Legoman Posted June 14, 2023 #1 Posted June 14, 2023 I have a perfectly working reliable computer with an old HDD as the system boot disk I would like to upgrade to be an SSD instead for speed/noise/reliability reasons. I have the SSD (4x larger capacity than HDD to be replaced). What would be the recommended software to identically mirror the contents of the old HDD to the new SSD so that a straight swap might be possible with no configuration changes or software reinstallation required?
Andr-Tech uk666 Posted June 15, 2023 Andr-Tech #2 Posted June 15, 2023 All you need is a Cloning Software. While there are many out there, here we will use Macrium Reflect 7 Free. First be sure to find an SSD that fits your computer. Inspect your computer's specifications and determine whether your motherboard requires an M.2 drive, a U.2 drive, a 2.5in SATA, or an SSD add-in-card. Before cloning your hard drive, you may want to make sure it is on the most up-to-date OS. This might be a good time to run a malware scan as well, ensuring you are cloning a healthy and clean drive. Also be sure to disconnect any other external devices, such as USB drives or external displays. Download and install Macrium Reflect Free. The current version is Macrium Reflect 8. Head to the software's website to download the latest version. It's entirely free and safe. Follow the installation wizard's instructions to complete the process. Hidden Content Give reaction to this post to see the hidden content. If requested to enter an e-mail for registration, you may skip those fields and still install the complete product. Close all windows on your computer. Before launching Macrium Reflect, be sure to close all windows on your computer first. Open Macrium Reflect 8 Free. If prompted to enter a license key or personal info, you can simply click "Next" to skip this step. Open Macrium Reflect. Click on the Backup tab in the left pane. Click on the Create a backup tab in the right side. Click the Clone this disk option. Under the “Destination” section, click the Select a disk to clone to option. Select the destination (new) drive. Click the Next button. Click the Next button again to skip the schedule option. Click the Finish button. Click the OK button. Click the Continue button. Click the Close button. After you complete the steps, Macrium Reflect will proceed to clone the data (bit-by-bit) from the source to the destination drive. Care should be taken when performing the clone to ensure that the correct destination disk has been selected. Once the process is complete, disconnect the old HDD Drive and put it in a safe location, this is your backup and boot-in-to the new SSD. 4 1
Legoman Posted June 22, 2023 Author #3 Posted June 22, 2023 Thank you. Solved in the end with AOMEI Backupper v7.2.3 which worked brilliantly and was super easy to get installed and patched/registered. The only thing I couldn't figure out how to do (and I suppose is not possible, since it wouldn't technically be a clone) is that when unable to find an SSD with exactly the same size as the source HDD, the cloning process produces a partition on the new drive as a clone of the original HDD. Whilst not a problem as such, I did wonder if the capability would be included to clone the data, but copy it across to a single partition using the destination drive full disk capacity, rather than have separate partitions? I couldn't see that this option was possible with the software I found. As I said, not really a big deal or a problem, just would have been nice is all. In my case, the source HDD was only 40GB and obviously you can't even buy an SSD these days of such small capacity. The smallest I could find anywhere was 120GB and even that was more expensive than the 128GB one I eventually bought!
