How do I clone?

[SkyFire69]

OK. So I have  an acer predator helios 300 with a 2.5 inch hard drive bay with the drive in it and a m.2  ssd slot with a 128 gb sata ssd provided by acer in it. I was thinking of buying a new 500 gb ssd and keeping my hard drive. So i would have to buy a m.2 in that case. So i was wondering how do i move my data from the older ssd to the newer one since my laptop doesn't have 2 m.2 slots and i would have to buy an m.2 drive. Should i first clone my 128 gb ssd to my hard drive then clone that to my newer ssd after installing that one? Or if someone has a better solution?

[StaffCorporal]

I would backup your actual files to the harddrive and do a new OS install on the new m.2 SSD. I would only clone from/to the same drive model and capacity

[SupaKomputa]

You need to buy a M.2 to USB converter, plug the new one in it and clone.

If not, you can just backup all the important files on the old ssd to your hdd.

And then install fresh windows in the new ssd, and restore your backup if you want to.

[SupaKomputa]

8 minutes ago, StaffCorporal said:

I would only clone from/to the same drive model and capacity

no need to have the same model and capacity.

Cloning to a bigger drive is possible.

[Fluvous]

I managed to do this with a program called Minitool Partition Wizard. Since I did it on my system though they now require an expensive annual fee. There are other similar programs out there that will do the same thing but I never found a free one.

[StaffCorporal]

5 minutes ago, SupaKomputa said:

no need to have the same model and capacity.

Cloning to a bigger drive is possible.

I never said it wasn't possible. In my experience it just isn't a good idea.

You can do it, but I can't recommend it.

[Ubuntu is love]

 

[SupaKomputa]

13 minutes ago, StaffCorporal said:

I never said it wasn't possible. In my experience it just isn't a good idea.

You can do it, but I can't recommend it.

care to elaborate, why not?

[StaffCorporal]

8 minutes ago, SupaKomputa said:

care to elaborate, why not?

It might work just fine. But I have seen all sorts of weird issues ranging from random BSODs to not being able to boot (Some are fixable). In the end a new OS install is a lot easier and works everytime.

[manikyath]

35 minutes ago, StaffCorporal said:

I would backup your actual files to the harddrive and do a new OS install on the new m.2 SSD. I would only clone from/to the same drive model and capacity

depending on how competent the cloning tool you use is, you can clone from and to just about anything, given the destination has enough space.

 

at work we use samsung's cloning tool all the time to clone customers' dying hard drives to new samsung SSDs, most of the time to a lower capacity, and the only issues we've ever had were related to bitlocker (turn that stuff off before cloning), and restore points (which you can just reconfigure).

[StaffCorporal]

1 minute ago, manikyath said:

depending on how competent the cloning tool you use is, you can clone from and to just about anything, given the destination has enough space.

 

at work we use samsung's cloning tool all the time to clone customers' dying hard drives to new samsung SSDs, most of the time to a lower capacity, and the only issues we've ever had were related to bitlocker (turn that stuff off before cloning), and restore points (which you can just reconfigure).

I never said you couldn't. I just said that I would not do it.

[SupaKomputa]

12 minutes ago, StaffCorporal said:

It might work just fine. But I have seen all sorts of weird issues ranging from random BSODs to not being able to boot (Some are fixable). In the end a new OS install is a lot easier and works everytime.

But how do you relate this on different manufacturer. 

Migrating OS has many perks, you cannot just point it on the cloning process without a valid argument.

I cloned many sistem from different brand and sizes, some had problem but most don't, but i never blame the drive cloning, it's just unreasonable for me.

If you have data, please tell me so i can learn.

[SpikeSpiegel]

Macrium Reflect is great for cloning SSD's and HDD's.  You download the free version and you're good to go.

 

https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree

 

Here's how to image a drive or SSD

https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW7/Creating+a+backup+image+of+your+computer%2C+drive+or+partitions

[SkyFire69]

wth never had this many replies on any post . LOL . 

 

Thanks Everyone I will try cloning as my manufacturer (acer ) includes some good software with the system i wouldn't wanna lose it though I know that that data can be recovered but i am kinda lazy