Solved C drive cloned to a larger NVMe SSD, but recovery was not cloned, is this a problem?

RD Mercer said:

Samsung magician works great! This is one of the reasons I spend a few dollars more to buy all Samsung drives. You will need at least a couple m.2 slots on your board to use the Samsung software. If you only have one m.2 slot on your board, and have an extra pcie slot, you could mount your intel drive onto a pcie card, and you could probably do it that way. If all else fails, they do make m.2 duplicators.

Click to expand...

Thanks, RD Mercer: I don't have 2x slots on the computer, but when I previously cloned it, I used an external M.2 NVMe Hard Drive Enclosure.

Samsung Magician is already on the computer. It has an option "Secure Erase". Wouldn't it be best to use this Secure Erase to wipe my new cloned NVMe SSD clean?

After this, just let SM clone my old drive onto the clean SSD 990Pro? However, it says you can select "up to three partitions". Which means I could not clone the whole C Drive! (so maybe just the system partition? or 1/2 more?) But I am only speculating here. I just think SM might do a better job of cloning because it is made for Samsung SSD drives. However, I could not use the SM to do "Secure Erase" because I could only clone three partitions. But?

Sorry for being such a pain! I'm struggling

To clarify my prior post, as I recall the free version DID seem to successfully clone the drive, but it wouldn't boot. When I used the paid version it worked perfectly. Again, it was a number of years ago and I may be mistaken, but that's what I believe happened.

After all the help and advice I have received my brain finally starts to understand better. I now even know that the 4.0 (or 3.0) on my NVMe refers to the type/version of SSD connection on my computer's motherboard. And 3.0 is mine, while the new NVMe SSD would work faster if it were a 4.0 connector, but it will work, just not as fast.

Despite the massive effort from DennisG to list how to remedy my SSD issue and clone a new version, I fear I will mess this up due to my incompetency. So I won't try this first.

First, my plan (still not fixed) is to use Samsung Magician Secure Erase to "wipe" the new drive clean (as long as this will not wipe something that belongs to the drive and must stay there?)

Then use Samsung Magician to clone drive:
SM says I can select 3 partitions = obviously system partition is one. Whichever partition has the Windows licence must be two. And the third partition must be whatever is also necessary (although which?)





Partition 2 says System 100 MB (so maybe this has to be the third?)

Partition 3 says Reserved (but is not showing in the top screenshot?)

And I assume that one of the Partitions 1 or 5 might hold the licence/etc. (maybe 5????)

This is my rough plan as of now. I just have to find out which three partitions?

XYZ said:

After all the help and advice I have received my brain finally starts to understand better. I now even know that the 4.0 (or 3.0) on my NVMe refers to the type/version of SSD connection on my computer's motherboard. And 3.0 is mine, while the new NVMe SSD would work faster if it were a 4.0 connector, but it will work, just not as fast.

Despite the massive effort from DennisG to list how to remedy my SSD issue and clone a new version, I fear I will mess this up due to my incompetency. So I won't try this first.

First, my plan (still not fixed) is to use Samsung Magician Secure Erase to "wipe" the new drive clean (as long as this will not wipe something that belongs to the drive and must stay there?)

Then use Samsung Magician to clone drive:
SM says I can select 3 partitions = obviously system partition is one. Whichever partition has the Windows licence must be two. And the third partition must be whatever is also necessary (although which?)

View attachment 120659

View attachment 120660

Partition 2 says System 100 MB (so maybe this has to be the third?)

Partition 3 says Reserved (but is not showing in the top screenshot?)

And I assume that one of the Partitions 1 or 5 might hold the licence/etc. (maybe 5????)

This is my rough plan as of now. I just have to find out which three partitions?

Click to expand...

