Adding an SSD and using Macrium Reflect to clone the HD to the SSD

[mikthebik]

I'm using Macrium Reflect to clone my 1GB HD with Win 10 64bit to a 480 GB SSD, which is successfully installed. When cloned and BIOS is changed to boot from the SSD, the boot partition appears to be nonfunctional. I'm using a tutorial at https://youtu.be/CHCENfs87F4 where a Dell is used, but am following his steps, with the exception of his BIOS changes, different on the HP. I've used DiskPart to clean the disk prior to reattempting the clone a couple of times, with no success. Has anyone attempted this upgrade on an HP laptop or notebook similar to my HP Notebook - 14-cf0013dx with success? TIA, MikeC

[Huffer]

Yes. Going from a larger to smaller disk, in your case 1 TB to 480 gigs, the default is to shrink each partition to 48% of its previous size and may leave you with a nonfunctional system or boot partition. You have to manually move partitions other than the big C:\ drive partition at their original size and then resize the big partition to whatever is left over. 

https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW/Cloning+a+disk

I did not try to track what the guy was doing on the Dell but the procedure I have laid out above has worked for me pretty consistently. 

Also please remove the hard drive before attempting to boot to the SSD. Hope this helps

[mikthebik]

Huffer replied: You have to manually move partitions other than the big C:\ drive partition at their original size and then resize the big partition to whatever is left over. 

----- Thanks for the reply, that's exactly what the video suggests, and what I did. 

Additional info:

My original 1TB spiinning drive is SATA and would use legacy BIOS Windows boot. The SSD is UEFI and would boot based on that "protocol". Forgive me, if I misstate terms, I'm 12 years removed from being a SW engineer and things have definitely moved on..

When I changed the boot order to point to the cloned SSD, and booted, it still booted to the  original HD (the HD spinning was audible and the boot was at the HD speed(slow)). The SSD, however, was shown as the C:drive on both Explorer and Disk Manager. On a later clone and boot try, I removed the HD and it would not boot. It appears to be using the original BIOS legacy boot sector(which of course is cloned to the new UEFI drive).

Looking at Macrium Reflects  forum, I found folks having an issue cloning from UEFI  to UEFI drives, where despite changing the boot order, the machine would boot to the previous UEFI boot drive. No solution was suggested, only contact MR support, who had not responded in the thread. This appears to be what is happening with my machine, only with 2 different boot "types". I suspect my next step is to contact Macrium Reflect support, unless I get a reply from this forum from someone with a similar experience.

Huffer, have you successfully   tried any UEFI cloning??

[mikthebik]

One more piece of info on the boot mode, using msinfo32, the BIOS mode is listed as UEFI, so i'm doing a UEFI to UEFI clone, and the recent scenario description on the Macrium Reflect forum where the old boot drive is used to boot, is what I appear to be experiencing. 

[Huffer]

Yes I was going to say the hardware does not determine if the boot mode is legacy or UEFI; that is set in the preboot environment on the machine. If the machine will boot in UEFI mode using just the original spinning hard drive then  in theory a perfect copy onto the SSD should be bootable. 

[mikthebik]

Progress, sorta.. The PC became locked in a Blue Screen loop trying to auto repair from a Kmode not handled exception.. Ran System Diagnostics and things looked fine. Trying to run System Restore resulted in a never ending wait at the "Please Wait Here" screen. Decided to forgo the NVME drive and try the internal SATA Samsung 1TB  SSD that I'd been cloning periodically for over a year. Last clone was about a week ago. Installed in place of the spinning drive and it booted flawlessly.

Looked for more info on just doing a fresh install on an M2 drive and came across this video. He claims he's had issues with NVME drives not working in HP laptops, even with a fresh Windows install He installed a M2 SATA, rather than NVME  ..   www.youtube.com/watch?v=Udg2Qge8Fk . 

I have a fresh NVME 512GB installed along with the SSD drive and will try a fresh install on the NVME to see if it will boot and function normally. I could install a SATA M2 drive, if it doesn't work, but don't think there would be much of a speed advantage over the internal SSD drive. It would allow using the internal drive for data, so still might make the change. 

Any feedback on any NVME install and boot issues.. Think I'll try it.

[Huffer]

Never had an issue with NVME vs SATA. You are correct that a SATA M.2 offers no speed advantage over a 2.5 inch SATA SSD. Same hardware in a different package so transfer speeds the same. One thing with NVME SSDs in general. Windows 10 and 11 need a driver slipstreamed into the image of the OS in order to work on I believe 11th gen and higher Intel processors. But yours is 8th gen so that is not the issue

https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-lv/000188116/intel-11th-generation-processors-no-drives-can-be...

[mikthebik]

Update: The fresh Windows 10 64 bit install worked fine and has been rebooted many times since the installation. The NVM Express driver shows up on Device Manager and is apparently working fine. The install has been obviously more time consuming than a simple clone switch, but worthwhile. I’ll re-add apps as they’re needed. With 2 other PCs on the network, I have natural backup for most of my data, and app install files, so should be smooth sailing from here. Just need to add back an internal SATA SSD for data and the HW should be set. This little HP-14 notebook has been great for both motorcycle travel and some home use. Now, even better. Thanks for your replies Huffer, and thanks to HP for a terrific little entry level notebook.