Copying an entire SSD to another, larger SS drive.

[jaypro]

My situation is that I have an 128GB SSD in my laptop and I'm looking to upgrade that to a 256GB or even 512GB SSD but haven't because I've always feared swapping out drives.

My past experience has been: copy all of my documents, photos, music, etc, removing the drive, fresh install of Windows, followed by a long list of driver installations, then 3rd party software installations.

I've heard that there are ways to image the drive and just copy exactly the information from one drive to another, where essentially the only difference I would notice is a lot more free space on my drive.

What is the best way to accomplish this, on a laptop? (Laptop only has connection for 1 SSD at a time. Would I need an external SATA dock or a desktop to connect both drives, etc)

What software is involved?

On a side note: notice how I typed SS drive instead of SSD :)

[Prestonification]

Personally I use True Image HD. It's a Disk Cloning/Recovery utility that takes an exact image of files, partitions or even whole disks. Check it out on www.Acronis.com

[Mo5]

Here's a list of programs you can use :P

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_disk_cloning_software

[MG2R]

Or if you want the DIY route: use dd on linux ;)

[BCMods]

Macrium Reflect is what i've been using a lot without any issues :)

[hak4fun]

sorry to take over your question but, will this also keep my windows activation? or will i have to reactive windows.

[dharmadrummer]

Or if you want the DIY route: use dd on linux ;)

+1 for Linux. (what does dd even stand for, I only know how to use the command)

[chris]

My way would be to boot of a linux liveCD. You would need to connect both drives to the computer at the same time though.

now first start by getting a liveCD and burning it to a disk. Most distributions should work, but for simplicity's sake just use Ubuntu, and then open the terminal. Now type:

sudo -slsblk

This should

firstly) Make you root,

secondly) List several drives (these are called things like sda1, sdb1, sda2, sda3, cd0. They should also have a number next to them saying the size of the disk)

Now remember the sda/sdb of your 128 and 256GB drives.

WARNING: THIS IS THE DANGEROUS PART. DO NOT MESS THIS UP.

then type

dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sda count =1m

(if this does not work and throws an error at you saying something about the count being wrong, use a capital M)

This will write all of the data from your 128GB SSD to your 256GB SSD, without you needing to do too much, but be careful as you could lose the data on your drives if you point dd at the wrong drive.

[chris]

Or if you want the DIY route: use dd on linux ;)

I just call dd diskdestroyer, as I have mixed up my of and if args before :O

[chris]

sorry to take over your question but, will this also keep my windows activation? or will i have to reactive windows.

dd would keep everything, it literally just moves the individual bytes accross

[azeotrope]

My way would be to boot of a linux liveCD. You would need to connect both drives to the computer at the same time though.

now first start by getting a liveCD and burning it to a disk. Most distributions should work, but for simplicity's sake just use Ubuntu, and then open the terminal. Now type:

sudo -s

lsblk

This should

firstly) Make you root,

secondly) List several drives (these are called things like sda1, sdb1, sda2, sda3, cd0. They should also have a number next to them saying the size of the disk)

Now remember the sda/sdb of your 128 and 256GB drives.

WARNING: THIS IS THE DANGEROUS PART. DO NOT MESS THIS UP.

then type

dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sda count =1m

(if this does not work and throws an error at you saying something about the count being wrong, use a capital M)

This will write all of the data from your 128GB SSD to your 256GB SSD, without you needing to do too much, but be careful as you could lose the data on your drives if you point dd at the wrong drive.

You haven't explained the dd command very well and you put sda in both if= and of=. Not to mention netiher of the drives may be sda or sdb, you do not know the OPs entire set up. To anyone that reads this post: dd is the MOST dangerous command of the GNU toolset. If you do not completely understand it and you don't understand how block devices in linux work, don't go near it. a single incorrect character in the command can potentially wipe the wrong drive.

[ismand95]

Check out clonezilla :) I think it will be able to solve your problem. But stay away from the "dd" command that 'chris' suggested if you aren't familiar with linux.