Can a 512byte win10 system be converted to a 4kn form in order to perform the system migration to a native 4kn SSD? If so, what should I do?

Akula Y 1 Reputation point
2022-11-29T15:50:51.123+00:00

My current computer originally install the win10 system on a 2.5 inch SATA ssd. The physical sector size of this SATA ssd is 512 bytes, and the sector size is also 512 bytes.

Because the capacity of this SATA ssd is not enough (256G), I bought a piece of enterprise class m.2 NVMe SSD retired from the data center from a second-hand dealer at a relatively low price some time ago, the model is Hynix PE6110, the capacity is 1.92t, the size is 22110, and the interface is pcie 3.0*4.

I installed this ssd on my motherboard(c422 chipset). After booting up, this SSD is identified. Then I used the diskgenius software to perform a "system migration", because I wanted to replace my original SATA hard disk and use the newly purchased disk as the system disk. I click Start, and then the software reports an error, saying "The bytes of each sector of the original hard disk and the target hard disk are not equal, so this hard disk cannot be cloned".

I checked and found that the physical sector size of the new hard disk I bought is 4096 bytes, and the sector size is 4096 bytes. After a little inquiry, I learned that this kind of hard disk is called "native 4kn hard disk". And I believe this should be the reason why my system migration failed.

The question I want to ask now is, can I convert the original 512byte system to 4096byte system without reinstalling the system, so as to migrate to my new SSD? If so, what should I do?

Thanks for any suggestions and help

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  1. Ian Xue (Shanghai Wicresoft Co., Ltd.) 29,651 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor
    2022-11-30T08:16:28.48+00:00

    Hi,

    Whether the sector size is 512 or 4096 is determined by the disk, not the operating system. To my knowledge, some disk manufacturers like Seagate and WD provide tools to convert their disks from 512e to 4kn. Is your current SSD 512n or 512e? If it's 512e, you can contact the manufacturer to see if there are such tools. Please also note that the conversion will cause data loss.

    Best Regards,
    Ian Xue

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