Precision 5820 - Migrating from SATA boot to PCIe NVME boot - confused as to how?! (Need a Jack & Jill guide please!)

not sure what a JJ guide is, but if the new NVMe ssd is at least the same size as sata HDD, you can use Windows without third party tool to clone the hDD to sdd, then try to boot from ssd alone.  when that is done, you can wipe the hdd and make it a secondary drive.  before you do this make sure BIOS sata operation is set as AHCI.

https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/optiplex-desktops/how-to-clone-ssd-to-another-ssd-without-third-party-tool/652b338043dbba53b173f0b7?keyword=clone

Thank you for the responses, I will look at attempting that shortly. 

'Jack & Jill guide' simply means "a super simple guide" [like a guide for dummies] - I.e. like a nursery ryhme. 

I beg to differ.

They are, or were, Janet and John books.

• The stories revolve around the everyday lives of a brother and sister, Janet and John, using simple, repetitive language.

@redxps630​ 

Hello there

So... I've just completed the back-up, and found the old "Create a System Image" [Win 7] tool in the old Control Panel options as per your forum link above. 

However, when I look at the new contents of my NVMe drive, all of that back-up has been stored into a single folder called "WindowsImageBackup". 

Inside that is a folder called "Desktop-[ComputerName]"

Inside that are four folders, where the large folder is called "Backup 2025-05-19 153610" - the folder size is 487GB. 

Inside that are four Hard Disk Image files (my present SATA drive is partitioned into three main partitions (C: / D: / E:) to separate personal data away from the System partition in case it ever needs a catastrophic system partition restore. 

This is why I needed a Jack & Jill guide - what do I do with these four separate hard disk image files (that clearly aren't bootable) that have now been backed up onto the NVMe drive and tucked away in various sub-folders? 

I was expecting the back-up result for the NVMe drive to be an image clone of my present system SATA HD (with an identical file structure), so that I could then simply change the boot order in the BIOS, remove the SATA drive to avoid boot confusion, so that the computer then booted and ran from the NVMe drive, instead of the SATA drive from that point on. What am I missing here? I appear to have restoration back-ups, rather than having an identical image on the NVMe capable of booting and running the computer? 

Thanks 

@mazzinia_​ 

Hello Mazzinia_

Thanks for your reply. I'd totally forgotten that WD do a free version of True Image! 

So, I've just installed TI and completed the clone. TI was very helpful when it finished the cloning work, and instructed me to shut down the computer, remove the present SATA drive and restart it - success first time. I was slightly nervous that I'd need to make some BIOS sequence changes in order for this process to work as I wanted it to. 

The computer is now up and running on the new NVMe drive and seems to be imperceptible from how it run on the old SATA HDD. The old SATA is presently disconnected for the time being, and TI has even re-allocated the drive letters and partitioning so that what were C/D and E partitions on my old SATA drive now show as C/D and E whilst running on the NVMe - marvellous. 

It's definitely quicker to boot and much quicker to run, however, it does feel like there's a bit of a 'pregnant pause' when you turn it on from scratch. I've just rebooted a few times to see if it gets quicker, but it takes 20 secs for the DELL logo to first appear, then it disappears, then it reappears about 40 seconds, and then it's booted into the Win 11 desktop and is pretty much ready to go at about 65 seconds. I'm wondering if the computer is essentially trying (and failing) to follow a specific device boot sequence where it's looking for the USB first, then HDD, then whatever before it eventually gets to the NVMe to boot from which is causing a bit of a boot delay? I've just been into the BIOS settings to see if the device boot order can be changed, but I couldn't see anyway of re-ordering the device search sequence to make it a little quicker, so I've just everything well alone.  

Also, if I can just ask whether I'm safe to slide the old SATA drive back into the machine and leave it there? Once I'm completely happy that the transfer has all gone to plan, I was going to use the old SATA as an inbuilt back-up drive to complete semi-regular back-ups to, but I was just wondering if I slid it back in, powered down the computer and rebooted, whether (because of the legacy boot order) that the computer would go back to booting from the SATA drive instead of the NVMe in the future, if it were installed? 

Many, many thanks - I think I'm pretty much there and very happy! 

Re: when I look at the new contents of my NVMe drive, all of that back-up has been stored into a single folder called "WindowsImageBackup". 

I would uninstall the NVMe ssd, create system image of HDD on an external hard drive, then uninstall HDD, reinstall NVMe ssd, boot from recovery usb, restore system image from external hard drive to ssd, which will first wipe the ssd.

@rjsdavis​ Dell workstations behave this way in general. Usually it's a bit quicker after the first cold boot, if is shut down and then booted up vs being restarted/rebooted