Cloning mishap upgrading to larger boot SSD

[tomciccone34]

Hey Guys,

So I'm simply not very knowledgeable about computers so I would really appreciate a little guidance on how to try and remedy this little situation I got myself into...

I've had my boot drive on a faithful 250 gb SSD but recently purchased a 1TB SSD thinking I would transfer all of my boot drive data over to the 1 TB SSD, and therefore have a bunch of usable space to download sample libraries (I'm a music composer).

Basically, I did the fragmenting and cloned the drive, but the software seems to have reformated the 1 TB SSD to have only 250GB....

I know now there was some option I had to pick to keep the original format of the disk. Of course, the software I was using (Ease US ToDo Backup) did not even have this option available.

Now, everything I read on the internet says I'm essentially screwed if I want to wipe the SSD and start all over again...Is there some way I can restart and go about this the right way? I have a feeling the answer may be pretty simple, but I would really appreciate some guidance on this. Thanks. --Tom

 

[RealBeast]

I do not think that EaseUS Todo supports the option of expanding the clone to fill unallocated space on the new drive. That option is available in Acronis True Image (although not set by default so you need custom settings) and Norton Ghost 15, which I use regularly and by checking one box it expands to the full size of the new drive.

And with most cloning software you want to clone to an unallocated drive without first formatting it.

You can either get cloning software that supports resizing the partition to fill unallocated space or do a clean install and then copy over your other files and programs, which is somewhat painful.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Is there some way I can restart and go about this the right way?

There might be a way to expand your windows partition to rest of unused space.
Post screenshot from Disk Management.

 

[tomciccone34]

I do not think that EaseUS Todo supports the option of expanding the clone to fill unallocated space on the new drive. That option is available in Acronis True Image (although not set by default so you need custom settings) and Norton Ghost 15, which I use regularly and by checking one box it expands to the full size of the new drive.

And with most cloning software you want to clone to an unallocated drive without first formatting it.

You can either get cloning software that supports resizing the partition to fill unallocated space or do a clean install and then copy over your other files and programs, which is somewhat painful.

Yes, I'm aware there is another software option that has that feature. My main issue is I don't understand how you wipe the SSD and restart the process...

Is there some way I can restart and go about this the right way?

There might be a way to expand your windows partition to rest of unused space.
Post screenshot from Disk Management.

I don't know how to post a screenshot on this forum since I'm only able to link a url

 

[RealBeast]

Just paste the url from a photo sharing website to show disk management, you can make it appear using bbcode, but that is not necessary.

There are many ways to clean the larger drive, like boot from the original smaller drive, go into disk management and simply delete the partitions on the larger SSD, which will make it unpartitioned. You can also use diskpart from a command prompt window with a Windows installer stick, or you could use a Live Linux USB stick to clean the drive.

 

[tomciccone34]

Just paste the url from a photo sharing website to show disk management, you can make it appear using bbcode, but that is not necessary.

There are many ways to clean the larger drive, like boot from the original smaller drive, go into disk management and simply delete the partitions on the larger SSD, which will make it unpartitioned. You can also use diskpart from a command prompt window with a Windows installer stick, or you could use a Live Linux USB stick to clean the drive.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/145629406@N06/31440679871/in/dateposted-public/

The disk management route sounds the easiest. I'm still booting from the smaller drive anyway. I just want to clear the larger SSD and then use a software that doesn't reformat the space when I clone my OS. Disk C is my originall SSD by the way. Didk D is the new 1TB SSD I'm trying to move over to.

 

[mbarnes86]

Hi

You have no need to start again if the clone operation worked correctly the first time

Gparted is a live linux image for cd or usb
It can expand the 250 GB to 1000 GB

It can deal with both windows and most linux format partitions
Both mbr and gpt disks

And its free full version not a trial or limited version

Regards
Mike Barnes

 

[ArtPog]

Hey Guys,

So I'm simply not very knowledgeable about computers so I would really appreciate a little guidance on how to try and remedy this little situation I got myself into...

I've had my boot drive on a faithful 250 gb SSD but recently purchased a 1TB SSD thinking I would transfer all of my boot drive data over to the 1 TB SSD, and therefore have a bunch of usable space to download sample libraries (I'm a music composer).

