Question Cleaning up my HDD partitions and cloning the OS (Win 10) to a Samsung SSD

[xzahn]

Hi folks,

I just installed a 970 Evo Plus in my Lenovo Y700 laptop. I have the stock 1TB HDD as well with a Win 10 and Elementary OS installed. The Linux is messed up and I don't really have valuable information there so my idea is to remove the Linux from the HDD and clone the Win 10 installation to the SSD and then install Elementary OS again on the SSD. I have a bunch of questions regarding that.

1. Why are my partitions looking like that in AOMEI? It did not look like that when I installed E OS. Can I just format everything that is not in NTFS (everything, except C, D, E, F drives)? Any chance of breaking something?

AOMEI

Disk Management

2. Then I plan to use the tool Samsung provides for cloning Win 10 to the SSD. I assume only the C drive will clone and everything else will stay on the HDD? That's what I want. The C drive is about 130GB and I plan to spare about 250GB for Win 10 and leave 100 - 150GB for the Linux. The SSD is 500GB. I hope the cloning itself won't break any of my installed programs.

3. Once I clone the Win 10 installation, I just set the bios to load the SSD first? Anything else I have to do?

4. I'm also planning in the future to buy a 2TB HDD (WD Black) and swap my old drive. Since I do not plan to have any OS installed there, it should be an easy swap, right?

 

[USAFRet]

You can clone whichever partitions you choose.
In your drive, select all but the D partition to clone to the new drive.

1. You'll have to adjust specific partitions sizes
2. After the clone operation is complete, you must physically disconnect the old drive, and allow the system to try to boot from the new drive
3. Correct. Should be no issues.

(make adjustments for being a laptop, but these steps)
-----------------------------
Specific steps for a successful clone operation:
-----------------------------
Verify the actual used space on the current drive is significantly below the size of the new SSD
Download and install Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration, if a Samsung SSD)
Power off
Disconnect ALL drives except the current C and the new SSD
Power up
Run the Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration)
Select ALL the partitions on the existing C drive
Click the 'Clone' button
Wait until it is done
When it finishes, power off
Disconnect ALL drives except for the new SSD
This is to allow the system to try to boot from ONLY the SSD
Swap the SATA cables around so that the new drive is connected to the same SATA port as the old drive
Power up, and verify the BIOS boot order
If good, continue the power up

It should boot from the new drive, just like the old drive.
Maybe reboot a time or two, just to make sure.

If it works, and it should, all is good.

Later, reconnect the old drive and wipe all partitions on it.
This will probably require the commandline diskpart function, and the clean command.

Ask questions if anything is unclear.
-----------------------------


Read here for issues going to a new NVMe drive:

Cloned to an NVMe M2 SSD and won't boot forum.macrium.com

 

[xzahn]

You can clone whichever partitions you choose.
In your drive, select all but the D partition to clone to the new drive.

1. You'll have to adjust specific partitions sizes
2. After the clone operation is complete, you must physically disconnect the old drive, and allow the system to try to boot from the new drive
3. Correct. Should be no issues.

Why all but D? I just want the C partition into the SSD. D, E, and F should stay in the HDD.

And in the first image from AOMEI, do you think I could delete all of the partitions there except C, D, E, F without any harm to the Windows?

Thanks!

 

[USAFRet]

Why all but D? I just want the C partition into the SSD. D, E, and F should stay in the HDD.

And in the first image from AOMEI, do you think I could delete all of the partitions there except C, D, E, F without any harm to the Windows?

Thanks!

From your Disk Management image, the only named partitions we see on Disk 0 is C and D.
So yes, deselect the D, E, F, assuming they are also on Disk 0.

Delete other partitions?
Get the clone operation working first. Then worry about deleting.