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Moving OS to another drive...Freeware available?

J

jpk

Senior member
I want to move my current OS and program files from my 125gb SSD to a larger mechanical hard drive. Is there some freeware that is available to do the move? My SSD is just too small to handle the load.
 
http://partedmagic.com/doku.php

But why do you want to move everything to a mechanical drive? That will make everything much slower. Ideally, you want to keep the SSD and move only large, rarely-used files to the mechanical drive. (Or get a bigger SSD. 😉)
 
Terabyte's Image for Linux should do the trick also. It's a free trial for 30 days. Burn the ISO into a bootable CD/USB, use that to image the SSD, then restore the image to the mechanical drive.

Remove the SSD to check if the restore worked properly, then you can wipe it if you'd like.
 
125GB is plenty for the OS and programs. Install a secondary mechanical drive for your storage to free up room on the SSD.

A fully packed SSD is still faster than an empty platter driver.

I used norton ghost (not sure what version) that came with my samsung 830 SSD. It came with a small adapter to perform this thru USB but I just hooked the drives direct.
 
If the HDD is a western digital, you can use their WD data lifeguard software to do it. The others all have similar software. I think they're all just special versions of acronis. They are free as long as you have their company's HDD installed.
 
If I keep my OS on my current SSD, how do I transfer programs to another drive? Some programs need to be, at least I think they do, on the same drive as the OS. Some I know don't and allow you to choose where you wish to install their program. In the past when I've done a drag and drop to another drive it sometimes screws the program up. I know there has to be a way I've just never been real software savy.
 
Disk cloning software isn't going to help you separate programs from the OS, it'll just make an exact copy of the SSD on the HDD, which you definitely don't want.

About the only way to cleanly relocate programs is to reinstall the program. Nearly every program of significant size allows you to choose an installation location, you might have to choose "custom" or "advanced" during the install.
 
So to clarify, you have windows and your programs with nothing else and your SSD is full? Do you by chance have a lot of RAM installed like 16, 32, 64 GB? If so the pagefile will steal a ton of space.

I can't fill a 128GB SSD on my laptop with programs, I can however with music / videos.
 
I've decided to leave the SSD/OS where it is and deleted or moved any non essential programs to other drives. Just had program/data creep over the years and stuff has gotten scattered. I need to spend some time consolidating programs and organizing data.
 
May consider even dumping and reinstalling. I know it is a pain, but after abour 2-3 years, its just nice to start fresh.

Apple didn't used to be like that, but now when you do upgrades vs fresh installs, you can feel the difference.
 
jpk said:
I've decided to leave the SSD/OS where it is and deleted or moved any non essential programs to other drives. Just had program/data creep over the years and stuff has gotten scattered. I need to spend some time consolidating programs and organizing data.
Click to expand...

Check out WinDirStat (run as admin). You'd be amazed at what kind of junk you'll find taking up space.
 
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