Do I need to copy 'Other' and 'Unallocated' when I clone hard drive?

tallonius said:

Hi,

I want to copy a 4Tb hard drive to a new 8Tb hard drive (using Easeus 11.5 Clone option) but when I look at my drive list, it seems to have 3 partitions:

- 3.64Tb which is the content area (NTFS)

- 15.98Mb called 'Other' which is completely full

- 1.29Mb called 'Unallocated'


I have no idea what 'Other' and 'Unallocated' are. Are they even partitions?

I'm guessing they're something that the drive or Windows creates for control purposes, so should I also copy them to the new drive when I clone, or should I simply ignore them and the new drive will create it's own version?


Thanks.

(using Windows 10 - screenshot attached)

That "other" folder looks like some kind of hangover from a previous installation - maybe Linux.
I would just copy the NTFS partition.

The small unallocated space is quite normal - there is always a bit of residual space left at end of a drive due to partitions being aligned to boundaries. You will not even see it in Windows disk management - just ignore it.

A drive copy means everything if you only do some the boot sector may not copy so it won't boot

I think you should post the Disk mgmt version of that diagram so we can all see what it says about those partitions.
How to Post a Screenshot of Disk Management - TenForumsTutorials
I expect that Other will not appear. If so, it does not need to be cloned or imaged.


All the best,
Denis

SIW2 said:

Unallocated is space that is not inside a partition

Other is probabaly the msr partition which is recommended by microsoft on gpt disks. Though the minimum recommended size is 16mb.

you can have a look with the diskpart command

at Admin cmd prompt type:

diskpart
sel dis 1
lis par

see if that shows as Reserved

I agree.
The 16M (other) is MSR partition created when you set as GPT.
Unallocated space is a drive space that hasn't been allocated to a partition.

My answer would be, no you don't need to copy the Other or the Unallocated space on your clone.