Moving OS to SSD on HP Pavilion Desktop - 510-p114

[tfalslev]

I am moving windows 10 over to an SSD due to some issues lately with the hard drive. I used a program that I have used before with Lenovo and Dell machines to clone the Hard drive and move the OS to new hard drive. Everything seemed to work fine until I swapped the hard drive for the SSD. 

The new hard drive was not recognized and it would not boot.  It tried going to the Bios to see if I could get it to recognize the SSD, but all I get is a screen that says "Press the Esc Key for Startup Menu"  and I cannot get it to move from there no matter what. I have tried the Windows "B" option to and heard the 8 beeps and still nothing. 

If I put the old hard drive in I can get to the  Bios, but with the new hard drive there is no way to get to the bios at all. This has never happened to me. Again I have done this same process  in the past many times on Dell and Lenovo machines with no issue.

[WAWood]

@tfalslev 

You're mixing terms and that makes your post confusing.  You keep saying new "hard drive" -- but your thread says you are trying to replace the old hard drive with an SSD, not with another hard drive.  So, which is it?

As to the Dell utility, we have no way of knowing how that works but in general, when you "clone" an HDD to an SDD, either you have to shrink the HDD partitions to fit onto the new, smaller SSD, or the cloning software does that for you.  I use Macrium Reflect ONLY to do cloning and that software will automatically resize the partitions to fit.  

I don't know how the DELL software works, so I can't comment on that -- but if all the partitions are there, when you connect the SSD, it should boot.

Is this a SATA SSD, or an m.2 SSD? IF the latter, is it SATA or NVMe?  If the latter, that could be the issue as your PC might not support booting from NVMe drives.

[tfalslev]

Thanks for the response.  Yes , I am moving a SATA SSD over from an older HDD for a friend and I am using MiniTool Partition Wizard, which does shrink the partitions to new SSD and hasn't failed me up until now. The old HDD doesn't have much on there either and easily fits. I have reviewed the new SSD and everything appears to be there too. 

Probably the most odd thing that I have found with this machine,  is that I can't access the BIOS unless the old hard drive is hooked up. It shouldn't matter if the hard drive is working or not I should be able to access the BIOS. It will just sit there with a screen that says "Press the Esc Key for Startup Menu" and it doesn't matter what press. 

I also tried reloading windows with a bootable DVD and it won't even see that unless the old drive is place.

It. It is very weird.

I will take a look at Macrium Reflect and see if that does anything me.  Thanks for the response. 

[WAWood]

@tfalslev 

You're correct in that what you did, moving all the partitions using MiniTool, SHOULD have worked.  I have used that tool also and never had it behave like this.

And the issue with the BIOS and the drive is really odd -- and you're right that the drive, being there or not, should not affect the BIOS booting.

When you get the Press the Esc key message, pressing the Esc key does nothing?

As to Macrium Reflect, only the new PAID version 8 does the resizing automatically.  The free version is back on version 7 and it does not do the automatic resizing.

[tfalslev]

@WAWOOD 

I downloaded Macrium Reflect and you are correct it is an awesome program. Thanks for the suggestion. 

I decided to use a different hard drive (HDD) that was from a laptop  and was the same sIze as the SSD, tried cloning it and it worked perfectly. After, I did the same process with the SSD and it failed to boot again. I believe something is wrong with that particular SSD. I will be attempting to get another and try the same process.

As for the BIOS not loading, it does just sit there and the Esc key does nothing. In fact nothing I press on the keyboard does anything. I must be related to the SSD being weird.

I will let you know how the next SSD goes.

[WAWood]

@tfalslev 

I apologize in advance if you answered my question about the SSD type -- but I did not see your answer.

I asked that because while just about any PC can boot from a SATA SSD, only the very new ones can boot from an NVMe SSD.  Windows can see both because it has NVMe drivers built in, but it can not boot from both unless your PC supports UEFI boot.

[AndyStuart87]

There are many software options to migrate your windows OS from old drive to new SSD. However, for more better understanding on the methods to migrate your OS from HDD to new SSD, I suggest you to check out the below blog - https://www.stellarinfo.com/blog/how-to-migrate-windows-10-from-old-hdd-to-ssd/

Hope it will help.