Problems migrating data from one SSD to another

[PaddyC13]

Hi Folks,

I am at a loss on this one. My wife has a ThinkPad X220 running Windows 10 Pro (fully updated). The X220 contains a Samsung 850 EVO 250GB SATA SSD. Everything works fine on this PC apart from the fact that the SSD Integrated Software Installer and the Data Migration downloads will not run (latest release 4.0 downloaded from Samsung’s website). However, I can install the Samsung Magician download from the website.

The plan is to migrate my wife to a new PC (ThinkPad E460) which has a Samsung 860 PRO 512GB SSD. I removed the 860 PRO from the E460 and placed it in a USB caddy and plugged it in to the X220. I then ran Samsung Magician (7.2.1.980) on the X220 and saw that there is a Data Migration option there.

I selected the Data Migration option and the data seemed to be copied from the 850 EVO to the 860 PRO quite happily. However, when I place the 860 PRO back in the E460 and try to boot I seem to get a boot menu (I assume this is the machine’s BIOS) as follows:

Windows Boot Manager

ATA HDD0: Samsung SSD 860 PRO 512GB

PCI LAN

There is an arrow next to the PCI LAN option. I can move the cursor up to the ATA option and press enter but it will not boot. I went in to the diagnostics and the SSD passes all the tests.

Can someone please help as I am stuck. I have checked Bitlocker and it is off on the X220.

Thank you for your help.

Kind regards

Paddy

Uk

[PaddyC13]

Hi Folks,

Since posting the above, I downloaded and installed Macrium Reflect cloning software and got exactly the same result as with Samsung Magiciain. In desperation, I took the physical SSD from the old laptop and placed it in the new one - same result i.e. it will not boot Windows.

This is very strange, any ideas?

Many thanks

Paddy

UK

[PaddyC13 · Accepted solution]

Hi Folks,

In the interest of helping others I finally found the solution to this problem. The inability to boot the cloned drive was caused by it being in MBR format and I needed to enable Legacy Boot on the new laptop.

Once this was done, I changed the drive format from MBR to GPT using the following method:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiPi4kYpUF8

I also found an old version of Samsung Data Migration (3.1) and this installed and worked perfectly.

Hope this helps.

Paddy

UK