Basically, I did the fragmenting and cloned the drive, but the software seems to have reformated the 1 TB SSD to have only 250GB....

I know now there was some option I had to pick to keep the original format of the disk. Of course, the software I was using (Ease US ToDo Backup) did not even have this option available.

Now, everything I read on the internet says I'm essentially screwed if I want to wipe the SSD and start all over again...Is there some way I can restart and go about this the right way? I have a feeling the answer may be pretty simple, but I would really appreciate some guidance on this. Thanks. --Tom

It's quite simple to remedy. Some disk-cloning programs will create a partition on the destination drive (in your case, the 1 TB drive) identical to the source disk, i.e., your 250 GB disk. That's apparently what happened with the Easeus program. (Sometimes the problem is a result of user error in utilizing the program, i.e., not selecting an appropriate option).

In any event all you have to do is access Disk Management, right-click on the listing of the 250 GB partition, and select "Extend Volume" from the sub-menu that has opened. Capiche?

BTW, we're assuming that your source disk booted & functioned without problems. Following the disk-cloning operation, when you first boot to the newly-cloned drive, check your BIOS priority order to ensure the newly-cloned drive is first in that order.

 

[tomciccone34]

Hi

You have no need to start again if the clone operation worked correctly the first time

Gparted is a live linux image for cd or usb
It can expand the 250 GB to 1000 GB

It can deal with both windows and most linux format partitions
Both mbr and gpt disks

And its free full version not a trial or limited version

Regards
Mike Barnes

Hey Mike, thank you for reaching out.

So would I have to download this software, put it onto a flash rive and then boot from the flash drive to run the software?

 

[RealBeast]

Since the unallocated space is in only one segment you should be able to simply extend the existing partition into the unallocated space using disk management, however your SRP is on the small drive but not on the larger drive as far as I can see from your post.

 

[tomciccone34]

Hey Guys,

So I'm simply not very knowledgeable about computers so I would really appreciate a little guidance on how to try and remedy this little situation I got myself into...

I've had my boot drive on a faithful 250 gb SSD but recently purchased a 1TB SSD thinking I would transfer all of my boot drive data over to the 1 TB SSD, and therefore have a bunch of usable space to download sample libraries (I'm a music composer).

Basically, I did the fragmenting and cloned the drive, but the software seems to have reformated the 1 TB SSD to have only 250GB....

I know now there was some option I had to pick to keep the original format of the disk. Of course, the software I was using (Ease US ToDo Backup) did not even have this option available.

Now, everything I read on the internet says I'm essentially screwed if I want to wipe the SSD and start all over again...Is there some way I can restart and go about this the right way? I have a feeling the answer may be pretty simple, but I would really appreciate some guidance on this. Thanks. --Tom

It's quite simple to remedy. Some disk-cloning programs will create a partition on the destination drive (in your case, the 1 TB drive) identical to the source disk, i.e., your 250 GB disk. That's apparently what happened with the Easeus program. (Sometimes the problem is a result of user error in utilizing the program, i.e., not selecting an appropriate option).

In any event all you have to do is access Disk Management, right-click on the listing of the 250 GB partition, and select "Extend Volume" from the sub-menu that has opened. Capiche?

BTW, we're assuming that your source disk booted & functioned without problems. Following the disk-cloning operation, when you first boot to the newly-cloned drive, check your BIOS priority order to ensure the newly-cloned drive is first in that order.

Wow that was incredibly easy, thank you so much. I just have one final question: when I go to "This PC" and look at the icons for all my drives, I see that little blue windows icon is still attached to my old SSD drive. Is this simply because the BIOS is still set to have the original SSD as priority, or does that just have to do with something else?

 

[ArtPog]

Hey Guys,

So I'm simply not very knowledgeable about computers so I would really appreciate a little guidance on how to try and remedy this little situation I got myself into...

I've had my boot drive on a faithful 250 gb SSD but recently purchased a 1TB SSD thinking I would transfer all of my boot drive data over to the 1 TB SSD, and therefore have a bunch of usable space to download sample libraries (I'm a music composer).

