Problems migrating to new Samsung SSD

[xKraut]

I recently bought a Samsung 850 EVO 250GB from PCspecialist to replace the original Kingston V300 120GB.
Downloaded latest version of Data Migration and Magician.
Migrated the original C: Drive. Migration is successful.
Btw. C: Drive only holds the OS, my Installed Programs, my Lightroom Catalog and Photoshop Scratch Disk. All Data is on a 2TB WD Caviar Black.
Swapped the Kingston for the Samsung.
Enter BIOS, choose “Load Default” Save and all is well.
I then use Magician to set it up. (does seem just a bit flaky!?)
In Advanced Mode I choose the recommended settings i.e. Disable Hibernation; Indexing etc.
This doesn’t appear to work straight away (flaky?) but does eventually and I seem to have gained a few GB. But has it really?
To make sure I opened “Indexing Options” from Control Panel and find some 70+K items still indexed, mostly Images and Audio stuff.
I un-tick lots of stuff I believe I don’t need indexed. ( I use Lightroom so I figured I don`t need all my photos indexed.) Now why where they still there after Windows apparently removed them?
Please Note! During this session I also Upgraded my AVG 2014 to 2015.
I continue with other work for the rest of the day and all seems fine. perhaps not quite all, but can’t put my finger on it.
Now here it comes!
Next morning I turn on the Computer. I get to the Log-on Screen click on my account and everything but the Windows Splash Scree disappeared and that was it.
No Mouse, No Ctrl-Alt-Del Nothing!
Rebooted/Turn off a few times, same thing.
Went into Save Mode, checked for errors, found lots but who knows what all that means!
No Firewall, No AVG, No Malwarebytes
Under Problem Devices it showed:
1) AMDA00 Interface: Device not working cannot load drivers required. Driver update reports: Best Driver Loaded
2)Security Processor Loader: Device not present, not working or not all drivers installed.

Tried System Restore. Which runs and reports as completed but on reboot same as above. It even shows “Windows (Restored)” in Safe Mode.
Desperate Measures!?
Booting from Windows CD eventually works but none of the Repair Options do.
System Restore from recent Backup/Image fails. Unknown Error 0x80004005
Put the old SSD back an all is up and running.
Please who/what is at fault here? Me? Windows? Samsung Software or the SSD itself.

Any ideas greatly appreciated
Thanks

OS Name Microsoft Windows 7 Professional
Version 6.1.7601 Service Pack 1 Build 7601
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Manufacturer ASUS
System Model All Series (Motherboard: H81M-E Socket 1150)
System Type x64-based PC
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4440 CPU @ 3.10GHz, 3101 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date American Megatrends Inc. 0808, 06/01/2014
SMBIOS Version 2.7
Windows Directory C:\Windows
System Directory C:\Windows\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Locale United Kingdom
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "6.1.7601.17514"
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 8.00 GB
Total Physical Memory 7.94 GB
Available Physical Memory 4.11 GB
Total Virtual Memory 15.9 GB
Available Virtual Memory 7.18 GB
Page File Space 7.94 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys

 

[Warbloke]

I will offer an idea:

Ive never migrated using the Samsung software, but If you are willing to spend some money (£35) , I would recommend buying Acronis True Image software.
I used this in the past to migrate my C drive from a normal hard disk, onto 2x Samsung SSDs, which I had configured in RAID 0.
Its always good to have a good backup plan too... so even after migrating it is a worthwhile investment as you can use it to make backups

I have found this software very easy to use and it has proven very reliable.

You could install both SSDs, and run this using its CLONE utility, its clever enough to handle different disk capacities.
Unplug the Original, and boot up on the new one.

Alternatively, you can make within Acronis a bootable rescue CD and do this another way using only this Boot CD.
You might find someone even sharing the Acronis boot CD online you might perhaps download.... you dont need the latest version for Windows 7, so even an edition from a few years ago would do... the boot disk requires no licence once made and can be used in any PC - its a boot disk and doesn't install within windows.

If you have another disk in your PC with enough free space to hold the used data of your C drive, or indeed an external USB drive with enough capacity... make a new folder in there, which will hold the backup image file of your Kingston C drive later.

Boot to the Acronis CD... it temporarily loads a Linux interface, which has a nice GUI for Acronis's backup and recovery
Select to make a backup... choose the type to be DISK, and select the entire Kingson as the source. Browse to the Folder you made in your data/ external usb drive and point to that as the destination for the image backup.... run the backup - this creates a single file in your folder called 'xxxxx.tib' (where xxxxxx is whatever you called the backup filename)

Once the backup is made, remove the Kingson... and pop in the Samsung...

