Replacing SAMSUNG MZVLB512HAJQ-000H1 SSD with Samsung EVO 970 Plus Nvme Pcie m2 card

[Jamarsanna]

Physically I figured out how to replace the card but since it is my boot drive and I haven't replaced any other parts, I'm not sure how to transfer my files and OS onto the new drive. I downloaded the SAMSUNG MAGICIAN APP, which is supposed to basically do it all for you, but it said my current Samsung drive wasn't supported. What is the best way to handle this? What externalities should I expect?

[Photoray002]

Hello @Jamarsanna 

According to your specs sheet, you should have both and M.2 drive and a 2TB HDD.

If this is correct, any data files like docs and photos should be kept on the 2TB HDD. If they are on your SSD, you can move them to the HDD. Do this before removing the old SSD obviously.

You could clone the M.2 SSD, but that is not ideal. Its really better to clean install Windows to the new drive. Then re-install what ever programs you have to the new OS.

When you install Windows, disconnect the HDD first. This will make things much easier. When you confirm the new install works as it should, then reconnect the HDD.

Let me know if you have other questions.

[krzemien · Accepted solution]

Cloning OS drive is easy, there's plenty of information on the Internet how to achieve this, just look it up:

https://www.techadvisor.co.uk/feature/software/best-drive-cloning-software-3675401/

https://lifehacker.com/how-to-migrate-to-a-solid-state-drive-without-reinstall-5837543

Etc.

I've used Acronis myself and it worked fine. It's best to do this off-line, i.e. by booting to cloning software environment and create disk copies there. NVMe cloning may pose some challenges (i.e. whether to use 3rd disk temporarily too store the image, or get USB adapter - there's only one M.2 slot available) - it's up to you how do you want to handle it exactly.

One thing to be aware of: if you resize main OS partition (i.e. because you require more space, I assume that's why you want to swap disks in the first place) your recovery partition will no longer work correctly and you will be unable to boot from it via F11. See this thread and information in the last post how to fix it:

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebooks-Archive-Read-Only/Re-F11-HP-recovery-doesn-t-boot-into-recov...

I've not been bothered with this problem myself - I still keep original SSD intact, in case I need to get back to factory baseline that way (warranty etc.).

Failing that there's always a recovery drive available (you have created one already, didn't you)?

If I were you I would:

* Create set of recovery disks / USB recovery stick - with HP Recovery software that should be on your PC

* Clone disks and expand OS partition, and remove recovery partition if you don't need it on the new SSD (it's another 10GB or so?)

* keep old SSD in the box just in case.

[Jamarsanna]

Thanks!

This is exactly what I needed. I probably will not try to resize the partitions because I don't have any experience doing that and want a simple installation, and the new SSD is much larger so space shouldn't be an issue. I will be trying a third external drive to do the cloning with and if that doesn't work I'll just get a USB adapter. 

Thanks again.