Cloning a HDD onto a new ssd

[audi321]

Hi all just bought my son an ssd to upgrade his pc but how do I clone the old drive so it can be removed?

I see there’s some paid options but does anyone know of a free way? He’s on windows 10 (cheap pc so not high spec).

Thanks for any advice.

[xeny]

If either the existing HD or the SSD are from WD, Seagate etc, any of the significant brands, check their web sites, you will likely be able to download a cloning tool that will do the job.

[Mr Pointy]

Although Macrium is no longer free to use long term the free trial should get the job done:

https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree

[audi321]

Thanks guys. No it’s not a big brand just a cheapo one from Amazon (budget driven I’m afraid)

[xeny]

What is the brand of the HD already in the PC?

[audi321]

Samsung I think. I’m just running the Macrium software now so I’ll report back in 30 mins if it worked.

[audi321]

Well I thought it worked. But upon booting up and after it displaying the normal windows logo, I get an inaccessible boot device blue screen.

Any ideas?

[Funk]

Did you make sure to clone the whole disk (and not just a single partition)?

[audi321]

I think so yes. But I’m going to run it again just to make sure

[S6PNJ]

I can't offer any assistance with your problem, but:

Mr Pointy said:

Although Macrium is no longer free to use long term the free trial should get the job done:

https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree

You can download older versions of the software here: http://www.oldversion.com/windows/macrium-reflect/ I don't know which version stopped being 'free', so a websearch or a trial/error approach might also work.

Other software titles available there also but clearly as you won't be downloading from the vendors site, do whatever checks you need to in order to make sure it is genuine etc etc.

[SpamDisco]

You can back up and restore to a new drive from windows, does require usb stick:

Backup
https://youtu.be/jRs24C60q6g?si=XxeFFVHGIo2xHnv9

Restore
https://youtu.be/CAdBBfEfOT8?si=nM0RQKcTjAfYhXfV

[audi321]

SpamDisco said:

You can back up and restore to a new drive from windows, does require usb stick:

Backup
https://youtu.be/jRs24C60q6g?si=XxeFFVHGIo2xHnv9

Restore
https://youtu.be/CAdBBfEfOT8?si=nM0RQKcTjAfYhXfV

Hmm I don’t have a 500gb usb stick unfortunately

Eta - although I’ve just seen how cheap usb sticks are these days! 1tb for £18 from Amazon!!! OMG I had no idea things were that cheap now.

Edited by audi321 on Monday 26th February 13:12

[Silverbullet767]

Acronis true image. 30 day free trial.

https://www.acronis.com/en-gb/homecomputing/thanks...

[Funk]

audi321 said:

Eta - although I’ve just seen how cheap usb sticks are these days! 1tb for £18 from Amazon!!! OMG I had no idea things were that cheap now.

Be really careful buying memory sticks (and SSDs unfortunately!), there are stloads of fakes and clones around not to mention devices that promise large capacities but turn out to be smaller capacity sticks that lie about their reported capacity. There's a reason one from Integral is £45 for 1Tb.



Buy branded names (Sandisk, Integral, Kingston, Lexar, PNY for example) and stick to ones sold by/dispatched from Amazon.

Edit: what was the SSD you bought?

Edited by Funk on Monday 26th February 13:23

[dundarach]

i've used https://clonezilla.org/ Clonezilla a few times with 'sort of' success.

To be honest, if you can, do a clean install on the SSD and add the old drive as a slave to copy everything off. Cloning does work, in reality I find it not worth all the hassle as a nice clean install is much better.

[Mr Pointy]

audi321 said:

Well I thought it worked. But upon booting up and after it displaying the normal windows logo, I get an inaccessible boot device blue screen.

Any ideas?

This can happen & there's a Knowledegebase article here:

https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW80/F...

You'll need to put the HHD back in & use Macrium to create a Windows PE Rescue CD or bootable USB key:
https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW80/R...

Once you have that put the SSD back in, insert the Rescue disk/key & reboot the PC. You can then follow the instructions in the first article.

[Greenmantle]

Just done this with 2 NVME M2s (increasing in size from 128GB to 512GB - Windows 11 OS disk)
DiskGenius is what you need free and was able to clone the boot disk perfectly.
NB - the new disk isnt bitlockered so will have to add that in afterwards

[SpamDisco]

audi321 said:

Hmm I don’t have a 500gb usb stick unfortunately

Eta - although I’ve just seen how cheap usb sticks are these days! 1tb for £18 from Amazon!!! OMG I had no idea things were that cheap now.

Edited by audi321 on Monday 26th February 13:12

The drive should only need to be a bit bigger than the size of the data backed up, not the original drive size, it's worth having a back up if you have 500gb of important data. Stick to known brands as others mentioned.

[audi321]

I think it’s worked the second time round with Macrium.

I wish I knew what I did to fix it but I ticked a few different boxes and it took double the time but fingers crossed all is good now.

Thanks again for all your advice

[Timothy Bucktu]

Bitlocker can cause issues. It's usually best to disable it before doing any cloning.
Glad you got it sorted though.
Macrium is definitely the best tool for the job.