Question Cloning boot drive to a partition

[skywalkerqq]

So I need to clone my M.2 boot drive onto a new partition I made on my hard drive. I have macrium reflect downloaded, but all the tutorials I find on using it require the destination drive for the clone to be clean. I need to somehow keep my hard drive safe while cloning my boot drive onto the hard drive partition. pls help.

 

[USAFRet]

So I need to clone my M.2 boot drive onto a new partition I made on my hard drive. I have macrium reflect downloaded, but all the tutorials I find on using it require the destination drive for the clone to be clean. I need to somehow keep my hard drive safe while cloning my boot drive onto the hard drive partition. pls help.

What are you actually trying to do?

Not...'clone the m.2 to the HDD'....what, specifically.
What is your starting point and desired end state, and why?

There are almost certainly ways to get there, but we need to know what you're actually trying to get to.

 

[skywalkerqq]

What are you actually trying to do?

Not...'clone the m.2 to the HDD'....what, specifically.
What is your starting point and desired end state, and why?

There are almost certainly ways to get there, but we need to know what you're actually trying to get to.

Im trying to replace my M.2 boot drive with another M.2. My motherboard only has one M.2 slot. Along with these I only have one 1TB hard drive, about half its storage is used. My thinking is that I could make a partition on my hard drive and clone my boot drive onto the partition. Then I would simply replace the M.2 with the new one and clone the partition onto the M.2 to make it the boot drive.

 

[USAFRet]

As suspected.
You do NOT need to make a partition, or do a full clone.
An Image is what you want to do.

You just need sufficient free space on your HDD, and a 4GB or larger USB flash drive.

Thusly:

Assuming you have another drive with sufficient free space to hold the entirety of your current m.2 drive:

1. Download and install Macrium Reflect
2. Run that, and create a Rescue CD or USB (you'll use this later). "Other Tasks"
3. In the Macrium client, create an Image to some other drive. External USB HDD, maybe. Select all partitions. This results in a file of xxxx.mrimage
4. When done, power OFF.
5. Swap the 2 drives
6. Boot up from the Rescue USB you created earlier.
7. Recover, and tell it where the Image is that you created in step 3, and which drive to apply it to...the new m.2
8. Go, and wait until it finishes.
9. That's all...this should work.

 

[skywalkerqq]

As suspected.
You do NOT need to make a partition, or do a full clone.
An Image is what you want to do.

You just need sufficient free space on your HDD, and a 4GB or larger USB flash drive.

Thusly:

Assuming you have another drive with sufficient free space to hold the entirety of your current m.2 drive:

1. Download and install Macrium Reflect
2. Run that, and create a Rescue CD or USB (you'll use this later). "Other Tasks"
3. In the Macrium client, create an Image to some other drive. External USB HDD, maybe. Select all partitions. This results in a file of xxxx.mrimage
4. When done, power OFF.
5. Swap the 2 drives
6. Boot up from the Rescue USB you created earlier.
7. Recover, and tell it where the Image is that you created in step 3, and which drive to apply it to...the new m.2
8. Go, and wait until it finishes.
9. That's all...this should work.

As suspected.
You do NOT need to make a partition, or do a full clone.
An Image is what you want to do.

You just need sufficient free space on your HDD, and a 4GB or larger USB flash drive.

Thusly:

Assuming you have another drive with sufficient free space to hold the entirety of your current m.2 drive:

1. Download and install Macrium Reflect
2. Run that, and create a Rescue CD or USB (you'll use this later). "Other Tasks"
3. In the Macrium client, create an Image to some other drive. External USB HDD, maybe. Select all partitions. This results in a file of xxxx.mrimage
4. When done, power OFF.
5. Swap the 2 drives
6. Boot up from the Rescue USB you created earlier.
7. Recover, and tell it where the Image is that you created in step 3, and which drive to apply it to...the new m.2
8. Go, and wait until it finishes.
9. That's all...this should work.

This worked. Thanks, I am using the new drive right now.

 

[USAFRet]

This worked. Thanks, I am using the new drive right now.

See....easy peasy...

Now you get to spread the word if you come across someone with this same issue.