Cloning Windows 10 to another, non empty drive

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hillelslovak

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Jan 13, 2014
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I've got Windows 10 home, fully updated. I have a Seagate Barracuda 3tb drive which has my OS on it, a Toshiba 3tb drive with movies on it, and 2x2tb tb Seagate Barracuda drives as well, with one of the 2tb drives in an enclosure, acting as an external.

The 3tb Barracuda drive with the OS on it is emitting a high pitched whine. It's not too loud, but it really gets in my ear, and for a 5 month old drive, this is extremely annoying, and I am going to ship it back to seagate for a replacement.

Is it possible to clone the C Drive onto another one of my internal drives, like make a partition that it goes onto, and not have to format the other drive, or lose any data? How much space does windows 10 take up, and what would be a good program to clone the drive over to?
 
Solution
USAFRet


So...a totally blank target drive?

Maybe an hour? Assuming the source drive is fully working.

These steps, in this order:
-----------------------------
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...
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A clone from one drive to another drive will consume the entirety of the target drive.
Don't do this if there is data you wish to keep on the target drive.

Just move that stuff off to one of your other drives.

For a successful clone operation, these steps. subt 'new HDD' for 'SSD'
-----------------------------
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
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 as necessary.
Delete the original boot partitions, here:
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/4f1b84ac-b193-40e3-943a-f45d52e23685/cant-delete-extra-healthy-recovery-partitions-and-healthy-efi-system-partition?forum=w8itproinstall
-----------------------------
 
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Take this as an opportunity to change windows to a SSD.
A clone utility like macrium reflect is a bit for bit copy on a source to a target.
The original data on the target is destroyed.

A migration tool like Samsung ssd migration is a utility that moves your original C drive to a Samsung ssd. It also overlays any data originally on the target.

There are very many other utilities out there, and I would not be surprised if some can do a bit of both move and clone.
 
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I have like 1.5 tb worth of tv shows I have converted from my blurays on the drive, and am copying it to another drive. After that, there is only maybe 100gb worth of data on my c drive. There is really no way to move my windows install and all the files to a new drive whilst keeping the files already on that drive? I cant make a new partition, or use macrium to clone to a partition I make on the target drive?
 
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Buy a 240gb Samsung evo.
Use the Samsung ssd migration tool to copy your os and installed programs to it.
The utility allows you to name folders like your videos to be excluded from the move.
They will still be available to you when you boot from the new ssd C drive.
 
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What are these 'files' on the target drive?
In any case...it is far, far safer to move everything off the target drive before clicking Go.

A major reorg like this takes preparation.
Better to take a couple hours getting your data straight, rather than trying to fix things after an "Oops".
 
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This is apparently about stuff that is on the target drive.
 
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Ok, aside from the noisy rma drive, I have 2x2tb drives. One is full with digital movies, and the tv from the noisy drive. The other one has like 325 free, and the rest of the space is occupied by pc games and music I've ripped from my cds. IS there no way to create say, a 150 gb partition on the seagate 2tb with 325 free, and copy my c drive to it?
 
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Maybe.
But the 'boot drive' is more than just the C partition.

I've done many, many clone operations between drives of differing sizes.
But never with existing data on the target that I needed to keep.

I would find a way to move that data off during this process.
 
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Macrium is my GoTo application for this.
But as said...I've never tried it with a drive with data I needed to keep.
 
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Well, the target drive only had like 300gb used up, so I just transferred that data to my other 2tb. The noisy rma drive has 1.53 tb used up, is there any way to estimate how long a clone should take for that much data?
 
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So...a totally blank target drive?

Maybe an hour? Assuming the source drive is fully working.

These steps, in this order:
-----------------------------
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
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 as necessary.
Delete the original boot partitions, here:
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/4f1b84ac-b193-40e3-943a-f45d52e23685/cant-delete-extra-healthy-recovery-partitions-and-healthy-efi-system-partition?forum=w8itproinstall
-----------------------------
 
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Solution


AN error message from what?
 
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From macrium reflect. I then started cmd with admin rights, and ran chkdsk C: /r and it said the type of file system is ntfs and chkdsk cannot lock current drive, stating the reason as the volume being used on another process. It then asked me if I wanted chkdk to be run upon the next restart, which I chose yes. chkdsk did not run after I restarted.
 
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OK...start at the beginning, the current OS drive.

Take out ALL other drives.
Boot the system up with just the source drive.
Does it work, or does it demand some chkdsk stuff?
 
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