I recently upgraded my parents' laptop by swapping out the old 256GB NVMe SSD for a new 1TB NVMe SSD. To set things up, I used a test bench with a 500GB SATA drive running Windows 11. While I was trying to install Windows on the SATA drive, I inadvertently triggered BitLocker on the original 256GB drive. Luckily, I managed to retrieve the recovery key from their Microsoft account. I intended to clone the 256GB SSD to the new 1TB one using Macrium Reflect, but that attempt failed. However, Disk Genius performed the cloning successfully. After installing the new SSD in the laptop, it wouldn't boot. I tweaked the boot configuration settings like Secure Boot and TPM, but still no success. Now, the new drive doesn't appear in Disk Part when trying to repair it via installation media, even though it shows up as a boot option in BIOS. I'm at a loss and would greatly appreciate any advice on how to get this sorted out!
2 Answers
I get the confusion with the drives! After activating BitLocker on the 256GB SSD, are you sure it wasn't set to encrypt the drive in a way that might mess with the cloning? It might be worth disabling BitLocker on the original drive first. Another thing you can try is to boot from the installation USB again and see if you can access recovery options. If the SSD isn’t showing up in Disk Part, perhaps rechecking the connection or SATA/NVMe configurations in BIOS could help.
It sounds like quite the situation! Just to clarify, could you confirm which drive had BitLocker enabled? Also, maybe you should double-check the BIOS settings after cloning. Sometimes the boot order or legacy settings can get messed up. I'd recommend making sure that the new 1TB SSD is set as the primary boot option. If that doesn’t work, you might want to look into creating a bootable USB again and check if the drive shows up using different USB ports on the laptop.
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