Installing an NVMe Drive in my GX-785-UR18 and setting it as the boot drive

MattBallzzzy
MattBallzzzy Member Posts: 3 New User

I bought this NVMe SSD for my pc, it wouldn't show in BIOS when i tried but it shows up in Disk Management and i was able to initialize it.
I'm in the process of cloning my HDD to this SSD, but how can i make this SSD the new boot drive?

Best Answer

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,101 Trailblazer
    edited June 2023 Answer ✓

    Don't wipe your existing boot drive! You only take that step after you are fully booting from the new drive!

    I typically use Macrium Reflect to clone, but Acronis Image should work as well. You don't need to do the Disk Management step first but it shouldn't hurt. Once the clone process is complete you will be able to see in Disk Management that both drives have several identical partitions and one (likely the C: drive) that is different sized. If any of the other partitions are different sized then the cloning software tried to resize them all. Go back through the cloning process and make sure it only adjusts the system partition size. A typical set of partitions will be a 100MB EFI partition, a 500MB recovery, a 1GB recovery and the rest of the drive as the system partition. When you are sure they are correct remove the old drive and boot from the new one. That first boot from the new drive will set it as the default and you can shut down and reinstall the original. With the original back in boot to Windows and only then use Disk Management to wipe the partitions from the original drive and set it up as a data drive.

    Note that the procedure is slightly different if you are replacing an old SSD in the M.2 slot with a new one. You just use an external NVMe case instead of the internal slot…

    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.

Answers

  • Puraw
    Puraw ACE, Member Posts: 13,182 Trailblazer

    Before BIOS will boot from NVMe, you must be sure that your original HDD is completely wiped and there's no EFI partition on it. If you installed Windows with a UEFI bootloader, the first bootable device in BIOS must be Windows Boot manager, move your NVMe to the top, also check if you can clear the list of trusted EFI boot devices on BIOS.

  • StevenGen
    StevenGen ACE Posts: 12,064 Trailblazer

    First of all, that WD SN770 M.2 SSD is an overkill M.2 SSD drive for your Aspire GX-785 desktop, the WD SN770 is a PCIe4x4 SSD and your desktop at max operates on either a SATA III or PCIe3x2 M.2 SSDs drives, you will never ever utilize the speed of that drive.

    .But anyway if you want to clone your OS from your existing and old SATA 3 HDD onto this M.2 SSD drive then use the Acronis True Image for Western Digital software and install this software and do the clone internally in your desktop (see mobo diagram of the GX-785 below) as its allot quicker, after the clone is finished then take the old boot drive out and use the M.2 SSD as you boot drive as it should work perfectly.

    Aspire GX-785 Motherboard Deatails

  • MattBallzzzy
    MattBallzzzy Member Posts: 3 New User

    Thanks for the answer, I'm a total rookie at doing upgrades on my pc. I just bought the SSD my PC friends told me should work.
    I tried using Acronis Image WD software last night to clone the HDD, but it kept getting stuck in a loop after picking source drive. Which, I guess, is a very common issue with that software. I tried the AOMEI one as well, but I guess they paywalled cloning. So I'll have to try cloning it tonight, I saw a lot of people on Reddit recommend Macrium Reflect.

  • Larryodie
    Larryodie Member Posts: 1,658 Community Aficionado WiFi Icon

    Disconnect your old drive and reconnect after the new one is recognized,

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,101 Trailblazer
    edited June 2023 Answer ✓

    Don't wipe your existing boot drive! You only take that step after you are fully booting from the new drive!

    I typically use Macrium Reflect to clone, but Acronis Image should work as well. You don't need to do the Disk Management step first but it shouldn't hurt. Once the clone process is complete you will be able to see in Disk Management that both drives have several identical partitions and one (likely the C: drive) that is different sized. If any of the other partitions are different sized then the cloning software tried to resize them all. Go back through the cloning process and make sure it only adjusts the system partition size. A typical set of partitions will be a 100MB EFI partition, a 500MB recovery, a 1GB recovery and the rest of the drive as the system partition. When you are sure they are correct remove the old drive and boot from the new one. That first boot from the new drive will set it as the default and you can shut down and reinstall the original. With the original back in boot to Windows and only then use Disk Management to wipe the partitions from the original drive and set it up as a data drive.

    Note that the procedure is slightly different if you are replacing an old SSD in the M.2 slot with a new one. You just use an external NVMe case instead of the internal slot…

    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • MattBallzzzy
    MattBallzzzy Member Posts: 3 New User

    Did exactly this, cloned with macrium, shut down pc, unplugged cables from hard drive and booted back up and now the NVme is my new C drive. Thank you so much. My HDD was slowing down steam downloads so much and now I’m getting 100x the download speeds and disk writing.

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,101 Trailblazer

    Great to hear! :) Now that you are booting from the SSD you can drop the HDD back in and use Disk Management to wipe all four partitions, then create a new partition that's full sized. That makes for great data storage for anything that doesn't need to be accessed quickly, so pictures, music and videos are perfect on a HDD.

    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.