XPS 8930 Failed to replace the m.2 drive

The Samsung SSD must be a SATA SSD, correct? The OEM SSD is in the M.2 NVME slot and there's only one of those slots on the XPS 8930 motherboard...

Sounds like you didn't change BIOS from RAID to AHCI before installing the Samsung SSD. You have to do this the right way or you'll make the PC totally unbootable:

Reinstall the OEM M.2 NVME SSD and make sure PC boots normally. Then follow these instructions carefully:

1. Open Cmd prompt window, run as administrator
   
   
2. Copy-paste this command, which will start Windows in Safe Mode the next time you reboot: bcdedit /set {current} safeboot minimal and press Enter
   
   
3. Restart the computer and enter tap F2  when you see the Dell splash screen to open BIOS setup
   
   
4. Change SATA Operation from RAID to AHCI
   
   
5. Save the change and exit Setup. Windows will automatically boot in Safe Mode
   
   
6. Open Cmd again, as in step #1
   
   
7. Copy-paste this command, which will start Windows in Normal Mode the next time you reboot: bcdedit /deletevalue {current} safeboot and press Enter
   
   
8. Reboot and Windows will automatically start with AHCI drivers enabled
   
   
9. Shut down normally in Windows
   
   
10. Remove OEM SSD
    
    
11. Confirm PC boots normally from Samsung SSD and all apps and files work properly before going any further
    
    
12. Shut down normally and install new M.2 NVME SSD
    
    
13. Confirm PC still boots normally from Samsung SSD

At this point you have to make a decision. Assuming my original assumption that the Samsung SSD is a SATA drive, you should decide if you want to keep it as the boot drive or use the new NVME SSD as boot drive. The new NVME SSD will be ~5-6x faster than a SATA SSD. This decision will determine what to do next.

You may have had setting the M.2 SSD as cache drive for the SATA SSD.  Boot your system with both drives, launch Intel RST and disable cache mode.  Remove the original M.2 SSD and test again to see if you can boot with SATA SSD.  Then, you can add the new M.2 SSD afterward.

Thanks for your reply. Yes, the Samsung SSD is a SATA SSD

Unfortunately it looks like SATA Operation in my BIOS is already AHCI.

Thank you for your reply

Not sure what you meant by Intel RST, I gogled and then installed the intel RST driver and from here,

the two apps that I can run after the installation is 1)Intel Graphics Command Center

2). Intel optane memory and storage Management

None of them seems to have an option to modify any settings on any drive. Did I install the wrong app?

Thanks

The Intel Rapid Storage Technology should have been installed already.  But you still can get it here.  Launch the console and select accelerate tab.  From there, you can disable acceleration or disassociate link before removal of M.2 SSD.  Follow this guide here.

Thanks, I installed from the link you provided.  The only "console" I could find is from the Intel RST's taskbar tray icon: "Open Application". And there is no accelerate tab there. It shows all the SATA drive (weirdly the M.2 drive is not listed) and under "Advance", there is a "disk data cache", not sure if this is what you were referring to.

Here is what the drives look like in disk managment

What I am trying to do is to replace the Disk 0 with a much bigger M.2 Drive

This disk 0 is a M.2 drive came from Dell with the PC, it has Recovery Partition and a 100 MB EFI System partition) as shown below.

I installed the Disk 1 (a Samsung SATA SSD) several years ago, installed windows 10 on it, and the PC  boots from this C drive and has been working fine for the last several years.. The original M.2 shows up as K: drive.

Now If I remove Disk 0 or replace it with other M.2, this PC won't boot.

I suspect the boot loader might be searching for the EFI partition?

Yes, you can disable "disk data cache".

After completion, check in Disk Management again to let us know.

btw: In msconfig Boot tab, I can see two windows 10, I don't remember exactly, but I think that is what I did last time I installed the OS onto the SATA SSD, I changed that version of windows 10 to default OS.

I wonder whether this is the issue, when I remove or replace the K:\ drive,  somewhere something is checking this OS and couldn't find it. That is where the error came from

I did not find a way to disable this" disk data cache" in the Intel RST app, it seems to be read-only or info-only.

I think I found the culprit: The Windows Boot Manager itself is in the EFI partition of the K:\Drive, the original M.2 drive that has the windows 10 installed by Dell

Now the question is how I can move the bootmgr

Thanks for all your help. I already swapped the case using this post as a guide (https://www.dell.com/community/XPS-Desktops/XPS-8930-Case-Swap-CPU-Liquid-Cooler-temps-Upgrade-summary/m-p/8380993#M81215). That was when I installed the SATA SSD drive. It indeed would be a good idea to install a fresh copy of OS on the new M.2 drive.

That is a great post to use as preference for cooling solution.  So, the hardware part is good.

To help with any question you may have during Windows installation, you can review this process to install using USB for Windows 10 or Windows 11.  Remember to delete every partitions, and on every drives.  Then select next to let Windows set partitions and formatting drives automatically.  When complete, you can use Disk Management to prepare additional drives for data use.