Basically, I did the fragmenting and cloned the drive, but the software seems to have reformated the 1 TB SSD to have only 250GB....

I know now there was some option I had to pick to keep the original format of the disk. Of course, the software I was using (Ease US ToDo Backup) did not even have this option available.

Now, everything I read on the internet says I'm essentially screwed if I want to wipe the SSD and start all over again...Is there some way I can restart and go about this the right way? I have a feeling the answer may be pretty simple, but I would really appreciate some guidance on this. Thanks. --Tom

It's quite simple to remedy. Some disk-cloning programs will create a partition on the destination drive (in your case, the 1 TB drive) identical to the source disk, i.e., your 250 GB disk. That's apparently what happened with the Easeus program. (Sometimes the problem is a result of user error in utilizing the program, i.e., not selecting an appropriate option).

In any event all you have to do is access Disk Management, right-click on the listing of the 250 GB partition, and select "Extend Volume" from the sub-menu that has opened. Capiche?

BTW, we're assuming that your source disk booted & functioned without problems. Following the disk-cloning operation, when you first boot to the newly-cloned drive, check your BIOS priority order to ensure the newly-cloned drive is first in that order.

Wow that was incredibly easy, thank you so much. I just have one final question: when I go to "This PC" and look at the icons for all my drives, I see that little blue windows icon is still attached to my old SSD drive. Is this simply because the BIOS is still set to have the original SSD as priority, or does that just have to do with something else?

I'm assuming it's because the "old" source drive still contains an OS in its contents. The important thing is that if both drives are connected in the system (I don't know if you ever indicated this is a desktop PC or a laptop?) the system boots straightaway to the newly-cloned 1 TB SSD and the drive functions without any problems. That's the important thing.

 

[tomciccone34]

Since the unallocated space is in only one segment you should be able to simply extend the existing partition into the unallocated space using disk management, however your SRP is on the small drive but not on the larger drive as far as I can see from your post.

Thank you very much. It was easy to extend the volume...I'm not sure what you mean by SRP (server route protocol?)...is that something I could remedy by just changing the BIOS priority for booting?

Ideally, I'd like to switch everything over to this new bigger SSD and then work from here from now on. Ideally, I would then like to try and do a clean wipe of the old SSD so I could allocate the spare space for my sample library. Do you still recommend GParted for this kind of clean wipe procedure?

By the way, for anyone who is reading this, thank you very much for taking the time to offer advice. This forum was indispensable last year when I built my first PC. I really appreciate the support I get from this community 😀

 

[tomciccone34]

Hey Guys,

So I'm simply not very knowledgeable about computers so I would really appreciate a little guidance on how to try and remedy this little situation I got myself into...

I've had my boot drive on a faithful 250 gb SSD but recently purchased a 1TB SSD thinking I would transfer all of my boot drive data over to the 1 TB SSD, and therefore have a bunch of usable space to download sample libraries (I'm a music composer).

Basically, I did the fragmenting and cloned the drive, but the software seems to have reformated the 1 TB SSD to have only 250GB....

I know now there was some option I had to pick to keep the original format of the disk. Of course, the software I was using (Ease US ToDo Backup) did not even have this option available.

Now, everything I read on the internet says I'm essentially screwed if I want to wipe the SSD and start all over again...Is there some way I can restart and go about this the right way? I have a feeling the answer may be pretty simple, but I would really appreciate some guidance on this. Thanks. --Tom

It's quite simple to remedy. Some disk-cloning programs will create a partition on the destination drive (in your case, the 1 TB drive) identical to the source disk, i.e., your 250 GB disk. That's apparently what happened with the Easeus program. (Sometimes the problem is a result of user error in utilizing the program, i.e., not selecting an appropriate option).

In any event all you have to do is access Disk Management, right-click on the listing of the 250 GB partition, and select "Extend Volume" from the sub-menu that has opened. Capiche?

BTW, we're assuming that your source disk booted & functioned without problems. Following the disk-cloning operation, when you first boot to the newly-cloned drive, check your BIOS priority order to ensure the newly-cloned drive is first in that order.

