No boot device found for cloned SSD on external USB drive

fred1015 said:

I had to change to Legacy to be able to try to boot off the USB. Otherwise I could only boot off the hard drive (the new one, which was empty).

Yeh, I'll try making a bootable flash drive tomorrow. That might work, as I have multiple USB ports on the laptop. I can install the new Samsung, boot off a bootable flash drive (hopefully) on one USB port, then try to access the old drive through the Startech USB enclosure on another port. I've already installed Macrium and the Samsung Migration software on the old hard drive, but if this Kyhi's recovery tools has it as well, maybe I can get it to work. Tomorrow's project. Thanks!

Unfortunately, this was not successful, either!

Made a supposedly bootable USB flash drive from the link, but the laptop "could not find a bootable device" despite several attempts (tried both the x86 and x64 versions of the ISO file). USB was readable, showed all the files, but no boot.

So, tried another tack. Went on the laptop old SSD and created a Windows rescue USB drive. That booted up fine on both old SSD and new Samsung PLIe SSD, but I could not access anything else (like the other USB drive with the cloned files). Lots of repair and restore options, but no way to run Macrium or Samsung Data Migration software to transfer my old hard drive data.

So, what the heck, tried to restore Windows 10 onto the new Samsung SSD and that worked fine. So now, I had Windows on the the new Samsung SSD, updated the Samsung firmware, installed Macrium Reflect. Then tried to restore from the old SSD (mounted in the Startech external USB enclosure) to the Samsung installed in the laptop, but that didn't work---got a message that the data cannot be cloned while Windows was operating! Also tried the Samsung Data Transfer software, but found out that it only works to transfer from my new Samsung 960 to an external drive---not the other way around, which is what I need.

So with Windows already installed on the new Samsung SSD, I tried to boot onto the Kyhi recovery tool again, in hopes that I could somehow access the Reflect software that way, but still without success. Not a bootable device. Could still boot from USB with the Windows Recovery USB stick, but then cannot do anything with that as far as transferring data from the old SSD to the new Samsung. Tried copying the boot/win file from the Kyhi recovery USB to the the Windows recovery USB, but all that did was make the USB Recovery USB unbootable as well.

So at this juncture, having expended far, far more time attempting cloning (to try to avoid having to reload software and settings to the new Samsung SSD) thnt it would have taken to just go ahead and re-install all my software and transfer data files, it looks like that's exactly what I am going to have to do.

In short---failure! Still cannot figure out any way to get the data from my "old" SATA SSD to the new Samsung PCIe drive.

You likely are not making the USB flash drive correctly. It has to be formatted as FAT32, not NTFS. Then copy the files and folders from a mounted Windows 10 ISO file or mounted ISO file of Kyhi's recovery tools. That's all you have to do to make a UEFI bootable flash drive. Mark the FAT32 partition on the flash drive as active and it is bootable under legacy BIOS as well.

I don't know if your Dell is like some of the models where they have the SATA options set to RAID. On my system, that causes the system to not be bootable as a NVMe drive.

When i did mine i set the SATA to AHCI and installed cleanly on the drive to test. After that worked, i used a Win 10 recovery drive to reset the drive back to a factory condition. My system is new and came with Win 10, so it worked. But once you confirm the M.2 drive works, you can move on however.

NavyLCDR said:

You likely are not making the USB flash drive correctly. It has to be formatted as FAT32, not NTFS. Then copy the files and folders from a mounted Windows 10 ISO file or mounted ISO file of Kyhi's recovery tools. That's all you have to do to make a UEFI bootable flash drive. Mark the FAT32 partition on the flash drive as active and it is bootable under legacy BIOS as well.

Both flash drives I used were formatted as FAT32. I checked in Disk Management and it shows the only partition as being "Healthy (Active, Primary Partition)" so I don't think this is the problem.

Saltgrass said:

I don't know if your Dell is like some of the models where they have the SATA options set to RAID. On my system, that causes the system to not be bootable as a NVMe drive.