Andr-Tech uk666 Posted June 22, 2023 Andr-Tech #4 Posted June 22, 2023 When you upgrade to a larger hard disk drive (HDD) or solid-state drive (SSD) by cloning the old drive, you may find the size of the partition on the destination disk remains unchanged. In other words, the cloned drive not showing full capacity. This is because when you clone a hard drive, you also cloned the partition size besides the data. When the cloned drive is larger than the original drive, most of the cloning programs, if not all, will leave the extra space on the cloned hard drive as unallocated space. And then you will meet the issue that HDD/SSD shows wrong capacity. In Windows File Explorer, you cannot see the unallocated space. That is why some users say they have lost disk space after cloning hard drive. You can open Disk Management to see if there is unallocated space on your cloned hard drive. There are two workaround solutions to fix the HDD/SSD shows wrong capacity. As you have finished cloning the hard drive, you can go to Disk Management to handle unallocated space after cloning. You can add the unallocated space on the cloned hard drive to the contiguous partition with Disk Management or DiskPart.exe. Follow the steps below to expand partitions after cloning in Windows 11/10/8/7 using Disk Management. 1. Press Windows + R key to open the Run window. Type “diskmgmt.msc” and press Enter to open Disk Management in Windows 11/10/8/7. 2. In Disk Management, right-click on the partition before the unallocated space, and select Extend Volume. 3. Follow the Extend Volume Wizard to add unallocated space to this partition. You can neither use the unallocated space to extend the adjacent partition nor create a new partition. 2 1
Legoman Posted June 24, 2023 Author #5 Posted June 24, 2023 Ahh brilliant! Thanks for explaining that. In the meantime I just created a new partition out of the unallocated space as another drive, but Ideally I'd prefer to extend the existing cloned system parition, so I'll empty this new partition, then remove it and then reallocate again this time as an extended volume instead of a new one. Cheers
Legoman Posted July 2, 2023 Author #7 Posted July 2, 2023 Hmmm, this is weird. Followed the instructions but using the Extended Volume Wizard doesn't work. At least not in the way I expected. Deleting the partition on the same physical disk that the cloned system drive sits on does as expected, it creates a whole lot of unallocated space on the disk. Next, if I do as step 2. says above: 2. In Disk Management, right-click on the partition before the unallocated space, and select Extend Volume. Well I can't do that because the option Extend Volume simply isn't there. I can only choose from Open | Explore | Change Drive Letter and Paths… | Properties | Help Selecting the unallocated space to become an extended partition just seems to colour it with a green border in Disk Management, but does nothing to append it to the Primary system partition. If I then select it to become a Logical Drive (the only option available), then it is formatted and again becomes a separate partition all its own not appended to the primary partition. It rather seems this Extended Partition caper does not work.
Legoman Posted July 2, 2023 Author #8 Posted July 2, 2023 Edit: Solved! After doing some reading Hidden Content Give reaction to this post to see the hidden content. I found out that Microsoft Disk Management is really quite crap and useless (according to Microsoft employees themselves) and not to be used because it can't do anything beyond the very basics. So then I read Hidden Content Give reaction to this post to see the hidden content. about how to do what I want to do with AOMEI Partition Assistant (which is the new name of the old diskpart command line utiltiy) and then I downloaded the software from here, installed it which worked perfectly and it did exactly what I wanted in one simple step with no dramas at all. Brilliant.
SuperModerator BamSec1 Posted July 2, 2023 SuperModerator #9 Posted July 2, 2023 In the past I said I wouldn't comment anymore, but here I still will... Aomei Partition Assistant, as well as EaseUS Partition Master, software can extend and shrink HDs and partitions. However, I want to prove it is still working today as described by uk666. I managed to do so a few years ago when I upgraded from a 512GB to a 1TB SSD HD system disk. There's no need for me for a bigger system disk because 90+% of the software I use are portable applications installed on my 16TB D:\ drive. Maybe that some of the Micro$h*t freelance helpers have different versions of Win11 installed, and what works for one, maybe doesn't for another one. Not sure of this, but another possibility for working or not with the MS Disk Management, is the brand of the HD and/or its fabrication year? Proof it still works on my Win7 PC: But it doesn't work on my Win11 lappy with a 1TB system HD and 2 external 10TB HDs unless I use one of the two programs mentioned above. 1 1
Legoman Posted July 4, 2023 Author #10 Posted July 4, 2023 Yeah I was trying to accomplish this on an old XP machine I'm upgrading for use as an emergency spare and in that the Disk Management XP version software definitely doesn't have this capability. Interestingly enough however, the very latest version of AOMEI Partition Assistant does fully work and is supported in 32bit XP and works perfectly and very easily.
Recommended Posts