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January 26th, 2024 15:19
How to properly upgrade the SSD in a 7620 2-in-1?
Inspiron 16 7620 2-in-1
Hi,
I bought a few months ago an Inspiron 7620 2-in-1 that came with a "kbg50zns512g nvme kioxia 512gb". I opened the laptop and the SSD's form factor is an M.2 2230.
I'd like to switch that for a 1TB SSD. The form factor, whether an M.2 2230 or 2280 does not matter much.
My need is twofold:
- to have my data on a separate partition than that of the OS. However, the 7620 was formatted in such a way that there is no room left to create another partition: Windows 11 won't let me reduce the OS partition.
- to migrate data from my old XPS 17 L702X, which had two 512GB drives… yes, that laptop from 2011 was that great.
Does anyone know what precautions I should take and what process I should follow? Note that I'm an IT guy myself but since I last tinkered with OSes, partitions and hardware around 2012 and Windows 7 era, much has changed.
One thing to note though is that my Windows 11 license is reported as attached to my Microsoft account and I'd like to get rid of the bloatware (SmartByte, Microsoft 365, etc.) that was installed on the laptop.
Thanks for any input.
ejn63
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January 26th, 2024 16:19
You can use either an M.2 2230 or M.2 2280 drive in the system -- the latter will likely be the less expensive option.
It sounds like a clean install of Windows 11 is the best option for you -- you can partition the drive as you like, install the OS without what you do not want, and go from there.
You'll need a backup of whatever you need to "migrate" to the new system -- either on an external drive, or somewhere online that you can download it to the new system.
VoodooPriestFR
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February 3rd, 2024 09:37
@ejn63 Thank you for your message. I did exactly that: a clean install of Windows 11, with a new partitioning. I used the standard Windows media creation tool to create a bootable USB key.
I took the precaution of leaving the two system partitions when I deleted the existing partitions. I had the windows installer create the two partitions that I needed: one for the OS and the other for my data.
I met a couple of issues during the installation: drivers for the NVMe drive and later on for the Wi-Fi card were missing. I had to use another computer to download them from Dell's website to another USB key.
Using CloneZilla, I could restore without issue the data I was migrating from the XPS 17, to which I later added the data from this same Inspiron 7620.
After two or three days wrangling with three computers, almost everything is fine: only the fingerprint reader is out of service. Maybe a driver that isn't yet installed.