I transferred Windows 8.1 from a HDD to SSD a while ago - see http://www.eightforums.com/installat...s-hdd-ssd.html. I had no problems using Macrium Reflect.
Note I was advised at the time to use backup/restore rather than cloning since cloning might duplicate the disk signature creating 2 disks with the same signatures.
Hi,
Intelligent Copy, actually "Intelligent Sector Copy" copies only those sectors containing data as opposed to copying sector for sector as "Exact Copy" aka "Forensic Sector Copy" would.
The latter option is more time consuming, not sure what you'd use it for.
This pertains to cloning a disk and that's mainly used when you're cloning to a larger or equally sized drive.
Logically it should not work if the destination drive is smaller than the source.
Never tried it out, just going by what Macrium says about it.
For as long as the target destination drive is large enough to contain all data it'll work as MR will resize the partitions accordingly when restoring from an image.
Just for info though as I was incidentally going to MR's Help file and thought it might help.
Best,
OK, I'll ditch the "Exact Copy." What about using the compression? Seems not using compression would reduce the chance of errors.
There are two choices for "Backup Tasks." should I do:
1. Image selected disks on this computer, or
2. Create an image of the partitions required to backup & restore Windows
I presume #2?
(1) will work if you select the right partitions, (2) will guarantee the right partitions to back up Windows. I would use the default settings but check Verify to confirm the backup is OK. Note my tip to backup rather than clone.
Latter could come into play (short of actual "forensic" work - in the law enforcement/investigative sense), for instance, it you have disk errors or file errors on the source drive which prevent MR imaging from completing (it checks file/disk data integrity as part of imaging) and you really just ned to get the data off of a possibly physically failing disk and onto a new working disk. This would allow imaging or cloning to complete by taking the source bytes at face value and then you can restore to a good disk and possibly recover data you really want. If sectors on the source disk were marked bad by Windows, then you could use chkdsk /B, for instance, to have those sectors re-evaluated by Windows and returned to service if found good. Probably not relevant to OP's questions but thought I'd expand a little on that specific topic.
Agreed that image/restore can be the most seamless with MR for the "average" user (like me). Even more seamless, IMO, would be just imaging entire disk (all partitions) as is and restoring that way - partition work/optimization can be completed on the new drive. Running "winsat formal" from an elevated (admin) command prompt once all is restored to the new disk is one of the first things I would do, to ensure that Windows sees the disk correctly (mainly SSD versus HDD).
Also note that cloning/restoring can be done with modification of partitions on the fly. For restore details, more is here: http://knowledgebase.macrium.com/dis...ion+properties
I would let it run and see what happens. Maybe there is something to be learned.
After imaging the exact copy, it did do the whole 1TB HDD for 5 hours but insufficient space on my external HDD. Next, did the intelligent copy of 60GB, which took 8 minutes. After trying to restore image to SSD, get this, a bit frustrating.
Partitions 4 & 5 appear to be for restoring windows. Don't know what partitions 1 & 2 are for.
Partition 1 is a definite keeper to have your system bootable, 2 is a reserved and unformatted partition you also have to keep. You ran out of space because you haven't yet shrunk the size of your third partition to leave room for 4 & 5. Please read the MR knowledge base article carefully that I linked you to above.
I'm not sure why creating an image would be a better way to do things than simply cloning the drive. First off, imaging takes approximately twice as long since you have to make the image and then restore it. IMO, it also has more opportunities for something to go wrong. First of all there is 2 operations instead of one and on top of that, imaging involves compression (unless you turn it off) and the compressed image must be expanded when restoring. If something goes wrong during compression or expansion, your restore will not be successful.
I have cloned many drives over the years and have never had an issue. Hate to see someone spin their tires needlessly when the outcome is the same.
I understand what you mean @strollin and generally agree - it may just be a matter of personal preference but further than that, for me, it was to preserve a complete image of where I started from and immediately take (perfectly good) source drives, reformat them, and put them into enclosures to use as external portable backup media.
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