I just swapped out the SSD in my Dell Inspiron 3910 with a WD Blue SN5000 2TB. I am running Windows 11 Home. I used EaseUS Partition manager to clone the drive. After installation, the boot process frequently takes up to 9 minutes to complete. There are also frequent BSODs at boot time. Typically, the initial login screen will show quickly but the time for everything to load will be extremely long. The loading appears to “hang” at several separate times before everything finally gets loaded. I ran SFC and DISM and neither found any errors. I also logged in as another local user to eliminate any problem with a user profile. I also disabled\enabled Fastload in the Power options. With the old OEM SSD, the boot and load typically took about a minute and a half. With the new SSD it now takes upwards of 9 minutes.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
You would be advantaged with a clean install of Windows. The WD5000 is a send gen NVMe SSD from WD which makes it a mediocre mid range choice.
Check your SSD’s health with CrystalDiskInfo. Update your BIOS and drivers. Ensure the cloning process is correct and partitions are aligned. Set the SSD as the primary boot device in BIOS. Disable unnecessary startup programs in Task Manager. Use Windows installation media for a startup repair. Check Event Viewer for errors. Try booting in Safe Mode to isolate issues. If problems persist, analyze BSOD memory dumps with WinDbg. As said by @Vegan, the last resort is to perform a clean Windows 11 installation on the new SSD.
A clean install is a LAST resort. Too many apps to reinstall and setup. BTW, WD Blue has SATA and NVMe. Mine is an internal NVMe
Thanks for all the good advice. The real issue occurs during the loading process. Event viewer is loaded with errors, but none seem to be obvious. There are no “critical” errors. I did WIPE the drive and ran the clone process again. The Boot\Load is quicker and there are no more BSODs. However, it is still slower to Boot\Load than with the old drive and there are still occasional hangs.
This leads me to believe that Windows is ok but there are issues with a driver, an application service, or an application. Once it is completely up and everything loaded, there does not appear to be any hangups and the response is great.
Starting in Safe Mode did not encounter any errors or hangs. Diagnostic Mode was not helpful. I disabled ALL startup tasks and still had issues.
My next step, when I have time, will be to try a startup repair. As for now, the startup takes about 4 minutes and there are no BSODs.
Storage is not the problem with boot problems, its something else
This is why I keep a USB stick handy to reinstall Windows when problems surface
I use SN350 in my laptops as they run cool while SN5000 etc tend to be a tad warmer. One dislike of the SN5000 is the below average for endurance. For the most part it is not a problem but gaming can be hard on them with some titles that get updated regularly.
I see there is also a SN5000S bit thanks for posting the CrystalDiskReport screenshot so I can see the exact model.
I spoke too soon. I got to the point where my machine could not boot at all without a BSOD. I swapped in the previous drive and booted without any problems. I decided to go back to square one and start all over.
I discovered two important things. First: the new drive was initialized as MBR and not GPT. I don’t know if that happened during the cloning process or when it occurred. I learned Windows does not play well with an MBR initialized device. Secondly: I needed to ensure the OS on my working device is intact. I ran SFC /Scannow which found corrupt files and was able to fix them.
These are all the steps in order:
- Convert the new device from MBR to GPT
- Wipe the new device
- Ensure the OS is intact using SFC and DISM
- Clone the OS entire disk to the new device
- Verify the new disk is still initialized as GPT
- Swap the devices
- Boot up
- Run SFC again
After this, the machine boots normally every time and there are no longer any hangups.
Thank you @Vegan and @EstherEdward for your help.
cloning in my experience never worked which is why cloud services proliferated
