Moving windows to a new drive?

[vawa.id]

I just bought 480gb SSD and I want to transfer my windows 10 from my old 120gb SSD, so I can use the old one on my laptop.

 

is it possible?

 

thanks for reading.

[aisle9]

If you clone the entire drive, yes. If you're talking about only taking Windows, no.

[homeap5]

Is very hard to find answer on this forum - probably only 1000 persons asks this question before.

 

This forum becomes kind of support chat.

[vawa.id]

53 minutes ago, aisle9 said:

If you clone the entire drive, yes. If you're talking about only taking Windows, no.

I tried partition wizard free

 

if I choose migrate OS it says the following picture.

 

If I copy partition, everything is copied and I have 2 identical drive (C:) and (E:). Do I need to unplug my old drive after this action?

[Enderman]

Do a clean install or you'll end up with tons of windows problems in the future.

[homeap5]

2 hours ago, vawa.id said:

I tried partition wizard free

 

if I choose migrate OS it says the following picture.

 

If I copy partition, everything is copied and I have 2 identical drive (C:) and (E:). Do I need to unplug my old drive after this action?

Yes. At first boot for sure. And it's easier to check than ask.

 

But why do you want to move your system from ssd to ssd? Use both - leave system on smaller and use bigger for data, games, some programs etc.

[vawa.id]

1 hour ago, Enderman said:

Do a clean install or you'll end up with tons of windows problems in the future.

I'll end up doing just that. Because apparently, the 'clone' doesn't appear as bootable.

[vawa.id]

1 minute ago, homeap5 said:

Yes. At first boot for sure. And it's easier to check than ask.

doesn't work.

[homeap5]

1 hour ago, vawa.id said:

doesn't work.

If you really want to made worknig clone, use Macrium Reflect bootable USB. Cloning is not as easy as new install at first time, but it works if you're using proper software for the job.

 

But really - if your 120GB SSD is not some crap or very old, consider just plug second SSD to your computer, move some games and programs to it and use both - will be even faster when system loads from one SSD and programs / games from second.

[TheRevTastic]

I'd just reinstall windows, I've had way too many windows issues after cloning a drive months down the line.

 

4 hours ago, homeap5 said:

If you really want to made worknig clone, use Macrium Reflect bootable USB. Cloning is not as easy as new install at first time, but it works if you're using proper software for the job.

 

But really - if your 120GB SSD is not some crap or very old, consider just plug second SSD to your computer, move some games and programs to it and use both - will be even faster when system loads from one SSD and programs / games from second.

 

The OP wants to use the smaller SSD for their laptop as stated in the original post.

[homeap5]

2 hours ago, TheRevTastic said:

I'd just reinstall windows, I've had way too many windows issues after cloning a drive months down the line.

 

 

The OP wants to use the smaller SSD for their laptop as stated in the original post.

Well, I forgot about that laptop, you're right.

 

I made lot of clones without problem. My current system is on fourth drive :). But many people made clone wrong by trusting VSS mechanism (cloning system that is in use) or using bad software (yes, that is an issue - I was similar point of view years ago when nr1 cloning software was crappy Norton Ghost) or mindless cloning software (Clonezilla - which I used too and it was waste of time - good cloning software should be made for avoiding any problems with bad user choices using programmers' experience with system, not like "we will made mindless copy sectors, you tell us how to do that, because we don't know which method will be good"). Unlike mindless cloning or sector-by-sector cloning, Macrium Reflect made something similar to imaging/restoring on the fly - it can clone bigger drive to smaller one for example etc. I also recommend to using imaging and restoring from file after verification if someone has spare drive for archiving - that is how I made my clones. And never clone working system - you may use second operating system if you have access to second computer or second bootable drive, or just create bootable USB with Macrium Reflect. After really huge number of clones, I don't have single problem of any of them.

 

And one more - some users may have problem with cloning because it is more difficult than installing system. But we must remember that many users have problems after clean install too - they get pre-installed Windows that works well and then in new system something not working, because you must install drivers, programs, made some settings etc. Sometimes there is no good solution (other than "ask more experienced friend for help").