I am trying to upgrade my daughter's laptop by installing an SSD (M.2) to use as the new boot drive, while making the current HDD a secondary drive for program storage, etc.

I was having trouble cloning the HDD (there's barely anything but Windows 10 on it, so even though the SSD is smaller, the total data to migrate comes in way below the SSD's capacity), so I used a system recovery USB flash drive to just install Windows fresh on the SSD. The recovery drive was made from her laptop.

I opened the laptop, disconnected the HDD, installed the SSD, booted from the USB stick, installed Windows, and all was well. Ran Windows update, installed updates, all good. Rebooted a few times to be sure everything was fine.

The problem I am having is that when I reconnect the HDD (still has Windows, etc. on it), the PC boots to that and doesn't even know the SSD exists. It's not listed in the BIOS, not shown in the Windows Disk Manager.

I've looked all around the Google Webs for answers and while this seems like a common issue, I can't figure out how to have both drives installed and have the PC boot using the SSD. I messed around in the BIOS with legacy boot options, but to no avail (I think I may have screwed something up, too, as I can't turn "Secure Boot" back on, but it doesn't seem to be affecting anything - the laptop boots just fine, even though it's gone back to booting from the HDD).

Any thoughts? Am I SOL?


Cliffs: Want to boot from an internal M.2 SSD rather than the laptop's current HDD. When the HDD is disconnected, everything is fine, but when it's reconnected, the laptop boots to the HDD and doesn't even acknowledge the existence of the SSD.


EDIT: If it's impossible to boot from the SSD, I'd at least like to be able to access it from Windows so I can wipe it and return it to the store.

For some reason, it seems that your BIOS wants to boot from the (old) HDD first.

What if you format that old HDD, and then plug it in? Presumably, booting will fail, and the system can then boot from your fancy new M.2 SSD?

This is my best guess, not a reflection of my own experience, so this might well fail. I don't know.

Did you try Samsung Data Migration software?

I did check out that software, but the website said that it only worked with certain SSDs, of which mine isn't one, so I didn't download it. Since I have successfully done a clean Windows install on the SSD, I don't think migration is a concern at this point. The SSD is ready to go. I just need the laptop to a) know both drives are present and b) boot from the SSD rather than the HDD.

As to the option of formatting the HDD and seeing if the laptop will find the SSD and boot with it, I've thought about that, but have tried to avoid doing that to this point, just in case something goes terribly wrong. My preference would be to keep the HDD intact, just in case, then eventually wipe it once everything is running smoothly.

I may call Dell, since the computer is still under warranty, but I'm not looking forward to being on the phone for 2 hours with someone just working off of a script and not knowing how to answer questions with their own brain and then ultimately not being able to help me. I won't have time for that until next week, anyway.


The really confusing thing is that the computer doesn't even know the SSD is there right now, not even listing it in the BIOS setup. Both drives WERE showing up at one point, as that's how I was able to initialize and format the SSD.

What is the boot sequence in BIOS?
Try putting SSD first and HDD last in the list order.

If everything runs fine on SSD when HDD is not connected and you don't have data on HDD to worry about, just format HDD and use it fresh without another OS on it.

Is the HDD now connected externally? What's HDD's drive letter when both HDD and SSD are connected? Is it still C:\?

It's weird - I turned the laptop on this morning to try to figure things out and this time, both the HDD and SSD showed up in BIOS. Then in Windows, Disk Management knew the SSD was there, but said it wasn't initialized (narrator: it was). I rebooted again and this time, both drives were recognized and accessible.

Of course, the problem was still that I couldn't boot to the SSD. I called Dell, as the laptop is still under warranty and the guy basically said that I can't have an OS on both drives, as the computer will always default to the HDD. I have to wipe the HDD so that it is skipped and the SSD is used for boot. He also said I specifically have to download a new copy of Windows using the system recovery manager from the Dell website and use that to wipe the HDD and re-install the OS on the SSD. He said the SSD should become the C: drive.

Pain in the ass. I'll try it in the next few days when I have time. I didn't want to wipe the HDD yet, as I want to keep Windows intact *just in case* but I guess I have no choice.

This is so frustrating.

