Computers & Tablets

[Legitozone]

My computer is a MSI Gs63vr 6rf (2016).

I am considering buying a samsung m.2 960 Evo 500gb ssd. I did some research, and found in the laptop manual that it only has one m.2 slot that supports PCie.

I want to clone the existing m.2 ssd 128gb to the PCie somehow, but I can not find an adapter for the PCie to plug it in as a external harddrive for cloning softwares. What should I do?

[AWBrown Valued Contributor]

Hi Legitozone,

If you didn't mind a fresh boot you could just make a recovery media via usb or something. It would be then just simply reinstalling Windows your motherboard should have it bios saved if you have Windows 10.

There are adapters out there you can get for around $35-50 normally however to the best of my knowledge Bestbuy does not sell these products.

[Legitozone]

So, if I just make a recovery image in an external harddrive... Can I just replace the old M.2 SSD and restore my win10 with the external harddrive?

[AWBrown Valued Contributor]

Never done it with an external harddrive so I am not entirely sure to be honest. Only ever done it with a usb or disc

[mussentuchit]

assuming you have a "proprietory machine" HP DELL AS EXAMPLES ONLY.. those are made so you can not change much as far as the guts are concerned. cloning the drive is more work than it's worth. install the new drive and see if it even boots hopefully the BIOS is not locked out to accpet new hardware. if it does take it you got LUCKY.

now here is a work around to the laborious cloning. i DO NOT GUARANTEE THIS WORKS. IF the drive was found and your lappy boots CONGRATS. next get yourself a copy of windows 10 load it in and run it YOU WILL have driver issues so using a seperate pc download the following items from your PC maker. you NEED graphics drivers, INFchipset driver and network driver, get both LAN and wifi, that should get you going. then download the rest as needed.

you could also order a set of recovery CD's usually about $25. this is quicker than trying to decode the other drive

[KateWrit]

Thank you for these answer, I hope this will come in handy.

[klimbo13]

Hi there, I'm wanting to take a new laptop with a small 128gb M.2 SSD and put a larger crucial M.2 in place of it. The small SSD has the operating system installed on it. I have no idea how to do that. Can anyone help me? Do I just need a special cable to usb?

[hockeycanuckjc Community Veteran]

If the OS is Windows 10, you can take any Windows 10 disk and do a fresh reinstall and you won't need a product key to activate.