cloning to a new hard drive

when cloning windows 10 drive to a new SSD, should the new hard drive be blank?

so if not, then do you need to delete everything on it or reformat it first?

i bought a new pc that has Windows 10 and I want to clone my old pc to the new one......

using macrium .

thanks in advance

Its best to leave it blank as it will have to deleted by the clone anyway. Why do you want to clone an old drive to a brand new system which may not boot if the hardware is different what's you back out plan?

it has so much "stuff on it o copy and is used as server pc for quickbooks and other software...would be a major headache and time consumer to start from scratch....unless there's a better way

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Samuria said:

Its best to leave it blank as it will have to deleted by the clone anyway. Why do you want to clone an old drive to a brand new system which may not boot if the hardware is different what's you back out plan?

what are the odd it doesn't boot?

10 is good at finding drivers but you need a backup plan like create an image of the new 10 so you can role back if it fails

shagadelic45 said:

i bought a new pc that has Windows 10 and I want to clone my old pc to the new one......

using macrium .

If you really want to replace "everything" on the new PC with "everything" on the old PC, you are probably better off doing an image restore, rather than a clone. Anecdotally, there seems to be fewer issues with imaging than with cloning.

I'm not saying either is a good idea.

so is it possible to clone the old win 10 drive but keep the "boot partition" or whatever on the new win 10 drive, so i'm sure the new hard drive always starts properly without any boot issues?

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ignatzatsonic said:

If you really want to replace "everything" on the new PC with "everything" on the old PC, you are probably better off doing an image restore, rather than a clone. Anecdotally, there seems to be fewer issues with imaging than with cloning.

I'm not saying either is a good idea.

what the advantage over either?

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Samuria said:

10 is good at finding drivers but you need a backup plan like create an image of the new 10 so you can role back if it fails

yea, it wont boot......any suggestions on how to fix or what to do differently if i re-do the cone?

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is it better for the new drive to be blank or have windows 10 on it when cloning? does it matter?

No one can really answer the question it depends on the old PC drivers and the new PC requirements if the old was AMD and your going to Intel that can be a problem same applies if the old is sata 2 or ide going to sata 3 there are so many variables. It may go or you may have a none booting system and lost specific drivers for OEM products
The other problem is it may not activate as the hardware is so different

Samuria said:

No one can really answer the question it depends on the old PC drivers and the new PC requirements if the old was AMD and your going to Intel that can be a problem same applies if the old is sata 2 or ide going to sata 3 there are so many variables. It may go or you may have a none booting system and lost specific drivers for OEM products
The other problem is it may not activate as the hardware is so different

the cloned drive will now boot via external USB but not when i plug it in, internally? any ideas?

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RolandJS said:

Making full images of all the partitions from the old computer onto an external usb hard-drive, then using that ext hd to restore all of the old computer partitions onto the new computer might, possibly, maybe, be the least of the "evils". I have used Macrium Reflect's Fix Boot[?] and/or the Windows install DVD to fix boot problems.

the cloned drive will now boot via external USB but not when i plug it in, internally? any ideas?

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here is what drive mgmt looks like with cloned drive plugged in via usb and blank drive internally

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photo attached

C: is the old pc clone files on a brand new ssd and D: is the new ssd that came with the new pc that i wiped