Clone an OS assistance

wizardofid

wizardofid

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I'm so Goth, my wrists slit themselves
So have never actually done it. Would generally just install new OS and copy over back the files needed. However this time the files that needs to be backed up and such is a little more ingrained in the OS and a bit more of hassle.

But the short of it is, I am replacing my 120gig SSD with a 240gig SSD, obviously this in an OS drive so would like clone it move it over to the 240gig SSD and have it function as before. I could probally just google a how to guide, but I am lazy and mybb members need to get outside of the news section a bit.

This is some thing i haven't attempted before, so step by step would be nice if you have some time on your hands, and willing to share your knowledge it would be greatly appreciated. otherwise I can just go with the normal clean install route, and copy over what I need.

Thanks in advance. :)
 
Basically what PsyWulf said.
Clone disk, source would be 120, destination is 240. Everything should work as intended once the process completes
 
Run a chkdsk on the source drive first.
Then close with Acronis True Image.
 
General word of caution.... clones to PCI-e SSD's often don't work because of motherboard constraints.

It copies files but not all sectors.
 
wizardofid said:
Thankfully I am still on old school 2.5 inch SATAIII SSD's :p. So shouldn't be an issue, new SSD, will likely arrive today, or tomorrow.
Click to expand...
I generally find it easier to just install windows and use transwiz to transfer profiles.... backed up patchmypc takes care of most app needs.
 
rambo919 said:
I generally find it easier to just install windows and use transwiz to transfer profiles.... backed up patchmypc takes care of most app needs.
Click to expand...
Yeah would be easier, but have 4 years of firefox, bookmarks, links and stuff, easy enough to import those, my main issue is that some photoshop apps, and modeling apps and such have a lot of plugins and stuff that you simply can't just copy over, needs to be reinstalled, and the windows 10 iso i have is quite a old version, so would need to download the latest version, to avoid having to update into next week. Games saves are also profile linked, in some cases, and don't work by simply copying them over.

I could speed up performance a bit with a new install, and get rid of all the bloat and stuff, but it will be far easier and less hassle to clone.I have a spare windows 10 pro key. So when the clone is done and up and running I will remove all drivers and stuff and pop the 120gig SSD into the secondary build and hope I dont run into any issues, having to reinstall the os on that system as well, which means I can simply change my windows 10 key activate and job done.moving the SSD from a 4th gen msi H81 chipset to a gigabyte h81 chipset, so technically I shouldn't have too much of an issue.

Which means I will have a mirrored system for backup and can just continue in the event of a failure.
 
You don't need to use another key though, the license is motherboard linked not storage drive linked.

But yeah the only thing a new install and transwiz probably wont fix is photoshop. Abobe is the ubisoft of software.
 
rambo919 said:
You don't need to use another key though, the license is motherboard linked not storage drive linked.

But yeah the only thing a new install and transwiz probably wont fix is photoshop. Abobe is the ubisoft of software.
Click to expand...
No I mean for the secondary system, it has no hdd currently, just build it last week, so I need a new key for it. :)
 
SInce you're going 120 GB -> 240 GB, dd and then expand the disk with gparted or Disk Management?
 
Cloning easy as as pie.

Have any of you who have cloned significant amount of drives also experience the Windows 10 base version upgrade failure on a cloned drive?

The hardware UUID's are different and it doesnt update the bootcode BCD. Ive gone through the usual re-creation but it still doesnt update correctly. These clones were offline clones. I'm thinking online clones would update the UUID correctly? Online cloning I mean is like installing Macrium on the host and having the SSD plugged in via USB. Opening Macrium on host Windows 10 and choosing clone then it reboots to a PE state and clones etc,etc.
 
Peon said:
Cloning easy as as pie.

Have any of you who have cloned significant amount of drives also experience the Windows 10 base version upgrade failure on a cloned drive?

The hardware UUID's are different and it doesnt update the bootcode BCD. Ive gone through the usual re-creation but it still doesnt update correctly. These clones were offline clones. I'm thinking online clones would update the UUID correctly? Online cloning I mean is like installing Macrium on the host and having the SSD plugged in via USB. Opening Macrium on host Windows 10 and choosing clone then it reboots to a PE state and clones etc,etc.
Click to expand...
Macrium has a bootable Rescue disk option that can repair the Boot issues related to BCD
There was a particular trick to clone it the better way without breaking the BCD but I forget what it was
 
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