M.2 Inaccessible boot drive

[Jamesw04]

I used to have just one 500gb harddrive with windows 10 Until I upgraded to a sata ssd, I cloned the hdd, rebooted with only the ssd connected and then could use the ssd as my primary boot drive.

 

HOWEVER, now I have upgraded to a m.2 wd blue ssd ,which has been acknowledged by the bios etc, when I tried the same process to make it the boot drive (clone c drive, turn off computer, disconnect other drives, turn on computer) it gives me a blue screen saying inaccessible boot drive despite the m.2 seeming fully functional, ie when I use the sata ssd to boot I can see the m.2 (currently labelled as G) which is seemingly normally usable.

 

so since the drive seem to work fine otherwise, I was wondering if it was the copy of windows 10 which was the problem or maybe the process of cloning the drive- any ideas?

[Alby Tastic]

Is this an NVME drive - if so your pC may not be able to use it as a boot drive - also cloning a drive can sometimes fail - I'd say check whether the M.2 can be used as a boot drive and if so try cloning it again.

[Jamesw04]

Yeah it is an nvme, any recommendations on which software to use for the cloning

[Allan B]

The trick is if you are cloning from a smaller drive to a new drive you need to make sure the first partitions remain the same size (like 500mb)..  This is assuming you are using UEFI boot and not legacy.   Some details on your system (Motherboard + CPU) would help.  Windows booting is not related to the copy of windows 10, so it is not that.

 

Also i would suggest removing all drives except for your m.2 one and try to install windows on it from usb, just get the ISO from MS and test it without a key.  If windows installs and boots, then it is your cloning process that is the problem.

 

Some SSD companies offer free cloning software assuming the one drive is made by them.  Like Samsung, but as i mention above if the drives are difference size they scale the partitions which breaks booting, you need to make sure all partitions except for the "large" one dont change when being cloned.

[Jamesw04]

3 hours ago, Allan B said:

The trick is if you are cloning from a smaller drive to a new drive you need to make sure the first partitions remain the same size (like 500mb)..  This is assuming you are using UEFI boot and not legacy.   Some details on your system (Motherboard + CPU) would help.  Windows booting is not related to the copy of windows 10, so it is not that.

 

Also i would suggest removing all drives except for your m.2 one and try to install windows on it from usb, just get the ISO from MS and test it without a key.  If windows installs and boots, then it is your cloning process that is the problem.

 

Some SSD companies offer free cloning software assuming the one drive is made by them.  Like Samsung, but as i mention above if the drives are difference size they scale the partitions which breaks booting, you need to make sure all partitions except for the "large" one dont change when being cloned.

Alright thanks, that’s been helpful. I’ll try to clone again first whilst keeping the partition size in mind but if that doesn’t work I’ll try the usb install

[Jamesw04]

On 9/19/2021 at 4:04 PM, Allan B said:

The trick is if you are cloning from a smaller drive to a new drive you need to make sure the first partitions remain the same size (like 500mb)..  This is assuming you are using UEFI boot and not legacy.   Some details on your system (Motherboard + CPU) would help.  Windows booting is not related to the copy of windows 10, so it is not that.

 

Also i would suggest removing all drives except for your m.2 one and try to install windows on it from usb, just get the ISO from MS and test it without a key.  If windows installs and boots, then it is your cloning process that is the problem.

 

Some SSD companies offer free cloning software assuming the one drive is made by them.  Like Samsung, but as i mention above if the drives are difference size they scale the partitions which breaks booting, you need to make sure all partitions except for the "large" one dont change when being cloned.

Just an update, cloning and keeping partition size the same worked! Just switched the boot priority now and the pc actually booted so m.2 is finally the boot drive, I’m extremely happy with it