOS.
Geoff
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Geoff, looking mainly at your image from MiniTool, all your partitions look just fine with a 128MB Microsoft System Reserved partition, a 1GB Windows Recovery Environment partition, a 350MB EFI System partition, then your main 925GB C: OS partition, with just one remaining small 560MB obsolete Recovery partition that was probably left over from an earlier OS upgrade.
If you want to recover the last 560MB partition, then you could delete this using MiniTool then resize the C: partition to add that space to it.
All the other partitions should be left alone as are all required.
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Steve, I removed the 560MB partition and added it to the C: drive. So, my friend, that about does it. With your great assistance, I(we) managed to fit my new M.2 drive, back up my drives, create a usb boot device(now stored away) move the operating system over to the new M.2 drive, resize the partition, and release the previous SSD used for the operating System for general duties.
As you would know, many programs call on the C: drive. Now, for little cost, my C: drive is sufficiently large enough that I need not be concerned when a program really wants to be there.
Thankyou for your fantastic help.
Geoff
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Geoff, always glad to be able to help another user and great to read of success!
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