You could use nvme - the wd sn550 is great value with the 1tb having 600tbw and can be had for around £80
Or for sata ssd - the samsung 870 evo, the 1tb also has 600tbw endurance and excellent sustained write.
The New SATA King - Samsung 870 EVO Review - YouTube
I've found many controversial information about the Dell XPS 8920 M.2
- One says it has a E key for 22x60 cards and is good only for SATA drives, not NVMe
- Here it says it can be used if you upgrade BIOS
XPS 8920 with Samsung 970 M.2 SSD
Sorry to say, but the clone operation was a dismal failure. I wound up "Reset"ing the 'new' hard drive and installing all of my software, doing Windows preferences, and Windows Updates the long way. The clone would have eliminated all of that.
Seagate DiscWizard did copy the partitions, but the 'new' drive never did get a good boot to a functional Windows environment.
A few people recommended Macrium Reflect to do the clone operation, which I tried. Macrium failed while trying to copy the first Recovery partition on the Dell OEM boot drive. It found errors in that partition. (I used the "Intelligent" method that only copies sectors that have data in them.) Perhaps this is why Seagate DiscWizard could not create a good boot drive.
I did have Intel Optane memory disabled during the clone attempts and the Reset operation. That operation was started through the Windows Recovery DVD, so it used some form of GUI other than Windows.
Although this was not the solution that I was seeking, I will mark it as "Solved". If anyone does successfully clone a boot drive on a system with Intel Optane memory, do please make a note about it here.
I got some good advice from folks at the Intel Community and Ten Forums. My thanks to those who did try to help. It is greatly appreciated.
I have the 'new' boot drive in and running now. Since this is a 'used' drive ("Recertified Product" on the drive label), I will test it for a few days, with Optane Memory "Enabled". I put the original Dell OEM boot drive in an enclosure, plugged into a USB port. I may still need files from that drive few the 'new' boot drive.
If you had issues on cloning the the first Recovery partition on the Dell OEM boot drive you should assign a letter to it and run chkdsk x: /f to fix any corrupted data.
Can you please give us the new M.2 drive specs?
Megahertz,
The 'new' drive is not a M.2 SSD, but another Seagate 2 TB SATA HDD. The Intel Optane Memory Module is in the M.2 slot (put there by Dell when the system was built). I may change it out for a SSD someday, but "one problem at a time".
I had the 'new' hard drive (Seagate 2TB HDD) in the system case, connected to the motherboard, and "Reset" with a fresh Windows 10 install. The original Dell OEM boot drive (Seagate 1TB HDD), the one that I have been trying to clone, had some errors. I had it in an enclosure that connects via USB. The system could not see all of the directories ("Folders") and files on the Dell OEM boot drive. (Huh???)
I could not assign a drive letter to the Dell OEM boot drive "Recovery" partitions (Windows Disk Management). I tried "mountvol" from DOS ("Command Prompt"), but that did not work, either. I tried "chkdsk" with the info I got through "mountvol", but that did not work. All of this was before I realized that something was amiss (or, a mister) and put the Dell OEM boot drive back in the system case.
I put the Dell OEM boot drive back in the system case (connected to the motherboard), and took the 'new' 2TB drive out. The computer pre-boot files found and fixed the disk errors. After that was fixed and running, I defragged it while Optane was disabled.
Currently the 'new' hard drive (Seagate 2TB HDD) is back in the system case, on the motherboard. The Dell OEM boot drive (Seagate 1TB HDD) is back in the enclosure (USB) so I can copy my personal directories to the 'new' Seagate 2TB HDD boot drive. This has all been very plecompicated!
***
My purpose in putting the Dell OEM boot drive in the enclosure (USB connection) was because the system would not boot with both drives on the motherboard. I wanted to make sure, after the fresh Windows 10 install on the 'new' Seagate 2TB HDD, that I had all of my files (Documents, Contacts, etc.) on the 'new' Seagate 2TB HDD.
I use use Macrium Reflect and situations like this is why I stopped using the Cloning feature. I use the Imaging feature and never had any more boot problems. I make a image of the old drive to a external drive. Then I shutdown and swap the old drive with the new drive. I then boot the computer with a Macrium rescue disk and restore the image from the old drive to the new drive. Using this method I have never had a boot problem.
Winuser,
I gave some thought to using the Imaging technique. If the source drive had errors, it is possible that the image would carry corrupt or incomplete information. I knew it would take me days to re-install all my software, and recreate my preferences for Windows and everything else. I did all I could to avoid that scenario.
Now that I have two good boot drives, I will put one of them away for safe keeping. In my early days, I did have a boot drive failure. It was a 20Mb drive with Windows 98 Second Edition, but starting over was still annoying.