Nothing the dude from Dell said worked. There was no option to wipe the HDD when I did the Dell system recovery, so it just ended up wiping the HDD and reinstalling Windows. And now the laptop doesn't know the SSD is there again.


I'll try to get it to see the SSD and then try to boot from the system recovery, go to the command prompt, and format the c: drive. Then, my hope is that the laptop will skip the HDD since there's no OS, find it on the SSD, and boot from that. The other hope is that the SSD becomes the c: drive.

I think I may have finally accomplished the task. I am knocking on wood as I type this.

Seems like whenever the laptop didn't know the SSD was there, a reboot fixed that problem. So when I got it to recognize the SSD (on which I had already installed Windows), I rebooted again and this time, was able to tell it to boot to the SSD. I hadn't been able to do that before.

Once in Windows, the SSD was now the C: drive and the old HDD was the D: drive. I right-clicked and formatted the old HDD, getting rid of the OS. I have now rebooted a few times and it is booting just fine to the SSD without me needing to mess with the BIOS or anything. I'm now running Windows updates.

I hope this is the end of this saga and I can snap the case back together and put the screws back in.

Ran into one more problem but I think I solved it, so I'll mention it here, in case anyone is following along.

I installed a few apps on the laptop, rebooted a bunch of times to make sure everything was fine, and it was all good. My daughter used the PC after school and everything was fine for a while until she got the blue screen of death. Wouldn't reboot, just went into the system repair mode. No option for system repair worked.

I realized what was happening was that the system suddenly decided to try to boot from the original HDD, but since there wasn't anything on there, it went belly-up. I was able to F12 and boot from the SSD, but couldn't make it try that first every time automatically.

I figured out that I had just quick formatted the HDD, so the partitions were still there. I think the PC saw the boot partition and was like, "Hey, let's use that!" Thus, I removed the boot partition and so far, so good. Some other partitions are still there - I can't remove them via Disk Management - so I may download something to help with that.

On the bright side, my daughter is learning about PC construction and disk drives. She even had the idea to rearrange cables, but even if that's possible in the laptop, it would be a huge pain in the ass.

For others looking to do this, a USB to SATA cable is your friend here (assuming you're going from 2.5" SATA drive to m.2 or a different 2.5" SATA drive)
Amazon link for Startech cable
There are a few external NVME m.2 enclosures on the market now that would be suitable for cloning from one NVME m.2 to another, though I haven't personally used one and they run about $50. A bit pricey but it does give you the option of using your old m.2 as a very fast USB drive. Otherwise restoring a backup from your USB backup drive or NAS is the alternative to a clean reimage.

Make a backup image of your system (bad things happen from time to time, have a regular cold backup plan)

Pull the SATA drive, install m.2, boot to UBCD or other USB bootable image with disk cloning tool.

Connect SATA drive to USB to SATA cable, connect USB to SATA cable to computer.

Clone old drive to new drive.

Shutdown computer and disconnect old drive.

Boot computer to new drive, confirm it works.

While in OS, connect 2.5" drive/USB to SATA cable back to the computer.

Disk should come back up and be visible in file explorer, hidden/boot partitions won't be visible here.

OP, this should be the part you need to reuse the old disk in the way you expect. The built-in DiskPart utility allows you to delete, create and manage partitions from the commandline. If you want a GUI, I believe the go to used to be Partition Magic which I think is paid software.
Warning: Diskpart can delete partitions from your disks and render them unreadable or the system unbootable if you use the wrong command. Be absolutely sure you have the correct disk selected and are taking the action you think you are.

Diskpart Tutorial, jump to clean and format USB drive

My main problem with the whole process was trying to keep Windows on the original HDD. The PC did not like that. If I was willing to wipe it from the start, I would've saved some headaches. I just wanted to keep it intact in case anything screwed up.

Check out some of the disk cloning software, which claims it is able to copy Windows partition to a new SSD.

Im about to do this as well. I thought the HD might be a pain, so I purchased a 512g SD card to put my files on and was planning on using that instead of the old HDD, the SSD I purchased is still like 250g, but my current computer has about 500g of stuff on it. Will that work?

I was going to move all my old media(mostly movies, training videos and lessons I have created for students, etc) to an old hard drive and attach it directly to my router. I doubt I would even have 100 gig at that point on the main computer, no?