Upgrade SSD on Predator G3-710

oldwizard46
oldwizard46 Member Posts: 19 Troubleshooter
edited February 2022 in Predator Desktops
The bootable SSD on my Predator is too small (I keep running out of space) and I would like to upgrade it to a 500 GB SSD. Is it possible to install the new SSD and then clone the old one and make the new one the boot drive?
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  • Easwar
    Easwar Member Posts: 6,727 Guru
    Hi @oldwizard46,

    It has 1 slot M. 2 2280 Sata 3, with supports up to 512Gb. 
  • GotBanned
    GotBanned Member Posts: 654 Seasoned Specialist WiFi Icon
    Easwar said:
    Hi @oldwizard46,

    It has 1 slot M. 2 2280 Sata 3, with supports up to 512Gb. 
    Can you give me any reason why it wouldn't support even bigger drives? As far as I know any limiting factor there might be is caused by Windows and the partition scheme (MBR, GPT) used. Thanks!
  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,234 Trailblazer
    There is no reason, he's just posting a script entry. :) The key is the type of SSD you can put in the M.2 slot. The Predator G3-710 supports SATA drives in that slot, so it's likely best to just get whatever size you want in the SATA M.2 form factor. The actual size limit is in what you can buy, and I believe right now that's something like 8TB (though that size is well out of my price range). Since there is only the one M.2 slot pick up an external M.2 SATA case to plug into a USB port. Put the new drive in the case, plug it into your system and do the clone. When the clone has completed verify it looks good in Disk Management (all partitions except the system partition (C:) should have stayed the same size, C: should have resized to fit the larger drive) go ahead and shut down, remove the old SSD from the M.2 slot and mount the new drive in. Turn the system on with the old drive not connected and it should boot off the new drive. Once you are sure that everything is working right, put the old drive into the external case, plug it in and use Disk Management again to remove all partitions from the old drive, then create one full sized partition. That gives you an external drive to use for backups or whatever...
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • oldwizard46
    oldwizard46 Member Posts: 19 Troubleshooter
    Here's my situation. I bought a WD Blue 500GB SATA SSD. I mounted it in a drive bay and used Acronis software to clone the installed M.2 SSD (you know the one on the motherboard under the video card). When the clone finished it said to remove the old drive, which I did. And rebooted but I got an error saying my PC needed to be repaired. I put the m.2 drive back in and the PC booted properly. Then I checked the BIOS boot configuration. It showed two Windows Boot Manager disks. I tried to disable the old one (1st boot device) but got the error again. I put everything back the way it was and I am booting from the old M.2 SSD. What do I need to do to get the PC to boot from the new SSD? And if I can, is it possible to erase the M.2 drive and just use it for storage?
  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,234 Trailblazer
    Take pictures for us of the BIOS screens, blanking out your serial numbers, and show them to us. It should be able to boot directly from the SATA SSD unless the clone process didn't work as advertised (it's actually much easier to screw up than you would think). Once we have you booting correctly from the new drive you can repurpose the M.2 drive as data easily, but we have to have the new drive booting first.
    Another you could do to help diagnose is to capture the partition layout of both drives, either with a screen shot of Disk Management or the output from diskpart...
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • oldwizard46
    oldwizard46 Member Posts: 19 Troubleshooter
    Here are the pictures. Let me know if you need something else and thank you for your help.




  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,234 Trailblazer
    OK, so the clone didn't do it's job. It created the EFI partition and that looks correct. It looks like it cloned the system partition but didn't expand it and it didn't clone the recovery partition at all. Acronis shouldn't be having that type of problem, though I usually use Macrium Reflect so I can't speak to their current state. When the clone process is complete I would expect the 100MB EFI partition to be identical between the two disks, the system partition to be resized from 118.13GB to 464.44GB and the 1.0GB recovery partition to also be identical to the original. The two additional 1TB drives should be unchanged. Acronis is likely cloning the disk ID as well as partitions, so the system would be confused if both drives were connected at the same time, that is why they have you remove the original before rebooting. Retry the clone process and make sure it completes correctly...
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • oldwizard46
    oldwizard46 Member Posts: 19 Troubleshooter
    Thank you, I'm on it...
  • oldwizard46
    oldwizard46 Member Posts: 19 Troubleshooter
    One more question: After the clone process,  will I still have to remove the M.2 SSD? You know the chip one that is plugged into the motherboard under the video card.
  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,234 Trailblazer
    Yeah, that's the 120GB system drive right now, you'll be putting the new M.2 drive in it's place after the clone is complete.
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • oldwizard46
    oldwizard46 Member Posts: 19 Troubleshooter
    Yeah, the new SSD is not an M.2 drive, it's a WD Blue SATA SSD 2.5 ", mounted in a regular drive bay. Maybe that's the problem?
  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,234 Trailblazer
    As long as it's not mounted in the front hot swap drive bay it should work, you can't boot from a hot swap. If you have instead connected it to an unused SATA port on the motherboard so it's assumed to be one of the drives that will always be there, it should allow booting.
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • oldwizard46
    oldwizard46 Member Posts: 19 Troubleshooter
    OK, It's not in the hot swap bay. I will try it again.

  • oldwizard46
    oldwizard46 Member Posts: 19 Troubleshooter
    OK, I re-cloned the drive:


    I assigned a drive letter to the SSD so I could look at the files. The files on the new SSD look the same as the old one. 
    In the BIOS I see this:


    I tried to "disable" the first boot device and I get this when I reboot:

    Choosing "Continue" loops me back to the first screen. I haven't tried any of the other options.
  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,234 Trailblazer
    Are the other two disks setup with just one data partition on each? That pair of screens looks like it's trying to load the Recovery environment.
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • oldwizard46
    oldwizard46 Member Posts: 19 Troubleshooter
    The other two disks are just data disks.
  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,234 Trailblazer
    And they each have just the one partition? No hidden ones?
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • oldwizard46
    oldwizard46 Member Posts: 19 Troubleshooter
    As far as I can tell, just one partition.

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,234 Trailblazer
    What happens when you remove the 120GB drive?
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • oldwizard46
    oldwizard46 Member Posts: 19 Troubleshooter
    If I remove the 120GB drive it boots to this screen:


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