Again, boot using the Acronis CD... this time choose recover... from... point to your backup file... to... point to the Samsung... recover.

Again, its clever enough not to care that the Samsung disk is larger... it just works.

CD out... boot up using the Samsung which now is imaged exactly as the Kingston was. - simples


Also, I spotted a good guide on a sticky on this very forum, advising what settings to change to optimise an SSD... not sure you really need a utility..

 

[ubuysa]

I will offer an idea:

Ive never migrated using the Samsung software, but If you are willing to spend some money (£35) , I would recommend buying Acronis True Image software.
I used this in the past to migrate my C drive from a normal hard disk, onto 2x Samsung SSDs, which I had configured in RAID 0.
Its always good to have a good backup plan too... so even after migrating it is a worthwhile investment as you can use it to make backups

I have found this software very easy to use and it has proven very reliable.

You could install both SSDs, and run this using its CLONE utility, its clever enough to handle different disk capacities.
Unplug the Original, and boot up on the new one.

Alternatively, you can make within Acronis a bootable rescue CD and do this another way using only this Boot CD.
You might find someone even sharing the Acronis boot CD online you might perhaps download.... you dont need the latest version for Windows 7, so even an edition from a few years ago would do... the boot disk requires no licence once made and can be used in any PC - its a boot disk and doesn't install within windows.

If you have another disk in your PC with enough free space to hold the used data of your C drive, or indeed an external USB drive with enough capacity... make a new folder in there, which will hold the backup image file of your Kingston C drive later.

Boot to the Acronis CD... it temporarily loads a Linux interface, which has a nice GUI for Acronis's backup and recovery
Select to make a backup... choose the type to be DISK, and select the entire Kingson as the source. Browse to the Folder you made in your data/ external usb drive and point to that as the destination for the image backup.... run the backup - this creates a single file in your folder called 'xxxxx.tib' (where xxxxxx is whatever you called the backup filename)

Once the backup is made, remove the Kingson... and pop in the Samsung...

Again, boot using the Acronis CD... this time choose recover... from... point to your backup file... to... point to the Samsung... recover.

Again, its clever enough not to care that the Samsung disk is larger... it just works.

CD out... boot up using the Samsung which now is imaged exactly as the Kingston was. - simples


Also, I spotted a good guide on a sticky on this very forum, advising what settings to change to optimise an SSD... not sure you really need a utility..

Or use Macrium Reflect Free from http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx, it will do all of that for free!

 

[LFFPicard]

Samsung migration software is known to be a bit hit and miss so I would go with above recommendations and use another software for this.

 

[SpyderTracks]

Samsung migration software is known to be a bit hit and miss so I would go with above recommendations and use another software for this.

I would also stress this, I helped someone else with Samsung Magician migration and it failed, had to start again from scratch.

 

[xKraut]

Thank you all for taking the time.
Good advice allround.
I have also been in touch with PCS who think it`s a driver problem and have kindly offered to do a remote connect to sort this out.
Let`s first see how this goes.

 

[RType23]

I second Acronis - three migrations, easy as pie.

 

[xKraut]

Hi
Here is the final solution.

After speaking to PCS, I was going to try out their suggestion to "Clean Install" Windows on the Samsung SSD.
Hoping to avoid that particular route, I happened to come across “MiniTool”

http://www.partitionwizard.com/help/copy-disk.html

I downloaded their free disk, used it to start the computer, ran the “Disk Copy Wizard”,
migrated the entire old Kingston SSD to the new Samsung and all is well.

MiniTool did a perfect job in under 20 Minutes (80GB) and the system is and has been stable for 3 Days now.
It would seem the Problem was Samsung`s own Data Migration Software.

MiniTool is well worth a look at. It`s free and offers a wealth of tools for disk management.
I really like their style and attitude.

One More Question:
Why do I have a Recovery Partition on the original Kingston SSD that came with the Computer ?
It appears to contain data but I can`t see what that data is and how to make use of it.
If it is indeed a Recovery Partition how can I benefit from it?
This Partition does not show up under Windows on the originally PCS installed Kingston SSD System Disk.
I only became aware of it during the copy operation using MiniTool. .....or have I lost the plot again?!
Thank you all

 

[grimsbymatt]

I used Windows's own backup and restore when I migrated to a new SSD and it worked fine, although I had to resize the partition on the new (larger) SSD.