Cloned my old boot SSD to this one after a lot of difficulty but in the process connected and disconnected it a lot and it still works fine. You will need to buy a ssd tray to mount in your case If your computer doesn't have one included as most are made for the bigger hdd. Will need mounting screws but most trays have them included. Also Sata and power cables too.
Cloning a Boot drive:
I'm just including this part incase you run into the same problems I did because none of the online solutions I found worked. I used this for Windows 7 with Macrium Reflect so it might work differently on Windows 10 with another software. I'm not an IT guy just someone who likes to mess around with computers so no guarantees it works for you but It did for me. If you don't already have a cloning software you can download Macrium Reflect it is free.
1) Connect the new drive and go into the windows search bar and search for Run and then enter diskmgmt.msc, it should show all the drives and you can find the one you just connected and if it isn't popping up in my computer you can see if it has been given a letter like C drive. If not right click and give it a letter. Sometimes the old boot drive will have 2 partitions. One labeled System Reserved and a regular one. Both will cloned but sometimes all are include in one partition. If you look in diskmgmt it will say Active, Boot, Crash Dump,etc. Under the partition that is used to Boot from.
2) After that is done open up the cloning program and clone. Once that is done go back into diskmgmt and right click on the partition to mark it as active. Now this is where it goes wrong sometimes. Turn off the computer and disconnect the old drive and when the computer starts look for which key you have to press to enter the Bios or Uefi settings so you can change the boot order. Sometimes the computer will just go through every drive by default but it's better if you go and find the drive you want it to boot from first which will be your new ssd. Now hopefully it works and starts and everything is good. If not like on mine you will have to move on to the next step.
Now my problem was not because it was a bad boot record or file system compatibility issue. I tried all of those and there are guides for that. But my problem was that Windows would only recognize the System reserved on my new drive as being the place to boot from but not the regular partition. It would still only boot from the old partition on my old drive because it was labeled as Boot, Crash Dump etc. Marking it as Active didn't help because as far as I could figure out those labels were only placed when Windows was installed on the system and even without the old drive connected diskmgmt would not label it so.
1) You will need a Windows install USB or disc. If you don't have one you can try making a recovery disc from your old drive but I have not tried that way so I'm not sure if it will work. If that doesn't work try and find a torrent for your version of Windows. Don't worry about getting a product key or installing a crack you just need it to install Windows. Once you clone it will go back to your original install.
2) Format the new SSD. You may have to go unmark it as Active and switch the boot order back so that it will boot off your old drive. If like mine and it only recognized the System reserved on the new ssd it won't let you format until it goes back to recognizing the old drive. You may have to restart after marking it as inactive. Once you do that and format get a usb and download a program that will search for drivers as a clean install of windows might not have drivers and not let you connect to the internet. You can find one or if you want go to Windows on your old drive from my computer and look for Program files and copy the Macrium folder. Inside there should be a Application that is named Reflect and will launch the program without having to download on the new drive. If you used another program just put the install files into the USB.
3) Once formatted and you have the files on a USB disconnect all the drives except your new one and put in the Windows install CD or USB and install it on the drive. Once that is done and your on the windows homepage turn off the computer and plug in the old boot drive and see if it's boots to the new install of windows. If it doesn't fix the boot order.
4) Now open the cloning software and try cloning to the new drive now from the old one. If you are using Macrium it should say something about it can't do it and will need to restart and use Windows PE environment. Say yes and let it restart. It has to do this because unlike before where you tried cloning from the working drive to the new one now you are cloning to the working drive and it can't run windows and rewrite it at the same time. Let it load and then open the cloning software again and now it should clone and the partition will have the right labels as it was already marked so from it installing windows and all your old files should be there. If everything works now you should see that only the cloned part of the drive is popping up on my computer and all the extra space is unallocated in diskmgmt. Right click on the regular partition if your has 2 and choose to extend volume. Keep clicking yes and the extra space will be added.
Sorry if this isn't as clear and concise as I would have liked but I found a lot of people with a similar problem after cloning a Boot drive and none of the articles or forums helped.
| Hard Drive | 2000 GB Solid State Drive |
|---|---|
| Number of USB 2.0 Ports | 1 |
