Having difficulty moving Windows 10 to my new internal SSD AN515-53-52FA)

Hi there!
My girlfriend has an Acer Nitro 5 laptop (model: AN515-53-52FA) and I got her an internal SSD for Christmas to help speed things up. The SSD I got her is a 250gb Crucial NVMe M.2 SSD, which I checked and is compatible with this laptop model. I installed it and, after a little trial and error, got Windows to recognize it in File Explorer. So, right now it's completely empty and formatted as NTFS. I'm trying to to a clean install of Windows 10 onto it and make it the laptop's boot drive, but my BIOS does not detect this new SSD at all. Both File Explorer and Disk Management can see the SSD without issue, but for some reason I can't select it as a boot drive in the BIOS.

I've tried to do this both with the current 1TB drive still in the laptop and with no drives except the SSD installed. As per several guides on this, I made sure to set the SATA mode to AHCI, but I suppose since this is an M.2 drive that doesn't make a difference.

Furthermore, the USB bootable media that I'm trying to install onto the SSD doesn't show up in the bootable drives, either.

I formatted the drive to GPT from disk management.

When I booted up my computer at first, this popped up. Apparently, this means that the drive is about to die, which is very strange because it's new and it seems to work fine as far as extra storage goes (BIOS issues notwithstanding). This is strange considering that it's a brand new drive, so hopefully I didn't buy a lemon.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/ad/uqaikwoec8ye.png

Here's an album of all the menus from the BIOS, if that helps: https://imgur.com/a/mvDqUuQ

So right now I'm at a complete loss as to how to proceed, and any help is much appreciated.

Other specs:

i5-8300H CPU
8GB of RAM
Current OS: Windows 10 Home, Version 2004, build # 19041.685

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brummyfan2

Hi,
Could you please post the Disk Management snip of your current HDD or how much of it has been used at the moment, do you also have access to a spare HDD and SATA to USB cable?

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/pq/twv4myatkiye.jpg

00000AMillion

Yes, here's the snip of Disk Management:

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/a5/zwlztroqyjq9.png

I also do have access to a spare, empty HDD and a USB to SATA cable.

brummyfan2

Hi,
Try this method, connect the spare HDD with the SATA to USB cable to the laptop and transfer important data from current HDD to it, then download Macrium reflect free(select Home use version) and install, disconnect the external HDD, run Macrium reflect and clone the HDD to the new SSD, remove the HDD and boot with only the SSD in the laptop, you can leave the SATA Mode in RST with Optane.
Macrium Software | Macrium Reflect Free
Cloning a disk using Macrium Reflect 7 - YouTube

00000AMillion

brummyfan2 said:

Hi,
Try this method, connect the spare HDD with the SATA to USB cable to the laptop and transfer important data from current HDD to it, then download Macrium reflect free(select Home use version) and install, disconnect the external HDD, run Macrium reflect and clone the HDD to the new SSD, remove the HDD and boot with only the SSD in the laptop, you can leave the SATA Mode in RST with Optane.
Macrium Software | Macrium Reflect Free
Cloning a disk using Macrium Reflect 7 - YouTube

Alright, I did what you suggested (took 2.5 hours) and it still did not work. When I removed the HDD and booted up with just the SSD in the laptop, it went straight to a black "No bootable device" screen. In both RST wth Optane and ACHI modes, this happened.

This is what the Boot menu in the BIOS looked like when the HDD was removed:

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/hw/g0x6opk7ws9l.jpg

And for reference this is what Disk Management looks like now:

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/mf/xczt1lfqdlls.png

brummyfan2

Hi,
I think the cloning was not completed, when Macrium clones the HDD, the new SSD(Disk1) should have the Acer(C:), 100MB Healthy(EFI System Partition) and 1.00GB Healthy(Recovery Partition) as well but from the Disk Management Disk1 has Acer(D), 117MB Unallocated only.
Please try cloning again by dragging method shown in this tutorial, ignore resizing the partitions, just drag three partitions I have mentioned earlier.
Cloning a Disk with Macrium Reflect 7 | by Adriana Rocha Ceres | Macrium Software

00000AMillion

brummyfan2 said:

Hi,
I think the cloning was not completed, when Macrium clones the HDD, the new SSD(Disk1) should have the Acer(C:), 100MB Healthy(EFI System Partition) and 1.00GB Healthy(Recovery Partition) as well but from the Disk Management Disk1 has Acer(D), 117MB Unallocated only.
Please try cloning again by dragging method shown in this tutorial, ignore resizing the partitions, just drag three partitions I have mentioned earlier.
Cloning a Disk with Macrium Reflect 7 | by Adriana Rocha Ceres | Macrium Software

Alright that seems to have worked! Now what's the next step? How can erase everything except the OS from the SSD?

brummyfan2

You could perform a clean install using the Tool in the link, you can select "nothing" option when different options are offered, anyway go through this tutorial and see:Start fresh with a clean installation of Windows 10 (microsoft.com)
Make sure that you have saved all important data.

00000AMillion

brummyfan2 said:

Hi,
I think the cloning was not completed, when Macrium clones the HDD, the new SSD(Disk1) should have the Acer(C:), 100MB Healthy(EFI System Partition) and 1.00GB Healthy(Recovery Partition) as well but from the Disk Management Disk1 has Acer(D), 117MB Unallocated only.
Please try cloning again by dragging method shown in this tutorial, ignore resizing the partitions, just drag three partitions I have mentioned earlier.
Cloning a Disk with Macrium Reflect 7 | by Adriana Rocha Ceres | Macrium Software

Thanks, I'll try that!

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