I have a Dell Inspiron 7373 13" laptop which is fitted with a 256GB SATA M.2 SSD. The Dell spec for the laptop states that it can use either SATA M.2 SSDs or NVMe M.2 SSDs. So I ordered a Samsung 970 Evo Plus NVMe M.2 500GB SSD.
I used Macrium Reflect 7 to first create a Rescue USB then created an image of my existing 256GB SATA drive. Just to clarify, I made a complete image of all the drive partitions.
I removed the 256GB SATA SSD from the laptop and installed the new 500GB NVMe SSD. I rebooted the laptop using the rescue USB and copied the image onto the new NVMe SSD. This all went perfectly.
Finally I shut down the laptop, removed the rescue USB and restarted the laptop but it would not boot into Windows. I tried a boot repair using Macrium and it reported that all was good but the laptop will still not boot from the new drive. I also tried a Windows boot repair but this also failed to solve the problem.
In the BIOS the new drive is visible and I have checked all the BIOS setting and I cannot see anything that will prevent it booting.
The only thing I can think of is that the boot partition that I cloned from my old SSD does not have the NVMe SSD drivers because previously it was a SATA SSD with the SATA drivers.
I have checked Samsung's website and they have an exe file download for installing the NVMe drivers. So I put back my old SATA SSD into my laptop and booted into windows. I checked the device manager for installed drivers and sure enough there was no NVMe driver installed under disk controllers, only SATA driver. So I tried to install the Samsung NVMe driver before taking another image but it will not install the drivers unless a Samsung NVMe SSD is present.
I am now struck, I cannot install the NVMe driver unless the drive is installed but if I install the drive it will not let me boot into windows to install the driver! One thought was to purchase a NVMe external enclosure so I can connect the NVMe SSD via the USB3.1 port, this may then enable me to install the NVMe drivers before I cone the SATA SSD.
Has anyone had the same problem and solved it or can anyone suggest a work around for this problem? I am starting to lose the will to live!!!!
Thanks.
Steve
Best Answer
I can now confirm that the problem I experienced booting my cloned Samsung 970 Evo plus NVMe SSD into Windows is now solved!
I was advised by Macrium to try booting into Windows in safe mode. They thought that loading Windows in safe mode with a minimum drivers, etc may enable Windows to boot far enough to find the new drive and load the NVMe drivers. I tried this and it worked! Once I was in Windows in safe mode I went to Device Manager and sure enough the Windows NVMe driver had been loaded and the drive was present.
I then logged out, shut down and restarted the laptop in standard mode and everything loaded as it should. I have now updated to the Samsung NVMe SSD driver and run some diagnostics and benchmarks. All is running as it should and much faster!
I would like to say a big thank you to all the forum users that took the time and effort to provide a response with help and suggestions to assist me with this problem.
Sometimes the simplest solutions are the ones that you don't think of!
Steve