Also, make sure the SSD is mounted securely in your laptop and not loose, particularly considering that the SSD may well be thinner than the drive you took out. If not secure (for reliable connection) and there is play in it, you may need to insert a shim to prevent any wobble.
I exactly did that.
I have 2 laptop. One new with SSD 128GB
One old with HDD 750gb
and bought a new Samsung ssd 250gb
So I changed the 128ssd for the new 250ssd. I used Macrium and worked like a charm. The only thing I needed to change is the name (letter) of the drive to the original C. I also partitioned it so all system info is on C, and all personal files are on P.
2nd : I've put like 550gb on hdd to an external hdd drive. Then I reinitialized the laptop with hdd in it (still 132 gb so too much and this aint normal). Reinitializing not worked...but still garbaged 50gb approximatively.
then I cloned the HDD to the ssd128gb that was in the new laptop.
this worked using macrium. Then changed physically hdd for the ssd inside the old laptop.
Then stated back laptop...but ends on a screen saying I cant boot or anything like that.
I don t have W7-8-10 CD/DVD or product key. I had orinigally a windows 7 (or 8) that freely was upgraded to w10 when it was available.
What should I do? this is like since Monday I am doing all that stuff (change RAM...upgrade it...change ssd to bigger ssd...etc...).
I'm tired to do that stuff !
ps. I haven't cloned hdd to new laptop. I will use new laptop for customers (am an accountant) and for university.
the old one will be there for medias, wife, children, etc...
Glad I found this thread, it fixed me up. Here are a few pointers:
- You will need a USB drive bay to be able to clone your drive as I have. The nice thing is you don't have to remove your original hard
drive until after the clone is completed, and you are ready to configure your new SSD in the laptop.
- You can make a USB bootable flash drive really fast with a Windows 10 ISO installer image from Windows 10 ISO
- I have seen other tutuorials that user other software methods to create USB, but it will require an ISO image, and then you can use something like PowerISO to mount it on your system as a CD drive. Run the installer, create the USB stick.
- You will have to be able to control boot order to get the USB stick to boot, so when the time comes, know how to access your BIOS boot order window - for my HP, it's DEL key as laptop boots, then F9 key.
- I used Macrium Reflect Free, to clone the existing drive to a new SSD. I used all the default options, it was very easy to use. I mounted the SSD in a USB drive bay, then it showed up as a second blank drive, and Macrium was able to use it as a Target drive.
- The resulting CLONED SSD WOULD NOT BOOT - Booting gave similar errors after using EaseUS the first time I tried cloning; it did not clone correctly, it's poor software, I would recommend staying away from it...
- Once you have a cloned SSD, you can check it by mounting it to your desktop with a USB drive bay - and use the This PC in Explorer (right-click) to access Managment screen, then Storage manager. See the cloned drive has exactly the same partitions as the original. If not, your clone did not work correctly.
- My cloned drive looks exactly like my original, now I put the SSD in the computer. Try to boot, fails to boot.
- Now install the USB Win 10 flash drive, created previously. Boot from it by selecting it in the boot order window option. You should see the prompt: "press any key to start from USB drive"
- Now it will start and show language selection as if you are going to install Win 10. PRESS SHFT-F10 to get CMD prompt.
diskpart
select disk 0
list partition
select partition 2 (in my case, since it was marked as boot partition on my original drive, when looking at This PC-> Storage Manager)
active
Reboot(!)
Boot from the USB AGAIN - See first initial language select screen, press continue.
NOW IT SHOWS the REPAIR OPTIONS; follow the Advanced Options to "Repair my PC" option on final page of utilities offered.
Go ahead now and run the Repair, it fixed up my drive in about 5 minutes of waiting, booted from the SSD by itself ;-) ;-)
Hello!
I just cloned my notebook HDD to my new SSD using Acronis 2017. There is no need to buy it, you can use the trial version. Before starting I moved some old downloads and other files to an external backup disk. I then run the hard disk cleanup to delete any junk files. Next step was to use Auslogics Disk Defrag Free to defrag and optimize my old HDD to make the files consistent (you know we must never defrag an SSD). Finally I cloned the disk to the SSD by creating a bootable "Rescue" Acronis DVD and booting from it. I replaced the old HDD with the new SSD and Windows 10 booted without any other problem. I can now use Auslogics Disk Defrag Free again but this time its special SSD optimize feature and my notebook will be as fast as it gets. I had used Macrium Reflect as well to clone one other disk and I don't remember having problems to boot into Windows. Make sure you clone the whole disk (including all partitions at the right order) and not only the Windows partition. If you do it right it should boot without any problems.
Hi,
your posts here have helped me a lot, so thanks!
You don't mention in your post today, you are running Win10 I assume..
