Cloning Windows 10 hard drive to SSD

[MustISO]

Have a windows 10 laptop with a mechanical drive. Drive in the laptop is GPT an has 7 partitions (OEM Dell stuff). There's only about 40GB used on the laptop drive at this time.

When I tried to clone with Macrium it copies the first 5 partitions but not the last two. It gives an error insufficient space even though there's plenty on the destination. One was the PBR partition which is probably just recovery images. Don't recall what the other one was, some OEM partition.

The clone appears to have worked fine, I was just curious why the last two partitions weren't copied and if there are any long term affects to not having them.

Might try another cloning program just out of curiosity.

 

[Ketchup]

Todo Backup is free and works well for me.

You can also download the latest trial version of Acronis. Even though it is just a trial, it lets you burn the program to a bootable CD and you can run it outside of Windows.

 

[JimKiler]

Have a windows 10 laptop with a mechanical drive. Drive in the laptop is GPT an has 7 partitions (OEM Dell stuff). There's only about 40GB used on the laptop drive at this time.

When I tried to clone with Macrium it copies the first 5 partitions but not the last two. It gives an error insufficient space even though there's plenty on the destination. One was the PBR partition which is probably just recovery images. Don't recall what the other one was, some OEM partition.

The clone appears to have worked fine, I was just curious why the last two partitions weren't copied and if there are any long term affects to not having them.

Might try another cloning program just out of curiosity.

7 partitions? That is a lot!!! Any idea what they are for? if you did not see any files on them i would not worry about them.

 

[vailr]

Aomei Partition Assistant is also free and works well for that purpose:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/aomei_partition_assistant.html

 

[MustISO]

7 partitions? That is a lot!!! Any idea what they are for? if you did not see any files on them i would not worry about them.

Sorry it was 6:

1. EFI
2. OEM
3. Recovery (750MB)
4. Recovery (450MB)
5. Recovery (8GB factory image drive)
6. Primary boot volume

 

[MustISO]

Todo Backup is free and works well for me.

You can also download the latest trial version of Acronis. Even though it is just a trial, it lets you burn the program to a bootable CD and you can run it outside of Windows.

I do have Acronis 14 so I may try that as well, also install Todo so I can try that. The last clone I did was a Win8.1 system and it was 3 partitions and the clone went as expected.

 

[tcsenter]

I couldn't get Macrium to resize partitions on a new Lenovo when cloning to SSD. The SSD was slightly smaller 480GB v. 500GB but I expected since only 40GB of the 500GB HDD was used, it would adjust the partitions using free space area. Nope, always gave insufficient drive space when copying the last partition. I even tried to manually edit the partition sizes, shrink the main OS partition (largest) but no deal.

 

[MustISO]

In my case Macrium worked fine for the largest partition when I selected to only copy blocks in use. The source was 500GB the destination was 240GB.

 

[razel]

I get your misery. Laptop partitions are the most challenging to clone. The Dell desktop/laptops from mid 2000's and Acer laptops from 2009-11 era were the most troublesome. Good news these days is cloning and partition utilities are basically free.

As long as you keep your original HDD intact, then I wouldn't worry about it. Those 5. and 6. partitions you mentioned. 5 is recovery, while 6 is the your boot. When you cloned it, the software probably made adjustments to boot off another partition... or you are booting off the EFI partition.

For future reference, check if your SSD manufacturer offers cloning software. Most do. If not Paragon has always been the best with troublesome HDDs for cloning. Unfortunately they are not free, but they do offer previous versions of their cloning software at least once a year.

 

[tcsenter]

In my case Macrium worked fine for the largest partition when I selected to only copy blocks in use. The source was 500GB the destination was 240GB.

So you did in fact get it to work or resize partitions?

 

[larryccf]

I do have Acronis 14 so I may try that as well, also install Todo so I can try that. The last clone I did was a Win8.1 system and it was 3 partitions and the clone went as expected.

