Solved Upgrade to larger size m.2 NVMe ssd

Is it possible to upgrade to a larger size nvme ssd without cloning.
If so please explain.
I created a windows 11 USB installation drive, and installed the new drive, but it doesn't work.
It goes to a Windows installation process, but it says it can't find drivers or drive, something, I don't know, after I have selected the USB drive.

You probably need to add the Intel NVME IRST driver. You can do that at page where you selext where to install OS. There is a link to add drivers.

Apparentntly some lenovo owners do this:

1.disable INTEL VMD in BIOS ! :)

2.SecureBoot = OFF

Click to expand...

or get the drivers






Looks like 19.5.x works for all

Restoring an image is different from cloning and is an additional option when moving to a larger drive.

fenpeppertree said:

It goes to a Windows installation process, but it says it can't find drivers or drive, something

Click to expand...

In clean install tutorial step 11
If RAID is enabled in UEFI/BIOS, Windows Setup may not see any drive(s) available to select to install on.
In this situation, you could either disable RAID in BIOS/UEFI or select to "Add driver" to install the RAID driver from your OEM/motherboard manufacturer's chipset.

Clean Install Windows 11 Tutorial

This tutorial will show you step by step on how to clean install Windows 11 at boot on your PC with or without an Internet connection and setup with a local account or Microsoft account. Windows 11 has all the power and security of Windows 10 with a redesigned and refreshed look. It also comes...

www.elevenforum.com

It would help if we'd know which Lenovo model this is.

If this indeed is a Intel IRST-driver issue then you can do the following.

1. You need a second Windows computer
2. Grab any or latest IRST driver from either the manufacturer site or directly from Intel
3. Open up Windows Command prompt or PowerShell
4. Navigate to the folder where you have saved the driver installer package
5. Run the following command: 6. Copy the files in the folder to either the Windows setup USB stick or to another stick
7. Start the Windows setup on your laptop
8. When it can't find the disk, load the drivers you just extracted
9. Now setup should find the drive and you can carry on normally.

You can also extract all drivers from your working system with this command:
Powershell Command Prompt:
or

Hope this helps.

SlicEnDicE said:

If this indeed is a Intel IRST-driver issue then you can do the following.

1. You need a second Windows computer
2. Grab any or latest IRST driver from either the manufacturer site or directly from Intel
3. Open up Windows Command prompt or PowerShell
4. Navigate to the folder where you have saved the driver installer package
5. Run the following command:

Code:

 ./SetupRST.exe -extractdrivers SetupRST_extracted

6. Copy the files in the folder to either the Windows setup USB stick or to another stick
7. Start the Windows setup on your laptop
8. When it can't find the disk, load the drivers you just extracted
9. Now setup should find the drive and you can carry on normally.

You can also extract all drivers from your working system with this command:
Powershell

Code:

Export-WindowsDriver -Online -Destination "C:\DriverBackup"

Command Prompt:

Code:

dism /online /export-driver /destination:"C:\DriverBackup"

or

Code:

pnputil /export-driver * "C:\DriverBackup"

Hope this helps.

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or just go to Intel driver site, download driver and copy to usb installation drive and select it at installation menu?

No need to make a simple solution complicated?

cereberus said:

or just go to Intel driver site, download driver and copy to usb installation drive and select it at installation menu?

No need to make a simple solution complicated?

Click to expand...

Doesn't work...they have the driver packed into an installation package.

cereberus said:

No need to make a simple solution complicated?

Click to expand...

SlicEnDicE said:

Doesn't work...they have the driver packed into an installation package.

Click to expand...

My 2 cents which you may not feel is of any value.
You're both right. @cereberus It should not be this difficult, but it seems Intel is making it so. @SlicEnDicE When I downloaded the IRST setup file directly from Intel, the extraction method did not work for me either although what cereberus posted is exactly what is in the readme.txt file section 6.3 Pre-Installation of INTEL(R) RST driver using the "Load Driver" Method. (on the driver download page)

I can't speak for Lenovo, but with my OEM (Dell) I can download the IRST package from my support page, unzip it with 7zip. Inside the folder is a sub folder named F6. Those are the drivers one needs to point to during the windows install at the "Load Driver" stage.

@fenpeppertree
Regarding a clean install, If one does not use raid nor optane, changing disk mode to AHCI in bios before starting a clean install is by far the easier method.

Regarding restoring an image
Since someone mentioned restoring an image rather than cloning (this is my preferred method when changing drives) it is important to point out that if raid is enabled, a user will run into the same scenario of his drive not being seen until these same drivers are either manually inserted during the image restore process OR inserted into his recovery media. Therefore one must be sure that whatever imaging app one is using allows the insertion of such drivers using either of these methods.

There's a solution to this, too....If you do not use optane, Disable raid and enable AHCI BEFORE you image the old drive to eliminate the need of inserting any drivers at all. I just did it on 3 of my PCs. See post #65 in this thread on how to do it (no need to read the entire long thread)

It's a shame OEMs are now enabling IRST by default making it so difficult for novices.. It's hard enough for seasoned computer enthusiasiasts to figure it out.

SlicEnDicE said:

Doesn't work...they have the driver packed into an installation package.

Click to expand...

Then just temporarily install it on another pc, and copy the .inf file from driverstore to usb drive.

I recommend making image backup first, then restoring image after copying drive.

Attached are the iRST AHCI files. Unzip the folder and place it on a USB drive (it can be the same as the Win11 installation drive) and then load during installation.

Everything could be easier if I had an M.2 NVMe to USB C Docking Station, but I don't. So could someone please tell me step by step, if it is possible, how to do this?

I have images to show the process and what goes wrong, but it says they are too large (4.19 mb).

The laptop is a Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5, Intel Core i3, 4gb RAM, and 128gb m.2 nvme SSD.

I am trying to upgrade to a 1T Samsung 990 Pro with Heatsink, PCIe Gen 4.

cereberus said:

Then just temporarily install it on another pc, and copy the .inf file from driverstore to usb drive.

Click to expand...

And that is less complicated? Come on...

I just (1 week ago) installed Windows 11 clean. Before that I saved all the drivers from my working instance of Windows 11 Canary using the described method above.

Added the drivers to my setup media and once the full wipe and setup was done, all drivers were up to date. Easy and painless.

The Laptop came with Win 10. Is it hardware compatible with Win 11?

I suggest you build the USB Win 11 23h2 installation drive using MCT

Unzip the IRST folder and place it on a USB Win11 installation drive.
Boot from the USB Win11 installation drive and proceed till it ask where do you want to install Windoes.
On the bottom left of the window there is a "Load Driver". Click with the mouse and browse to the IRST folder on a USB Win11 installation drive.
Now you should see the 980 NVMe. Delete all partitions on the Drive 0 until Drive 0 shows only as one Unallocated Space, select the unallocated space, and click/tap on Next.

If you want to use a local account What is "oobe\bypassnro"

I am not extremely tech savvy.

I have the USB windows 11 and a new nvme SSD.

How do I get windows 11 installed on the new SSD? If that is what I need to do to get to a desktop.

I have included these images:

SlicEnDicE said:

And that is less complicated? Come on...

Click to expand...

No messing with powershell etc.

fenpeppertree said:

I am not extremely tech savvy.

I have the USB windows 11 and a new nvme SSD.

How do I get windows 11 installed on the new SSD? If that is what I need to do to get to a desktop.

Click to expand...

I gave you the instructions on my post above and the link to the Win 11 installation tutorial.

Some Lenovo computers may have VMD problems.




One or more of these videos may be useful on IRST and VMD:

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