Acer desktop VM6630G and NVME SSD via a Orico NVME M.1 Expansion Card and booting from it?

Neil787
Neil787 Member Posts: 22 Troubleshooter
edited March 1 in 2020 Archives
Hello,
I have an older Acer desktop VM66306 and I have installed a Orico NVME M.2 expansion card in it with a INTEL 1TB NVME SSD card in the expansion slot.
My current boot drive is a SATA 500GB SSD drive.
I have tried several times using MiniTool Partition Manager to clone the 500GB sata drive to the nvme card.
I can clone it but I cannot make the NVME drive bootable. I have tried many different combinations but can never boot from it.
I can see the NVME drive in windows OK and can browse its files both in Windows explorer and I also see it in Windows DIsk Manager and Minitool.

Any suggestions appreciated.

Thank you

Edited the content to hide personal information
Acer-Samuel

Best Answer

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,234 Trailblazer
    Answer ✓
    It should be faster, not as fast as if the M.2 slot were built into the MB, but faster than the SATA 3 speeds you're getting out of the current SSD. You're limited to the PCIx buss speeds with an add-in card.
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.

Answers

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,234 Trailblazer
    That is correct, almost no add-in cards are bootable. They work for expanding your storage space, but not for booting. You can potentially move your C: drive to the NVMe but you'll have to continue booting from the onboard controller. Some higher end RAID cards have boot function, but nothing cheaper does.
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • Neil787
    Neil787 Member Posts: 22 Troubleshooter
    edited March 2020
    Thank you very much for the quick reply Bill. Very much appreciated.
    Do you know if the NVMe SSD will be faster than my current boot drive a SATA SAMSUNG EVO 500GB SSD?

    Edited the content to hide personal information
    Acer-Samuel
  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,234 Trailblazer
    Answer ✓
    It should be faster, not as fast as if the M.2 slot were built into the MB, but faster than the SATA 3 speeds you're getting out of the current SSD. You're limited to the PCIx buss speeds with an add-in card.
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • Neil787
    Neil787 Member Posts: 22 Troubleshooter
    THank you very much
  • Neil787
    Neil787 Member Posts: 22 Troubleshooter
    edited March 2020
    Hi Bill,
    Another question about the nvme if I may.
    I have it installed and formatted as a NTFS drive (data)
    The problem I am having is if I do a manual windows restart the system hangs in the bios and does not boot. Just hangs there.
    If I power off then back on the system boots windows ok.
    If I remove the nvme m.2 expansion card and drive I can do a manual windows restart with no problem.
    I am running fully patched Windows x64

    Any ideas or suggestions?

    THank you

    Edited the content to hide personal information
    Acer-Samuel
  • Neil787
    Neil787 Member Posts: 22 Troubleshooter
    edited March 2020
    Thank you Bill,

    The drive WAS allocated mbr it had two partitions one large ntfs and a very small 1.9gb unallocated and the rest a ntfs partition and the problem was happening. I wiped the whole disk and created it as GPT and formatted is it all as one ntfs partition and the problem is still happening when I do a windows restart. If I remove the expansion card and nvme drive I have no problems doing a windows restart and complete boot.

    Strange problem.

    Edited the content to hide personal information
    Acer-Samuel

  • Neil787
    Neil787 Member Posts: 22 Troubleshooter
    Thank you Bill. That should be fun lol
  • Neil787
    Neil787 Member Posts: 22 Troubleshooter
    edited March 2020
    Hi Bill,
    I sent and email to Orico in China a couple of days ago.
    I imagine it will take a while to get a replay with everything going on.
    Will keep you posted.

    Edited the content to hide personal information
    Acer-Samuel
  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,234 Trailblazer
    Yes they might just take a bit longer than normal. Let us know what they say.
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.

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