XPS 8930, HDD to SSD clone problems

Question

Long post, we've been working on this for days.

We have spent a lot of time working to get our XPS 8930 tower changed over from the original SATA Hard Disk to an internal m.2 NVMe SSD using the M.2 slot on the motherboard. There are 2 related objectives:
a) The 8930 has never worked well, it's often been slow, and frequently freezes up for minutes. When I look at the Task Manager, the HDD is stuck for long periods at 100%.
b) We plan to do the Windows 10 to Windows 11 update but are running Win 10 currently.

The Dell self diagnostics reported a DSC disk error 0142. To get rid of the frequent problems, we decided to use a non-SATA device.

The BIOS on the 8930 is version 1.1.18

The HDD (original from Dell) is a SATA spinning hard disk, Seagate barracuda 1 TB SATA, with about 300 GB used, 630 GB available.
We bought a Sandisk "SSD Plus m.2 NVMe" 1 TB to replace the HDD which was readily available from Microcenter. This SSD is a Gen 3 device, based on what we read from Dell for the 8930.

After going through the cloning process, we weren't able to boot the computer from what we thought was a bootable SSD.

After cloning the SSD, I disconnected the HDD and booted the computer. The BIOS recognized the SSD when we boot into the BIOS, but Windows Boot Manager reports no boot device when we try to boot into Windows. When I reconnected the HDD, the computer boots into the HDD and the computer finds the SSD as Drive A. I can read the SSD Drive A and all of the files on it with the HDD also connected.

We're stumped, Here's more detail on what we've done so far.

- paid for and used the EaseUS cloning software.

- initialized the SSD using the Windows 10 Disk Management tool, and formatted it as NTFS.

- installed the SSD in the M.2 internal slot

- per RoHe (Ron the rockstar on these forums), changed SATA RAID to AHCI in Windows prior to cloning as well as on the BIOS.

- used EaseUS to do a Partition clone to create a bootable SSD (per the PCWorld/EaseUS article circa 2024) from the HDD to the SSD. (maybe significant? EaseUS assigned the SSD as drive letter A: )

- when the cloning was done, we disconnected the SATA HDD.

this is where we learned to change to AHCI on these forums:

https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/xps-desktops/xps-8930-upgrade-to-an-ssd/647f9d7af4ccf8a8de1cc75b

--booted from the HDD,set Windows 10 to Safe Mode (bcdedit)
--restart
--set BIOS to AHCI
--reboot and set Windows 10 back to normal (bcdedit)
--reboot Windows
--redo the cloning process using EaseUS, partition

We did all that and every step worked, but when I disconnect the HDD and have the SSD in the M.2 slot, the Boot Manager still reports no bootable device.

So now were stuck, what other or different steps should we take? Any help would be appreciated! Let me know if more info from me is needed!

mosleroad · Accepted Answer

Thank you for your suggestions. The major problem turned out to be the instructions for easeUS software. The instructions from pcworld were from about a year ago, and there have been several updates since then. The functions in easeUS moved around and changed. We found newer instructions on youtube, which pointed out to us what we needed to do, but even those instructions were not exactly correct for the version of easeUS we have..

Our problem was that the clone option we chose did not make the SSD bootable. We got it right the second time through.

Another minor problem was that easeUS assigned drive letter A: to the SSD, so the boot manager did not let us boot from the SSD even after the good clone was made. Luckily that was easy to change in Windows, using the utility:

diskmgmt.msc

Disk management displays and let us change the drive letter (to F:) and then the boot manager lets us choose which drive we want to boot from, HDD or SSD.

redxps630 · Answer

I suggest not to use third party tool to clone.

Try create system image of hdd by using Windows 10 built in method. The image is saved on an external USB hdd that is at least a 1TB or larger.

also make a system recovery drive by using a small 1GB usb flash drive.

After system image is saved, remove hdd, install ssd, use the flash drive to boot 8930, go to restore system image on ssd

https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/optiplex-desktops/how-to-clone-ssd-to-another-ssd-without-third-party-tool/652b338043dbba53b173f0b7?keyword=clone%20ssd%20without%20third%20party%20tool

anne_droid · Answer

Hi

If you did a literal clone of the HDD to NVMe then it may not work, and as that is the case, then the problem is likely the boot manager.

By all means clone the C: to the new device, but the BIOS will have a Boot Manager pointed at the old device, not the new one. So is the new device listed in the BIOS boot manager as the first device, and really only this device needs listing.

Consider assigning the drive as C: and not A: if possible. Usually the new storage device has cloning software on the Manufacturers website, and purchasing A N other is not needed.

I use Paragon Partition Manager CE and that will change/assign drive letters.

A piccy of the BIOS Boot Manager sequence would be welcome.

mosleroad · Answer

Oh, and today October 14, 2025 is the last day of Windows 10 support.  We were able to eventually install Windows 11.   One roadblock was we had VMware 15 installed in Windows 10, and after the install routine said we were clean to install Win 11, it stopped at 86% saying it could not proceed because of VMware 15.  To my surprise, Broadcom did let us download a free version of VMware 17.6, after going through several steps.

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XPS 8930, HDD to SSD clone problems

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