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I'm trying to clone from one small NVME drive to a larger one for a laptop I own. I remove the drive from the laptop, plug it along with the larger drive into this PCIE dual NVME adapter on my desktop which has two NVME slots. I boot into Windows installed on a separate SATA SSD drive and find both NVME drives visible and operational. I launch Samsung Magician and click the Data Migration button and find unfortunately that there appears to be a running OS restriction for drive cloning.

Samsung Magician reads:

Only the Source Drive on which the operating system is installed can be replicated.

What is the reason for such a restriction? Is there a way around it?

The laptop I'm trying to upgrade only has one NVME slot so I'd have to purchase an adapter or get the SATA 2nd drive bay on the unit with the necessary hardware to get two drives operational at the same time on that laptop.

samsung magician source drive restriction

jxramos
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    The tool was likely created exclusively to move the running operating system. Simply use something else, there’s plenty of clone-y software available. – Daniel B Jul 05 '23 at 07:56
  • For example, use for Windows [AOMEI Backupper Freeware](https://www.ubackup.com/free-backup-software.html). – harrymc Jul 05 '23 at 08:33

1 Answers1

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Looks like I may have chosen the wrong software according to this article:

Samsung Magician is a free optimization tool provided by Samsung to monitor drive health and manage SSD data. It features drive details, performance benchmarks, diagnostic scans, etc., and doesn't have a hard drive clone feature.

If you need to clone a hard drive to Samsung SSD, you can use Samsung Data Migration (SDM) or...

https://www.easeus.com/questions/backup/how-to-clone-hard-drive-to-ssd-using-samsung-magician.html

However it appears that the article is false since looking into their recommended software for the Samsung Data Migration Tool I see the following limitations stated directly in its user manual:

Limitations

This software can only clone a Source Drive on which an operating system has been installed. It cannot clone a drive without an operating system installed on it https://download.semiconductor.samsung.com/resources/user-manual/Samsung_SSD_Data_Migration_User_Manual_English_US_revision_v11.pdf

jxramos
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  • come to think of it, this may pose a tech support simplification for Samsung. If they limit the source of the disk cloning to be the one executing the OS, then they guarantee there being a functioning OS to clone from. They also guarantee that the hardware running the OS is valid for a working hard drive to operate from. That combination subtracts a ton of hardware and software complexities they entirely gloss over. Sounds like it may be a good use of resources for them to focus on what they specialize in. – jxramos Jul 06 '23 at 02:43