About to clone SSD to SSD and HDD to SSD few questions.

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amd7674

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Background:
Few months ago I’ve picked up a cheap 120gb M500 SSD drive to upgrade my trusty 64gb M4 SSD on my main rig (win7 64bit).
Instead of big hoopla of fresh install, I would prefer to clone it to the bigger SSD drive. Later I want to upgrade my HTPC HDD 80gb IDE HDD to 64gb M4 SSD.
The HTPC (win7 32bit) supports AHCI so I should have no issue with an upgrade.

I got some tips form my friend how to do it, I just want to run it by [H] to make sure I don’t screw up something. He recommended to use DiscWizard free software and use disk instead of partition cloning option.

Questions:
I believe SSD to SSD full disk cloning to should be straight forward, after all it should take would be to disconnect smaller SSD and point BIOS to boot from new SSD.
Is this correct?

For HDD to SSD, I should remove as much junk as I can from HDD. (to make sure it is less than 64gb).

Is it recommended to defrag HDD before performing disk cloning? Do I have to worry about page file enabled on current HDD install?

Will win7 32bit adjust itself after first boot from SSD?

Any comments/tips would be much appreciated.

Thx.
 
I have moved SSD-SSD, HDD-SSD, SSD-HDD and I found the easest method with free software is to use Ease US Todo Backup to make a back up and has options if you are restoring it to a SSD for proper alignment. Done this several times without any problems.
 
Last edited:
Nexillus said:
I have moved SSD-SSD, HDD-SSD, SSD-HDD and I found the easest method with free software is to use Ease US Todo Backup to make a back up and has options if you are restoring it to a SSD for proper alignment. Dont this several times without any problems.
Click to expand...

Thank you for your reply... Ease US todo Backup looks very friendly :)

Can I just use its simple clone option? or is it safer to do backup first?
Sorry for asking stupid questions but should I be using sector by sector cloning option?
Also I assume "optimze for SSD" should checked for SSD to SSD and HDD to SSD, is this correct?
 
Having a friend clone my SSD to a new SSD today, I'm pretty sure he's using a Acronis. Should just have to point the bios to the right drive like you've stated. After that you'll probably have to expand the OS drive to use the extra space gained by the new drive.
 
I have used Macrium free for cloning with fine results.

Resizing partitions on larger drives are done in control panel/Administrative tools/Computer management/Storage/Disk Management. Right click partition to expand or shrink.

my 2 cents
 
I used to use EaseUS Todo Backup Free until it didn't work for me with a Dell drive. I've been using MiniTool Partition Wizard Free and it works. The computer I'm on now was cloned from a different SSD to this one.
 
thanks guys... I will try to find few hours this week to do this....
 
If the size of the HDD or SSD is smaller than the orginal the cloneing should work no problem, then you just need to re-do the partition table re-expanding the drives space to usable space. If you are moving from a larger drive to smaller drive is where a backup is needed instead of a clone. Have had several problems with trying to clone large to small.
 
Nexillus said:
If the size of the HDD or SSD is smaller than the orginal the cloneing should work no problem, then you just need to re-do the partition table re-expanding the drives space to usable space. If you are moving from a larger drive to smaller drive is where a backup is needed instead of a clone. Have had several problems with trying to clone large to small.
Click to expand...

Use MiniTool Partition Wizard instead of EaseUS Todo Backup. I moved my 256GB SSD to a 120GB without any problems (assuming enough free space).
 
kirbyrj said:
Use MiniTool Partition Wizard instead of EaseUS Todo Backup. I moved my 256GB SSD to a 120GB without any problems (assuming enough free space).
Click to expand...

I will have to look into this next time I'm doing a migration. Thanks! :)
 
thank you Guys 1 of 2 DONE !!!! :D

DiscWizard wouldn't even install because I do not have maxtor/seagate/samsung drive on my system.
So I went with EaseUS Todo Backup (disk clone with ssd optimized option enabled). It went very smooth and super fast. The only thing I had to do was point to new SSD in the BIOS.

Now I will try to do 80gb IDE HDD to 64gb SSD on my HTPC box (win7 win32). Will EaseUS Todo Work or should I go with MIniTool Partition Wizard as per Nexilus recommendation? My only issue is source HDD being bigger then source SSD drive.

Please advise...

Thanks..;)
 
What software do you try? Good softwre will help you a lot.

Will win7 32bit adjust itself after first boot from SSD? 64bit is better.

Besides cloning(if you insist, I recommend you try aomei backupper, tutorials you can visit its website), you can also Google "Migrate os to ssd/hdd" I think this will help you a lot.
 
Partition Wizard is simple:

1. Select Disk you want to copy
2. Press "Copy Disk"
3. Select destination disk
4. Select options (Fit partition to entire disk and Force align to 1mb)
5. Press apply

It will run through the process (rebooting if you're copying the OS drive) and then you'll have a bootable copy on the new disk. I used it to go from 256 to 120GB in size, so it will resize the partition to fit.
 
2 of 2 succesful :D

I used EaseUS Todo Backup. Jahara thanks for the link, I will read it tonight to make sure I haven't missed anything...
 
EaseUS Todo Backup is a nice little too for HDD/SDD migration back and forth. I keep a copy on my handy flashdrive :)

Glad it all worked out and I would double check the alignment on the SSD always important to do.
 
Nexillus said:
EaseUS Todo Backup is a nice little too for HDD/SDD migration back and forth. I keep a copy on my handy flashdrive :)

Glad it all worked out and I would double check the alignment on the SSD always important to do.
Click to expand...

Thanks I just double checked alignment on both systems and it all good ;)

My only gripe if any.... enabled AHCI in BIOS on my older hw based HTPC c2d e2180 causes looooooonggg delay during boot up. I believe AHCI is doing some drive searching, I wish I could speed it up.

Thanks again for all your help guys... :D
 
Nexillus said:
If the size of the HDD or SSD is smaller than the orginal the cloneing should work no problem, then you just need to re-do the partition table re-expanding the drives space to usable space. If you are moving from a larger drive to smaller drive is where a backup is needed instead of a clone. Have had several problems with trying to clone large to small.
Click to expand...

Paragon Migrate OS to SSD will do large to small with no issues, allowing you to deselect files and folders in the program prior to cloning to make sure it will fit.
it's $20 though and I've used it plenty of times so far.

There is another program that works too, http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx
I used this one since I needed to image the 2 laptop drives to the pc, one was a 640gig with my HP laptop loaded on it and a 160gb with my friends laptop. the 640 was his so I had to image both drives to my PC and then restore his image to his 640gb drive and mine to the 160.

I have Acronis but it has issues cloning to a smaller drive and wouldn't restore the 640gb image to the 160gb drive even though the image was only 40gb.
 
I haven't used Paragons migration tool but I have used there backup tool and for some reason on one of my computers the drive for the paragon backup was casuing a driver conflict on startup and put it into a reboot cycle, had to uninstall the program and the computer worked fine. I will take a look at the paragon migration tool and the macrium, I always like having extra tools. Never know what you may need!!! :D
 
I just did larger 80gb IDE HDD to 64gb SSD using EaseUS Todo Backup without any issues. As per reommendation I double checked the alignement on SSD after to make sure everything went well.
 
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