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How to Clone my HDD (SATA) to SSD M2?

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Hi,

Sorry for my english. i'm from Argentina.

I want to clone my HDD disk connected via SATA to a new disk SSD M2. I looked out some forums but i dindt find any solution to my problem. Both disk are connect in diferent places inside the laptop. I tried to do the clone with both disk connected but the OS doesn't start from de SSD M2 disk. How can i do the clone? Have I to remove the HDD of my computer, connect externally via USB to do the clone? Have i any problem because the SSD disk is connect in another position (M2 Slot) of the SATA?

 

Thanks for your help!

1 Users found this helpful

Rodrigo, welcome to these public User Forums.

Cloning directly from an internal HDD to another internal NVMe M.2 SSD drive is complicated for most users and would require changes to the laptop UEFI BIOS settings to ensure that the correct copy of the Windows Boot Manager from the M.2 drive is selected as the priority boot device.

If your laptop is not already using UEFI / GPT boot mode then this will also need to be addressed as this is normally a requirement to boot from a NVMe M.2 SSD drive.

Run the command: msinfo32 from within Windows to check what the current BIOS mode used by your Windows OS is?  This should show as UEFI and not as Legacy.

Please make a full Disks & Partitions backup of your working HDD and Windows OS drive before doing any further attempts at cloning!  This is your safety net against any errors!

If you believe that your previous clone operation has completed successfully and the new M.2 SSD shows the correct Windows OS files and folders when you look at it in Explorer, then you should try shutting down fully then removing the SATA HDD drive from the laptop, to see if it will find and be able to boot from the new SSD?

Note: again, you may need to go into the laptop BIOS settings to select the Windows Boot Manager from the SSD as the boot device.

If the laptop does boot correctly into Windows, then you should attach the removed SATA HDD externally via USB and reformat this before reinstalling internally to use as a second drive.

If the laptop does not boot from the new M.2 SSD, then the method of resolving this should be by using the Acronis bootable Rescue Media and doing a restore of the full Disk backup from the HDD to the SSD.

Alternatively,

Please see KB 56634: Acronis True Image: how to clone a disk - and review the step by step guide given there.

Note: the first section of the above KB document directs laptop users to KB 2931: How to clone a laptop hard drive - and has the following paragraph:

It is recommended to put the new drive in the laptop first, and connect the old drive via USB. Otherwise you will may not be able to boot from the new cloned drive, as Acronis True Image will apply a bootability fix to the new disk and adjust the boot settings of the target drive to boot from USB. If the new disk is inside the laptop, the boot settings will be automatically adjusted to boot from internal disk. As such, hard disk bays cannot be used for target disks. For example, if you have a target hard disk (i.e. the new disk to which you clone, and from which you intend to boot the machine) in a bay, and not physically inside the laptop, the target hard disk will be unbootable after the cloning.

Beyond what Steve states there are some laptops that can use either SATA or M.2 but not both at the same time. Yours might be one of them checking with your manufacturer should answer that question.

 

Enchantech wrote:

Beyond what Steve states there are some laptops that can use either SATA or M.2 but not both at the same time. Yours might be one of them checking with your manufacturer should answer that question.

 

I agree that this can be the case; In my experience this is more often the case where the M.2 drive is a SATA rather than NVMe drive. Some M.2 sockets only support SATA or only support NVMe, while other support both.

Ian

There is a lot of confusion and misinformation about M.2 drives. This extends to the proper BISO/UEFI settings. User manuals are not always helpful in sorting this out.

Had the same question, and honestly Acronis didn't work for me. I used Macrium Reflect FREE version and it worked flawlessly. All partitions cloned to a tee, All drivers installed at bootup. A bunch of Windows updates, etc at startup after login. Boot up ran into zero issues.  

Source: Dell forums.

Steps: 

1. Download macrium reflect free version is fine.

2. Make a bootable rescue flash drive using Macrium., create rescue media. 

3. Boot the system from the rescue media.

4. Clone 

5. Disconnect the original drive before you boot the cloned drive the first time.

 

I would never use Clone operation for such an important task.

I would create a full disk mode backup. Then, remove the old drive and install the new drive, and restore the backup to the new drive.

Having the backup gives you the opportunity to try restoring a few times in case you need to adjust BIOS/UEFI settings to get things right.

tuttle wrote:

I would never use Clone operation for such an important task.

I would create a full disk mode backup. Then, remove the old drive and install the new drive, and restore the backup to the new drive.

Having the backup gives you the opportunity to try restoring a few times in case you need to adjust BIOS/UEFI settings to get things right.

+1

Ian