Wow that was incredibly easy, thank you so much. I just have one final question: when I go to "This PC" and look at the icons for all my drives, I see that little blue windows icon is still attached to my old SSD drive. Is this simply because the BIOS is still set to have the original SSD as priority, or does that just have to do with something else?

I'm assuming it's because the "old" source drive still contains an OS in its contents. The important thing is that if both drives are connected in the system (I don't know if you ever indicated this is a desktop PC or a laptop?) the system boots straightaway to the newly-cloned 1 TB SSD and the drive functions without any problems. That's the important thing.

Yea that makes sense. I'm going to restart now and set my BIOS so I boot automatically from the new drive. Thank you!

 

[tomciccone34]

Hey Guys,

So I'm simply not very knowledgeable about computers so I would really appreciate a little guidance on how to try and remedy this little situation I got myself into...

I've had my boot drive on a faithful 250 gb SSD but recently purchased a 1TB SSD thinking I would transfer all of my boot drive data over to the 1 TB SSD, and therefore have a bunch of usable space to download sample libraries (I'm a music composer).

Basically, I did the fragmenting and cloned the drive, but the software seems to have reformated the 1 TB SSD to have only 250GB....

I know now there was some option I had to pick to keep the original format of the disk. Of course, the software I was using (Ease US ToDo Backup) did not even have this option available.

Now, everything I read on the internet says I'm essentially screwed if I want to wipe the SSD and start all over again...Is there some way I can restart and go about this the right way? I have a feeling the answer may be pretty simple, but I would really appreciate some guidance on this. Thanks. --Tom

It's quite simple to remedy. Some disk-cloning programs will create a partition on the destination drive (in your case, the 1 TB drive) identical to the source disk, i.e., your 250 GB disk. That's apparently what happened with the Easeus program. (Sometimes the problem is a result of user error in utilizing the program, i.e., not selecting an appropriate option).

In any event all you have to do is access Disk Management, right-click on the listing of the 250 GB partition, and select "Extend Volume" from the sub-menu that has opened. Capiche?

BTW, we're assuming that your source disk booted & functioned without problems. Following the disk-cloning operation, when you first boot to the newly-cloned drive, check your BIOS priority order to ensure the newly-cloned drive is first in that order.

Wow that was incredibly easy, thank you so much. I just have one final question: when I go to "This PC" and look at the icons for all my drives, I see that little blue windows icon is still attached to my old SSD drive. Is this simply because the BIOS is still set to have the original SSD as priority, or does that just have to do with something else?

I'm assuming it's because the "old" source drive still contains an OS in its contents. The important thing is that if both drives are connected in the system (I don't know if you ever indicated this is a desktop PC or a laptop?) the system boots straightaway to the newly-cloned 1 TB SSD and the drive functions without any problems. That's the important thing.

So I was able to boot from the new drive successfully and am using it right now as I write this. However, when I load my BIOS, it doesn't seem to recognize the new SSD in the boot priority section. It just shows my original 250gb SSD and two other "UEFI" drives, which appear to be unrelated to my other hard drives (by the way, this is in fact a desktop). Is it a common issue for the bios not to recognize your other drives that aren't the primary boot drive, when you're trying to change the boot priority?

I should mention I did open the advanced mode on the bios, although the only thing i recognized was a "boot override" feature, which didn't appear to do anything when I clicked on it, it just kept returning me back to the bios. I am however able to boot from the new drive when I select it from the bios, I'm just not sure how to reconfigure the priority...

 

[ArtPog]

Yes, that does occur (unfortunately) at times with the UEFI motherboards. What's crucial is that you're able to boot to newly-cloned SSD as per your objective and that drive functions problem-free. Also, that any secondary drives connected in the system are detected and data can be accessed from them. Should the preceding *not* be the case, then there's a problem.

 

[SkyNetRising]

So I was able to boot from the new drive successfully and am using it right now as I write this.

You'll have to redo your cloning operation.
You have not cloned System reserved partition to your new drive. System reserved and partition c: - both need to be cloned. The goal is to make your PC able to boot, when only new drive is attached.
If it can't do that, then cloning is not appropriately done.
Post screenshot from Disk Management, when you're done.