Another M.2 Help thread

[maap74352]

OK, currently have a Samsung 850 EVO 500gb SSD drive as my boot drive. Recently got a hold of a Samsung SM951 PCIe 3.0 x4 SSD. I want to migrate the OS to the new M.2 drive. Tried cloning/migrating with Paragon HD manager, even using boot corrector, followed the advice here in the forums concerning m.2 but so far I can't get the drive recognized as a boot device. Works great as a data drive. Is it too new? Does the rampage need a bios update to see it? Really don't want to do a clean install. Have over 11 TB of data/games, don't want to spend the next 6 months reloading stuff. Any ideas.

[Chino]

Was your Windows on the 850 EVO an UEFI install?

[maap74352]

ya know I'm not sure. How do I check? In bois it says UEFI windows. Where can I verify? Thanks...

If it's not a UEFI install, I take it the only way to make it one is to do what I'm trying to avoid, a clean install (UEFI Mode) on the M.2. The install itself is not a biggie, it's all the data/programs I'll have to reload.

[coyi1895]

Easy enough to verify. In Windows, look in System Information and if BIOS Mode say UEFI then UEFI install.

[maap74352]

Ok, found a procedure that looks doable. Gonna back up the drive and give it a go. hopefully I'll be back in a bit to tell ya'll how wonderfully it worked...fingers crossed

[maap74352]

Yeah just found it and it is unfortunately Legacy build. So far, what I've read, the procedure to convert to UEFI looks to be a pain

[Chino]

Yes. It's just easier to do a fresh install.

[coyi1895]

I got the SM951 recently like you and it wan't bad for me. I didn't do much to prepare except setting configuration to M.2 in the BIOS and made a bootable image to usb stick. The only problem I had that I couldn't boot from F8 so I went to Boot Override and clicked on UEFI Sandisk 8GB and went from there.

[maap74352]

Well it's working just great but had to do want I didn't want to do....Fresh install...oh well. Made a UEFI GPT boot USB Drive with Win 10 on it. Install was quick and easy. Shouldn't have wasted 2 days trying to convert legacy install to UEFI. On the positive side, I've noticed some options that weren't there before when I did the upgrade over win 8.1. If I just didn't have so much crap I'd do a fresh install every time. Won't bitch about STEAM/Origin/Uplay for awhile. Was able to save all games without having to reinstall. They were on a separate drive luckily.

[maap74352]

Kinda off topic a little. Been doing this, like a lot of you for longtime, computer upgrading that is. Like 20+ years. I’ve watched from the DOS days when programs were self-contained and easy to move. All you had to do was modify the INI of CFG file to the nightmare of the dreaded Registry. If you lost the registry you lost everything. It’s kinda rolling back to the self-contained days. My problem is I’m still thinking in registry terms. This fresh install wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be and most of it’s due to the games launchers like STEAM & Battlenet, etc… Always considered them bloatware but they really came through in this case. Had over 250 STEAM games installed. Re-installed steam and it found them all thank goodness. Same with Battlenet. I had to do a little trickery with Origin and Uplay but nothing like having to re-download and install 100s of gigabytes of data. Live in the country and only have 3meg DSL. I’d be downloading for months. Still had to re-install stuff but really a lot less than I thought. So if you’re in the same position, go ahead. It’s not that bad. It’s like a good spring cleaning. Gives me the chance to get rid of a lot of crap I don’t use anymore…. That said. Don’t want to do it again. Have already duped the drive, made an image and backed it up. Everything in UEFI mode. Should be good for a while…I hope…