Need help cloning drive

Meowth LVL255 · June 23, 2021

I've been trying to clone my (GPT) 128GB NVME to a 1TB NVME out of my Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming Laptop. The problem is when I clone to the new drive successfully, I can't reinstall Windows to factory where I get the Dell programs and apps. This is what happens:
Original 128 GB drive: Works as intended from Dell. I got to settings>Update and Security> Recovery>click on "Get started". I'm able to reformat and reinstall with all the Dell stuff so I don't have to go and redownload all the correct drivers.

Drive 2: I got to settings>Update and Security> Recovery>click on "Get started". Windows states: Can't find Recovery Environment. Disk Management shows healthy partitions and all that. Extending the unallocated space to the OS drive is another issue. SFC /Scannow says it fixes corrupted files, Dism scan does nothing, and reagentc /enable tells me there's no recovery environment, as does create a recovery drive. I do not want to create a USB recovery or SHIFT+Restart because I should be able to reset the PC without doing that as I can the original drive. What am I missing? I've googled many different ways and can't seem to find my particular problem. I've also watched a lot of videos that just says create a recovery drive and I can't do that for some reason. Just to make matters worse though, if I manage to create a recovery drive, will it be in the way of the OS and unallocated space left on the drive? This would effectively negate the reason why I'm trying to upgrade it anyway. So here's my end goal: I want to be able to store files in Documents, Pictures, Video folders plus my main programs on the OS partition and when things get weird in the future for any reason, be able to go to settings to reinstall Windows and it be like the original drive. Any help would be appreciated.

ndesign.ie · June 23, 2021

This is tricky but possible.

Dell sets the recovery in physical location, once cloned, this screws up if you move the recovery partition.

This means you'd only get to use the end of the new drive as storage.

The Dell recovery partition can be moved but haven't tried to use recovery, imho its never needed, Win 10 refresh works fine, drivers can be downloaded again but Win 10 driver library is great.

What I'd do is:

EaseUS Partition Master to move the partition to end of new ssd and expand main storage. Try the Dell recovery again.

If it doesn't work, just image the 128GB and file the 128GB image away and either remove and store the drive or format it to use it.

Meowth LVL255 · June 23, 2021

On 4/16/2021 at 1:24 PM, MAXXPRO said:

from Windows you can move those monitors but dimension is based only on resolution.

Thank you for the reply, but I did in fact fix it the exact moment you replied. The problem was that I was using Aomei Partition Assistant and it's not smart enough to do the job. I instead used Marcium Reflect which fixed literally every problem and I even found a video to help. For future reference if anyone else is having this exact issue, I would like to solve all of their problems by giving them this video: (1) Clone M.2 NVMe SSD to Larger SSD & Memory Upgrade Dell Inspiron 3583 - YouTube

I'm not trying to advertise the video and I have no association with it at all other than this video fixed all the issues. This is only for google search for a solid answer and fix.