Since my Dell OEM boot drive (Seagate 1TB HDD from 2017) already showed errors, I may get yet another drive, possibly a SSD SATA drive, and try to clone the 'new' drive (Seagate 2TB HDD) onto that. I could still replace the Optane Memory Module (M.2) with a SSD big enough to hold Windows and whatever software needs to be on drive "C". Everything else can go where I want to put it. "Always have a backup plan!"
I am sorry to hear you have had such an awful time of it. Let's be clear, this is not an issue with Optane as such, the system when it works, works well with a spinning disk, doing what it was designed to do. Disabling Optane during your trials and tribulations was still the correct thing to do as it removed an unnecessary layer of complication. It seems from your reporting that the original system disk may have errors, possibly hardware (disk surface) errors which indeed makes cloning and imaging difficult, there are some really good software alternatives available that can image/ clone corrupt disks (I believe there is a particular Linux solution which excels at that), but given your self proclaimed technical level it is probably something to research at length before trying.
I think you have done the best you can in your current situation, replacing the likely failing system disk and fresh installing Windows was probably the easiest (if time consuming) method.
Once you have the system running the way you want, tested to make sure Optane works again with the new disk, I would recommend disabling Optane once more at least and using Macrium to create a system image to an external HDD, once you have that image it is available for near future disk replacement (update the image periodically).
Replacing the Optane module with an SSD may be an option you might want to investigate, however if you are happy with the current system performance, it is not absolutely necessary.
Pejole2165,
The Seagate DiscWizard Rescue disk (DVD) is Linux-based. At some point, it asked me to find other Linux-based software to address the problem. ("Could not lock Drive C")
Downloading MiniTool and Macrium did show information that DiscWizard did not, so all in all, I am ahead of where I was.
The Dell OEM boot drive that was originally in the Dell XPS 8920 is a Seagate 1TB HDD. I have another Seagate 1TB HDD on my other computer (Dell Inspiron 530a). The Sabrent enclosure that it was in is what I 'borrowed' to use on my Dell XPS 8920. Now that I have copied all that I need from the Dell OEM boot drive, I may clone the 'new' boot drive to the Seagate 1TB that was originally in that enclosure. It is a backup drive, and almost never turned on. I have all of those files backed up elsewhere.
What Dell did that really helped was to 'inject' the Windows 10 Product Key into a chip on the XPS 8920 motherboard. I did not have to scramble around looking for it. The download file for my copy of Office 2016 must have the Product Keys in that, too. Word 2016 did not ask for it when I started the re-installed application.
Several websites that I regularly visit did Notify me of the login from "another device". Microsoft Edge and the AARP website said that some of my passwords were compromised, so I changed those in the middle of everything else. Was that related to the 'new' hard drive? Maybe. Maybe it was a separate thing.
My first 'real' computer was a Radio Shack Tandy 1000HX (1986?) with no hard drive and an 8088 CPU. I ran Windows 3.1 from 720k floppy disks. After that I had an Oxford and then an IBM PS2 Model 80 (no CPU data for those two). I upgraded to a Gateway with a 80286 CPU, then another Gateway with a "700MHz AMD Athlon" CPU. The Maxtor 20Mb hard drive in that was the one that failed. I got the Dell Inspiron 530a in 2009 and the Dell XPS 8920 in 2017. I did learn a few things along the way, but I forgot some, too. DOS and batch files are mostly a distant, and faulty (70 year old), memory.
I cannot thank those enough who contributed on these forums. Your support has been encouraging and helpful.
My old desktop came with a Optane Memory Module that I never used. I swapped the OEM HDD with the SSD from from my old computer and never set it up. Eventually I removed the SSD and the Optane Memory and replaced it with a 500GB M.2 card and used it as my C: drive.Winuser,
I gave some thought to using the Imaging technique. If the source drive had errors, it is possible that the image would carry corrupt or incomplete information. I knew it would take me days to re-install all my software, and recreate my preferences for Windows and everything else. I did all I could to avoid that scenario.
Now that I have two good boot drives, I will put one of them away for safe keeping. In my early days, I did have a boot drive failure. It was a 20Mb drive with Windows 98 Second Edition, but starting over was still annoying.
Since my Dell OEM boot drive (Seagate 1TB HDD from 2017) already showed errors, I may get yet another drive, possibly a SSD SATA drive, and try to clone the 'new' drive (Seagate 2TB HDD) onto that. I could still replace the Optane Memory Module (M.2) with a SSD big enough to hold Windows and whatever software needs to be on drive "C". Everything else can go where I want to put it. "Always have a backup plan!"
Quote