Strange, it seems like EaseUS created some of the problems found here on this thread for me and others; there are youtube videos showing it being used for SSD cloning; originally that's what I followed; supposedly it's supposed to set the drive to be bootable, etc. Probably best to AVOID EaseUS.
That said, I can't account for various different experiences once using Macrium Reflect. I like the idea of using a bootable rescue image in Acronis; that makes sense to me. But I don't understand how it would be any different than what Macrium does for a clone, and I checked that the drive partitions looked identical in the Storage Manager in Windows after the clone; both drives showed up with identical partitions. (1 tiny, 1 normal)
I think Macrium can make a rescue image as well, so that might be an alternative to try if the first try clone won't boot..
Looks to me like Win10 imposes issues that Win7 NEVER DID, and exactly what those issues are (like creating a manifest of all your hardware and refusing to recognize the disk as bootable if ANY PART changes), we don't seem to understand very well.
But it may account for various experiences people have...
Making the USB drive, having to boot from it to set the SSD as active, running repair from USB drive; it's error prone and time consuming(!) so people may want to first try the Acronis, as described here. Thanks again.
Hello!
I want to share my recent experience. I had Acronis True Image 2014 installed and recently tried to clone my main 1TB hard disk on to my new 250GB SSD. I moved most of my downloads and other data so the occupied space on the hard disk was about 165GB and would fit on the SSD. I then started Acronis True Image 2014 and cloned the partitions proportionally to the SSD. I then attempted to boot from the SSD and it was stuck at the login screen because it was assigned with drive letter D and could not locate my account data to proceed. In short the solution was to create a bootable rescue media, run Acronis outside my Windows 10 installation and then properly clone my hard disk to the SSD.
Just to make sure there is no incompatibility because of the old Acronis version, I downloaded the new Acronis True Image 2017 and created a bootable rescue CD-ROM (could also be a USB) from there. I then booted into my original hard disk installation without any other drive connected. I went to Control Panel, started Device Manager and then selected to reveal the hidden devices. I expanded the Disk Drives and deleted all light colored icons (registered devices not currently connected). I did the same at Storage Volume Shadow Copies and at Storage Volumes. This was to make sure there is no registry information referring to the SSD that would make the clone unbootable. I then shutdown the computer to connect the SSD. I booted with the Acronis bootable CD and did the cloning again. I disconnected the other disks and left only the SSD, just in case, and booted in Windows 10 from the SSD. Success! I could see the desktop as it should be without any issues! I shutdown the PC once again to connect the old hard disk as a second drive. I made extra sure in BIOS, hard disk priorities, that the SSD was the first in the list and let it boot automatically without manually setting the boot device. A quick look at This PC revealed that I had succeeded, the SSD was C: as it should, never mind for the other disk, I can set it to whatever I want. I could then delete the old hard disk and fill it with my data.
I believe that the problem was really that I didn't make sure the SSD was the first in hard disk priority, but nevertheless, to avoid any frustration, I recommend to avoid using cloning applications within the Windows installation you intend to clone, but rather use a bootable CD or USB to do the clone.
I hope this will save you a lot of trouble, glad to share.
I have used Macrium for years now with zero issues. I use it in multiple machines at work including the Enterprise version on Windows Server 2008 R2. I just clones an SSD with Vista. I used Macrium to copy and it would.not boot. I simply used the fix MBR function in Macrium and it made it bootable.
If you clone it outside Windows (run from a bootable disk) and clone all the partitions, then you should not need any fix to make it boot. If the new disk is unformatted, it is relatively easy to set the source and target. But if the new disk contains any data, be very careful to clone your old disk on the new and not the other way around! I had done it in the past with Norton Ghost and I had to spend hours reinstalling everything from scratch! Of course the data were history! Thankfully newer tools such as Acronis won't let you choose an unformatted disk as source. So if only you have the old and new disks connected there is hardly a chance to do it wrong. That's why you should always disconnect any other disk except the source and target when cloning! Choosing the wrong source or target is very easy when you have everything connected. And don't forget to clone the whole disk (disk-to-disk) not individual partitions, or it won't boot.
I would never use an Acronis product for reasons I won't go into. Macrium Reflect Free is excellent.
I've been advised on the Forum its preferable to image your PC then recover that image to your new drive rather than using clone. You need a separate working drive to do this to copy the image to.
I have seen one case that Acronis would not clone the disk because the source disk had some errors and in this case Acronis tries to clone sector-by-sector. The source disk was a 120GB SSD and the target was also a 120GB SSD but from different manufacturer and has less sectors than the source! Acronis would refuse to proceed because the sector-by-sector clone would not fit on the target. I then tried Macrium Reflect which allowed my to resize one partition so that all partitions from source fit the target exactly and managed to do the cloning! Otherwise I would have to reinstall everything from scratch and also take a backup! Macrium Reflect saved me many hours of a clean installation. So I use it occasionally.
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