XPS 8930 question about cloning my Operating System

@ejn63​  Thanks I never thought about swapping the drives. Not sure where my 256gb NVME 2
is located on the motherboard but it shouldn't be hard to find it. 

@wayneout423 I agree with what @ejn63 wrote. If you use Macrium to image your old drive and restore to your new, you should image each partition of your original drive separately and in order, then restore them to your new drive in the same order. Also, when restoring the C partition you should resize the partition on the new drive to take advantage of the larger size of your new drive. If you use Macrium to clone your old drive to your new drive, make sure you modify the size of the C partition on the new drive.

After creating an image of existing SSD, only the last partition copied onto the new SSD can be enlarged. So copy all the other partitions onto the new SSD first, saving C: for last. And enlarge C: to use all available free space when you copy it onto the new SSD.

You'll probably have an issue if you put the old SSD in a PCI-e>NVME adapter card if it still has Windows on it, because that might confuse the Windows Boot Manager and it may not want to boot from the new SSD in the NVME slot.

If you just want to set the old SSD aside, rather than reinstalling it, you don't need to buy a PCI-e adapter. Image the existing SSD and save the image on an external USB drive (assuming you have one). Then swap in the new SSD and copy the image, enlarging C: partition as I mentioned above.  With old SSD removed, PC should boot directly from the new SSD without needing to change any drive letters...

BTW: Some SSDs and their software (eg, Samsung) don't work well if BIOS is set to RAID (Dell's standard configuration). So you probably should re-configure BIOS and Windows to use AHCI before doing anything else. This has to be done the right way:

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 BIOS setup.
4. Change SATA Operation mode 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 boot:
   bcdedit /deletevalue {current} safeboot and press Enter
8. Reboot and Windows will automatically start with AHCI drivers enabled.

Now you should be ready to image the existing SSD...

@Vic384​ I am not sure what you mean by the partition thing. This is what I have gathered
from watching videos. First I choose 1. Clone disk (my C drive) 2. Select my new drive for
destination disk. 3. Under copy partitions, they say pick advanced options and choose
SSD trim since it is SSD to SSD. 4. Again under copy partitions, they say there is two
choices A. Exact partition offset and length B. Shrink or extend to fill the target disk.
Every video I have watched says to pick B.  I am only cloning the C drive. I also have
a D drive, and a S drive. Do not want to copy them.  I just checked Disk Management and
for the C drive, it looked like this. 

  I just want to put the C drive on the new disk. I am not sure if I should
choose A or B from point 4 above.  I just want to end up with my new C drive having
750gbs of free space. Thanks. 

@RoHe​ I have already bought all the stuff so I will go with the adapter for now.
I am not going to put the old NVME back in the adapter. I thought I would buy
another NVME for that adapter and keep the old one in case of trouble, but not
in the computer. 
As for changing BIOS, the new m.2 SSD that I have is a Samsung 970 EVO Plus.
Before I change it out with the old m.2 SSD, should I change the BIOS as you
suggested? Thanks

I would change that BIOS SATA Operation setting first. Samsung's own docs say their SSDs and Magician software don't would well when RAID is enabled.

If you do "A", there's going to be a lot of wasted space on the new SSD.

If you do "B" and move the C: partition first and "... extend to fill the target disk", you won't have any space to copy the other partitions.  Copy all the other partitions first, and copy C: last and then "extend to fill the target disk".  That way you'll have room for everything and C: will use all the space the other partitions aren't using.

All this can be easily done with Macrium Reflect (free for 30 days). (user guide) .

@RoHe​ Sorry to bother you again. So, when I select clone this disk, first I should choose
(looking at my picture) the part that says 150mb healthy. Then after that I should select
990mb,  then 14.79gb healthy recovery, then 1.26gb healthy recovery, then 16gb unallocated,
and finally the part that says OS: C 221.17gb NTFS, Boot, page file. and choose B.
If that is correct, I understand about the partitions finally. When I am doing the first five
before OS: C, do I choose B on them as well?  And last (hopefully) doing this way will leave
me around 750gbs on my 1TB m.2 nvme disk free?
I just saw a video on about cloning and they guy just dragged down the partitions in to the area
for the destination disk, dragging the C: OS last. But he didn't drag down the unallocated. Will
this work?  I have watched so many videos and it seems everyone does it a little differently.

Here is the video I was talking about. He starts doing the cloning around 13:45. The first part
is just a little prephttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pawQPgEGL0

@RoHe​ Okay everything went smoothly I guess. I did change the boot from raid to
ACHI with no problem.  Here is hopefully my last question on this.
When I open file explorer that shows just the drives on my computer, the system
changed the letter from T to G.  And it is still showing a T drive.  (see image)  The 
G is what was the T (if that makes sense)  How can I delete the T drive letter.
The reason I ask is because when I change the old C drive out with my new NVME,
I am going to put another new NVME into the adapter. I am going to use this new drive for
my AI stuff. I am afraid that still have a T drive showing will mess up everything because
it was in my adapter and now there is will another NVME disk. I hope all that makes
sense.  And thanks for all your help as I have been able to get everything ready to 
make the swap. Except the NVME that came with the Dell is under my graphics
card. Thanks.

@RoHe​  I finished everything and it seems to be working. I didn't read this post
and assigned the new drive the letter N, and the T is still showing but not showing
up in Disk Management. I will probably go back and change it to T, but I am not
in a hurry.
Thanks for all the help. At 76 years old, the hardest part is getting my body in the
right position for all the work.  Thanks again for all the help. The G drive was automatically
changed to C when I booted back up. I always know that I can come here to get the
help I need.

Sounding good...!  Glad that it boots ok from the new SSD in the motherboard NVME slot.

Which drive did you assign drive letter "N", the newest (non-bootable) SSD that's on the PCI-e adapter card?  

You might want to take the adapter+SSD out completely. Boot up normally after removing the adapter. Then do a Re-Start  inside Windows and see if drive letter T is still assigned or not.  Then shut down normally, reinstall the adapter+SSD and see what happens...