When i did mine i set the SATA to AHCI and installed cleanly on the drive to test. After that worked, i used a Win 10 recovery drive to reset the drive back to a factory condition. My system is new and came with Win 10, so it worked. But once you confirm the M.2 drive works, you can move on however.

You are correct. The Dell Latitude E7470 is set to RAID. However, my new M.2 PCIe drive works. I did install Windows 10---just have not been able to do a data migration or use Reflect to clone my old SSD to the new. So, I have re-loaded software and data files. Not a big deal, but....I should have been able to do a cloning exercise!

Coincidentally, I did try changing the setting to both ACHI and to disable SATA (the only two other setting offered). Neither setting would allow me to boot up, though, so I went back to the RAID setting. The reason I tried disabling RAID is that I have been unable to install the Samsung driver---get a message that "NVM Express Device not connected" when I execute the driver file. Samsung's Driver Manual states that Windows cannot load the driver where "PCH Storage Configuration is set to "Raid Mode..." So, I am using a very dated Windows driver for the Samsung. All seems to work OK, but I am not getting the advertised speeds. Ran Crystal Mark and got only 1,786 seq read and 1,531 write. Not bad for writing, but about half what I should be getting in read speeds. I suspect the driver is the issue, but so far haven't been able to sort this out.

To see how the drive is running, check the Device Manager and look at Storage Controllers. If it shows a SATA device the drive is not running using the NVME controller.

To change from RAID to AHCI, if your system will run it, use the old method. Open msconfig.exe and set the system to boot into Safe Mode.

Reboot and go into the Bios and change SATA to AHCI. Let the system reboot back into Safe Mode.

Open msconfig.exe again and set the boot to normal and verify the checkmark on Safe Boot has been removed, then reboot.

If the system supports the PCIe drive, it should work.

Many folks seem to be able to load Windows on a PCIe drive but it will not boot afterward. The PCIe driver needs to be in the Bios. Dell just told users of the Inspiron 7567 gaming the PCIe driver was not compatible with the Samsung 960 Pro or EVO. And it was confirmed when someone tried a NVME version of the SM951, which worked normally.

You won't get advertised speeds since the system is not a dedicated PCIe M.2 slot.

Saltgrass said:

To see how the drive is running, check the Device Manager and look at Storage Controllers. If it shows a SATA device the drive is not running using the NVME controller.

To change from RAID to AHCI, if your system will run it, use the old method. Open msconfig.exe and set the system to boot into Safe Mode.

Reboot and go into the Bios and change SATA to AHCI. Let the system reboot back into Safe Mode.

Open msconfig.exe again and set the boot to normal and verify the checkmark on Safe Boot has been removed, then reboot.

If the system supports the PCIe drive, it should work.

Many folks seem to be able to load Windows on a PCIe drive but it will not boot afterward. The PCIe driver needs to be in the Bios. Dell just told users of the Inspiron 7567 gaming the PCIe driver was not compatible with the Samsung 960 Pro or EVO. And it was confirmed when someone tried a NVME version of the SM951, which worked normally.

You won't get advertised speeds since the system is not a dedicated PCIe M.2 slot.

Yes. Device Manager Storage Controllers shows an "Intel Chipset SATA RAID Controller" (and a Microsoft Storage Spaces Controller). I'll try changing to the AHCI using msconfig. Didn't work when I changed it in the Bios---wouldn't boot.

fred1015 said:

Yes. Device Manager Storage Controllers shows an "Intel Chipset SATA RAID Controller" (and a Microsoft Storage Spaces Controller). I'll try changing to the AHCI using msconfig. Didn't work when I changed it in the Bios---wouldn't boot.

OK, this worked! Now booting into AHCI, and the Samsung driver loaded. No improvement in speed, though! Still 1,777 read and 1,527 write. Not sure if the M.2 slot is dedicated or not. I think the SSD is the only PCIe device on the laptop. But...maybe Dell is only using two channels instead to the four? Not sure about this either---if the motherboard only has 2 channels it seems to me that the write speed would be affected as much as read, and that is not the case here.