Another desktop copy of an SSD to a larger one that doesn't start up.
Another desktop copy of an SSD to a larger one that doesn't start up.
Hey everyone, I'm facing an unusual problem and need some advice. I've searched online and checked Dell forums, but haven't found a solution. I'm setting up new Dell desktops with 500GB SSDs, and some are being upgraded to 1TB Samsung SSDs. When trying to clone the drives using Macrium or DiskGenius, they don't boot up, no matter what I do. I suspect it might be related to Dell's BIOS having RAID enabled by default. After cloning, the data appears on the new SSD, and it even attempts to boot into Windows. However, it shows an "Auto Repair Failed" screen and prompts me to press a number to retry or troubleshoot, but pressing any key makes the screen flash and restarts me to where I was before. What do you think?
I encountered a comparable problem at work last week. I was using Macrium. It would indicate it encountered an issue during boot and redirect to the repair mode. My concern was that Macrium was marking the main partition on the new drive as "G:" instead of "C:". This happened because, while performing a live clone, there was already a C drive present. Windows was searching for "C:" but not finding it. I resolved it by creating a Windows installation USB and booting from it, then using cmd to run diskpart, selecting the new drive, choosing the largest partition, and changing the letter to "C:". This might not be your fix, but it suggests you're facing a similar situation. You could also attempt cloning with Clonezilla. If that doesn't work, consider installing Windows fresh on those new drives—new systems typically have no user data.
Ensure all partitions except the main C drive match in size. When upgrading to a larger drive, the software will adjust the volume sizes accordingly. For Samsung software, choose custom settings and disable automatic scaling of initial drives. The first two partitions around 499MB and 512MB are fixed and cannot be resized.
No personal information required, just a quick save would take about 5 minutes compared to a fresh install—not much of a difference, mostly about efficiency. We identified an issue: the prompts were misaligned, partitions weren’t kept uniform, and everything needed resizing after boot. At least in this situation. Thanks for your prompt responses—I’ll keep an eye out for posts where I can assist!
During cloning, I wasn't focusing on the instructions. Maybe I should take my time and listen more closely.