As you suggest, I would also try with partitions 2,3 and 4. I'm not sure that the 2 recovery partitions add much. Others may have other advice.
If it gives you some re-assurance, my laptop is running fine with just the EFI system and Windows partitions:

Cleaned and cloned

Samsung Magician option Secure Erase was not available (probably because SSD was in an external housing)

Instead, I used AOMEI Backupper Pro. This went well and was relatively fast (I quite like the AOMEI Backupper and other software)

For Data Migration, I used Samsung Magician. Compared to the cloning with Macrium Reflect 8, the cloning went fast. Less than half the time.

Of course, my scatterbrain forgot the "you can choose three partitions" option!

But Samsung Magician decided for me. The first three partitions (if this was just because they were the first or the best option?) Perhaps this was for the best?

There are no issues that I am aware of!

All that remains is placing it in the computer and seeing if it works without issues.

It has been a long and very adventurous learning journey, but at long last, I have reached my destination.

The computer is running NVMe SSD Samsung 990PRO

My deepest thanks to everyone who has accompanied and guided me along this journey's tricky path

I wish everyone and others - A GREAT HAPPY & SUCCESSFUL NEW YEAR

Thank you so much

PS. If anybody knows the best settings for the Samsung Magician (should I use the "Over-Provisioning" and other settings) I would be very grateful. Thanks in advance.

Also, C Drive is now Drive 2. Before, it was 0! Should I change this (and if yes, I do this in Disk Management? and how best?)

Doesnt matter what disk number windows decides to display.

Looks ok. I would have expanded the ms recovery partition to at least 1gb during the migration. Cant remember if the samsung tool has the option to do that. If there is an update the 450mb partition might not be big enough so it will create another recovery partition after the os partition.

(should I use the "Over-Provisioning" and other settings)

Click to expand...

Have a look and see what the samsung software recommends.

XYZ said:

It has been a long and very adventurous learning journey, but at long last, I have reached my destination.

The computer is running NVMe SSD Samsung 990PRO

My deepest thanks to everyone who has accompanied and guided me along this journey's tricky path

I wish everyone and others - A GREAT HAPPY & SUCCESSFUL NEW YEAR

Thank you so much

PS. If anybody knows the best settings for the Samsung Magician (should I use the "Over-Provisioning" and other settings) I would be very grateful. Thanks in advance.

Also, C Drive is now Drive 2. Before, it was 0! Should I change this (and if yes, I do this in Disk Management? and how best?)

View attachment 120695

Click to expand...

Great stuff. Now you can relax and have a very Happy New Year

Good to hear . Enjoy your system and have a Happy New Year.

Be sure to create disk images on a regular basis (to a second drive).

The computer is running fine, and my deepest thanks to everyone for the great help, thanks.

I am going to mark this as "solved" now. However, before I do, just a quick look back at the process I followed:

1) The first cloning I did using AOMEI Backupper went with no trouble. However, because it only cloned three of the four C Drive partitions and due to a lack of experience, I became worried about this clone. When it was mentioned that the missing partition might contain the key for my W10/W11, something I had forgotten about, I started to panic, eventually deciding I had to redo the clone. In hindsight, I now realise this panic was uncalled for (and rarely leads to good things) and that this clone would most likely have worked with no trouble, saving me a lot of work and bother (live and learn, hopefully!).

2) Much later, I learnt HP stopped putting the key information on the hard drive several years ago and, since then, placed it in the BIOS.

3) I downloaded and used the free version 8 of Macrium Reflect for my next clone. Although the clone went well (but took far longer than the other two clones I did) and all 4 partitions were cloned once fitted into the computer and started, I immediately got a Blue Screen. No matter what I did, this clone would not work and only caused the Blue Screen. This took up an immense amount of time and caused great stress. I cannot recommend anybody to use this for cloning.

4) First, I cleaned (wiped) the NVMe SSD with AOMEI Backupper; this went well and quickly. Finally, I did what I should have done from the start. Since the SSD was from Samsung, I used "Samsung Magician" software to clone the NVMe SSD. This went well and fast. The computer is now running great. (PS: SM also only cloned three of the four partitions!)

the missing partition might contain the key for my W10/W11

Click to expand...

what key
?