MSI Katana A15 AI - Recovery backup

[ricardodiogoalve159e02e0]

So I have installed a new NVME in my laptop, and did a clean install on windows. After this installed the drivers provided in the support page but some features became unavailable.. So I've put the old NVME back in, and selected it in BIOS. Realised this PC has a OEM recovery and these features that stopped working in the fresh windows install, were working with this NVME.

I did a "Reset this PC" but it installed windows on the older and slower NVME..

Is there any way I can clone the entire NVME (the original one with this OEM recovery from MSI) to the new NVME? I've seen a few software's such as EaseUS Disk Copy, but I'm not sure if it will copy the OEM recovery partition too.. Its quite interesting how the drivers provided in the support page are always different than the ones that come from factory

 

[drek4]

So I have installed a new NVME in my laptop, and did a clean install on windows. After this installed the drivers provided in the support page but some features became unavailable.. So I've put the old NVME back in, and selected it in BIOS. Realised this PC has a OEM recovery and these features that stopped working in the fresh windows install, were working with this NVME.

I did a "Reset this PC" but it installed windows on the older and slower NVME..

Is there any way I can clone the entire NVME (the original one with this OEM recovery from MSI) to the new NVME? I've seen a few software's such as EaseUS Disk Copy, but I'm not sure if it will copy the OEM recovery partition too.. Its quite interesting how the drivers provided in the support page are always different than the ones that come from factory

Well it may depend on the brand you have purchased, Samsung uses it's own software Magician on their retail SSDs, in my book they are top notch,
WD, Kingston and Crucial use Acronis for their SSDs, they are also one of the top cloning software, you also have Macrium and EaseUS.

If you don't have a Samsung, I would suggest Acronis, but I know many prefer Macrium or EaseUS, you got also other emerging softwares,
that are a hit or miss, but haven't really researched them so much, using almost always Magician, I used only Acronis on a few occasions,
did the job, but I still prefer Magician, over any other.

 

[drek4]

Its quite interesting how the drivers provided in the support page are always different than the ones that come from factory

Those that are in your laptop are the most recent ones when your laptop was setup, those on the website are the latest that MSI tested.
If your laptop has been released more than a year ago, downloading them directly from the website of the driver, will give you the most recent ones.

 

[Abel Lopez]

So I have installed a new NVME in my laptop, and did a clean install on windows. After this installed the drivers provided in the support page but some features became unavailable.. So I've put the old NVME back in, and selected it in BIOS. Realised this PC has a OEM recovery and these features that stopped working in the fresh windows install, were working with this NVME.

I did a "Reset this PC" but it installed windows on the older and slower NVME..

Is there any way I can clone the entire NVME (the original one with this OEM recovery from MSI) to the new NVME? I've seen a few software's such as EaseUS Disk Copy, but I'm not sure if it will copy the OEM recovery partition too.. Its quite interesting how the drivers provided in the support page are always different than the ones that come from factory

You can create a recovery USB from MSI Center and install the system into the new SSD.
How to create system recovery backup and execute system recovery through MSI Center / Dragon Center / Creator Center / MSI Center Pro?

 

[ricardodiogoalve159e02e0]

Those that are in your laptop are the most recent ones when your laptop was setup, those on the website are the latest that MSI tested.
If your laptop has been released more than a year ago, downloading them directly from the website of the driver, will give you the most recent ones.

This laptop has AMD features that use AI, and sadly without the original drivers these will stop working. There's also the camera situation, where the drivers offered in the website basically take away the NPU functions that have AI built in to create blur and such..
I have always used Intel processors, so never had much issues with drivers. But with AMD seems a bit different somehow.

 

[ricardodiogoalve159e02e0]

You can create a recovery USB from MSI Center and install the system into the new SSD.
How to create system recovery backup and execute system recovery through MSI Center / Dragon Center / Creator Center / MSI Center Pro?