EaseUS ToDo is Win 10 compatible - with EaseUS ToDo, be sure to select "sector by sector" on the page where you select the target drive

when i forget to select that, the clone SSD will not boot unless i install the windows dvd and select "repair installation"

and since you're going from a HDD to SSD, select "optimize for SSD"

 

[corkyg]

This is why I use Acronis TI (now 2016) and do it with Acronis Rescue Media (bootable.) When cloning (never from within the OS!) the bootable media transcends all OS's and partitions. It gives you three format choices - As Is; Proportional; or set your own LBA. It never fails. My laptop is all SSD, and I have two separate drives - one Win 7 and the other Win 10. Then each of those has a cloned copy on two more SSDs.

The key to good cloning is always do it with bootable media (uses a forum of Linux and it makes no difference at all what OS is on the drive being cloned - same for partitions.

 

[larryccf]

i'm not computer literate enough to discuss this too intelligently but as a user, acronis screwed me on previous releases with corrupted backups and clone copies - each time my system took 12+ hours to fully re-build.

EaseUS, since 2008, has never failed me - i clone weekly, and have maybe had to clone a copy back to the OS drive once or twice a year, for odd glitches - recent one, after a Nvidia driver update, i lost all sound and reversing drivers etc did not correct. As a clone takes me 28-35 minutes, it's easier to simply clone back. Oddly, i un-installed the Nvidia driver altogehter, and on re-boot it re-installed itself automatically and i had sound.

but back to point, one item i've never understood, EaseUS will occasionally reboot into linux to perform the clone - but there's no selection available to do that manually. It does offer a bootable disk where i could then manually clone in linux though.

 

[corkyg]

Been cloning with Acronis for over 12 years - never a problem because I follow these rules:

1. Always use bootable rescue media. OS Independent.
2. Always choose MANUAL, not auto. You control target and source.
3. Depending on desired outcome and drive size differences, go with Proportional.
4. Set system to turn off when done.
5. Change drives before restart (disconnect source drive.)

Acronis software need not be installed when using bootable rescue media. This is huge!

 

[MustISO]

So you did in fact get it to work or resize partitions?

Yes it did work and the partitions were resized. This was simply for a test I was doing.

I ended up suggesting getting a larger SSD and going back to Windows 8.1 rather than 10 since they were having so many issues. It's working great but didn't actually need to clone since I just used the recovery media.

 

[larryccf]

Been cloning with Acronis for over 12 years - never a problem because I follow these rules:

1. Always use bootable rescue media. OS Independent.
2. Always choose MANUAL, not auto. You control target and source.
3. Depending on desired outcome and drive size differences, go with Proportional.
4. Set system to turn off when done.
5. Change drives before restart (disconnect source drive.)

Acronis software need not be installed when using bootable rescue media. This is huge!

1. Always use bootable rescue media. OS Independent. That never occurred to me but does make sense. EaseUS offers the same bootable rescure media capability

2. Always choose MANUAL, not auto. You control target and source. By that parameter, EaseUS only offers manual.

3. Depending on desired outcome and drive size differences, go with Proportional. No option in EaseUS - always a 1:1 copy but i'm working with the freeware version (always have).

4. Set system to turn off when done. Can i ask the benefit/purpose of that?

5. Change drives before restart (disconnect source drive.) I used to do that to ensure the clone copy is good - my SSDs are all internal. But since i installed a PCIe M.2 SSD, it's more time consuming. Is there another reason other than the one i just described?

Acronis software need not be installed when using bootable rescue media. While i haven't tried it, i'm pretty sure it's the same with the EaseUS bootable disk as it loads & opens in Linux.

Besides the bad experiences i had with acronis with earlier releases, EaseUS has always given me the fastest clone time - when my clone SSD was external w/USB 3.0, 177 GB took approx 1.5 hours. Since i installed an SSD internally with a SATA TO SATA path, 25 - 38 minutes for complete clone. Back the last time i tried Acronis, it wanted 3+ hours going to the external SSD.

 

[corkyg]

4. Set system to turn off when done. Can i ask the benefit/purpose of that?

I'm referring to, the cloning of OS drives - trying to boot to two drives at the same time is problematic.

Average clone time with TI-2012-2016 is no more than 10 minutes. A lot of that depends on the connection . That is the number for internal via SATA 2 to SATA 2.

 

[Crunos]

Aomei Partition Assistant is also free and works well for that purpose:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/aomei_partition_assistant.html

I also tried this software with perfect results