Yes, I have created a USB recovery disk with MSI centre, but somehow keeps installing windows in the drive I don't want. Doesn't even allow me to create different partitions or so.. So today I'll remove the original drive and try to run the recovery USB and see if I manage to put it in the right NVME

 

[ricardodiogoalve159e02e0]

Well it may depend on the brand you have purchased, Samsung uses it's own software Magician on their retail SSDs, in my book they are top notch,
WD, Kingston and Crucial use Acronis for their SSDs, they are also one of the top cloning software, you also have Macrium and EaseUS.

If you don't have a Samsung, I would suggest Acronis, but I know many prefer Macrium or EaseUS, you got also other emerging softwares,
that are a hit or miss, but haven't really researched them so much, using almost always Magician, I used only Acronis on a few occasions,
did the job, but I still prefer Magician, over any other.

I have purchased a MSI one. The one that comes with the laptop its a Micron I believe.. My only problem its that the one that comes with the laptop has max speeds of 4000 or 5000. And the new one I've installed its 7000, so slightly faster. But I've managed to create a USB recovery with msi centre, just need to take old NVME out to install the recovery on the new NVME because I've tried yesterday with the old drive still in and it installed on this old drive instead of the new one (even though new one its in primary slot)

 

[drek4]

I have purchased a MSI one. The one that comes with the laptop its a Micron I believe.. My only problem its that the one that comes with the laptop has max speeds of 4000 or 5000. And the new one I've installed its 7000, so slightly faster. But I've managed to create a USB recovery with msi centre, just need to take old NVME out to install the recovery on the new NVME because I've tried yesterday with the old drive still in and it installed on this old drive instead of the new one (even though new one its in primary slot)

Just clone it with an enclosure, you can use Acronis for example, then remove the Micron and start your laptop with just the MSI one,
then format the Micron in the enclosure with Disk Management, this is what I do when I want to re insert the SSD as a second one,
this ensures no conflicts whatsoever might happen during the initial boot, if only one SSD in place, you are sure they will be no issues,
because once it's formatted and no longer a boot drive it will become the slave drive, so the system will not be confused by two boot drives,
but most of the time I keep them as a backup, or just stick them in an enclosure for a faster external drive, enclosures cost so little these days.

 

[ricardodiogoalve159e02e0]

Just clone it with an enclosure, you can use Acronis for example, then remove the Micron and start your laptop with just the MSI one,
then format the Micron in the enclosure with Disk Management, this is what I do when I want to re insert the SSD as a second one,
this ensures no conflicts whatsoever might happen during the initial boot, if only one SSD in place, you are sure they will be no issues,
because once it's formatted and no longer a boot drive it will become the slave drive, so the system will not be confused by two boot drives,
but most of the time I keep them as a backup, or just stick them in an enclosure for a faster external drive, enclosures cost so little these days.

I ended doing it the hard way.
I created the USB stick with MSI recovery image using their MSI centre, thankfully saved all the necessary drivers for these AI functions to work, and then opened the laptop and removed the original NVME and booted up in recovery mode with the USB in, did a clean install and then after all that jazz, put the original NVME back in and did a format with CMD commands. Somehow, disk management in windows wasn't allowing me to do it.

After all that, now I'm thinking I should have bought 2TB instead (got too many games in my steam account) but thats another problem for another day

 

[drek4]

I ended doing it the hard way.
I created the USB stick with MSI recovery image using their MSI centre, thankfully saved all the necessary drivers for these AI functions to work, and then opened the laptop and removed the original NVME and booted up in recovery mode with the USB in, did a clean install and then after all that jazz, put the original NVME back in and did a format with CMD commands. Somehow, disk management in windows wasn't allowing me to do it.

After all that, now I'm thinking I should have bought 2TB instead (got too many games in my steam account) but thats another problem for another day

128GB = Not even enough for OS and drivers.
250GB = Enough for OS and drivers.
512GB = Barely enough for OS, drivers and main System Apps.
1TB = Enough for OS, drivers, main System Apps and a few games.
2TB = Enough for OS, drivers, main System Apps and Steam account
4TB = Sweet spot! Enough for OS, drivers, main System Apps, Steam account, Ubisoft account and EA account.
8TB = Insane gamer that just won the lotto, with too much time on his hands.