Disk imaging to smaller SSD using free software

[buddhaseeking]

I have spent several hours searching the net, but can not find a direct solution in one place. But, i have been able to understand the issues in going from a bigger SSD to smaller SSD, by reading various sites. First let me tell you the parts involved :

Current system has 239 GB Samsung PM810 (ie. 470 series) SSD in Dell laptop(E6420)
The single partition has 94GB occupied and rest free space.
Windows XP/SP3 is running currently, and for various reasons, i can not upgrade OS.
There is no access to original XP CD and no way to reset system to original factory OS. Essentially, i can not load any OS if things go wrong in my attempt to switch the SSDs.
For various reasons, i want to move this entire system to a new Samsung EVO 850 SSD of 128 GB.
I am looking for freeware solutions on net, to copy the entire system to the new SSD.

The solutions i found for moving from a larger disk to a smaller disk are few years old. I gather from net, that i need to use a free software like EaseUS Partition Master or minitools or PartedMagic, to resize the current 239 primary partition. I can resize the primary to be 120 GB, which will accomodate the entire 94GB apps+data+OS. (Note: Of this 94GB, half the space is taken up by the Windows XP backup file i created to safeguard the system state.) Suggestions are appreciated, as i would like to find a licence free software that i can use for the year ahead.

Next, i am planning to hook up the new SSD as an external disk to the system. I want to find a free software that can move the entire system from the newly created 120GB primary partition (including MBR), to the external, brand new 128 GB SSD. After this disk copy, i should be able to swap the SSDs. I am not worried about performance issues at this point, as i plan to address SSD alignment and stuff later on. Samsung Magician software and others do not recognize the current PM810 model, since this is specifically made for DELL, and software from Samsung is not working. I am considering options that are discussed on the net, like EaseUS disk copy (free edition), Clonezilla etc.

Thanks in advance for all suggestions.

 

[drtweak]

Use Macrium Reflect. As long as the amount of data is smaller than the target hard drive it will clone.

Also if you need I can give you a link to a Dell Windows XP SP3 OEM DVD if you wish to have.

 

[buddhaseeking]

Thanks drtweak. Thanks for the pointer to Win XP. I found out that i can email DELL, and they will send me a copy of the original OS. So, i will get the OS sent to me within couple of weeks i guess.

I had EaseUS installed, but that requires a seperate software to do partitions. I have installed Macrium Reflect + WinPE components that come with it (free edition). I am not familiar with all the uses of WinPE; so i want to check with you before i start the process. Can you confirm that the following steps will work ?
1. After i shrink the current OS partition, I will create a "disk image" ( "bootable image" ) using Macrium. This will be stored, let us say at c:\bakup.mac
2. Reboot system, with the brand new 128GB SSD attached as an external drive.
3. Use Macrium (or winPE ? not sure) from within Windows XP, to restore the bootable disk image (from C:\backup.mac) to the external drive (128GB).
4. Use Macrium to tag the single partition in new SSD (external) as a "primary partition".
5. Shut down PC, swap the ssd with the new SSD being the only internal disk in system.
6. Boot up PC, and hope that i will have exact replica of the XP system i had before.

Should i prep a CD with the WinPE components on it ? I can wait for 2 weeks for the arrival of XP OS from Dell, but i would rather not wait and get this done. I have put together systems before from barebone hardware parts, and i know unexpected problems can pop up during these kind of big changes in system. What i am not sure about is the ability of Macrium to copy the MBR type boot info and restore it to the new disk, in order to replicate a disk.

 

[drtweak]

The WinPE version if a bootable disk if you want to do offline cloning. It CAN clone the OS drive while you are running windows. Second you do NOT need to shrink the partition at all! No need to!

Install Macrium on the PC. Connect the SSD drive. Clone the partition you want to the new SSD.

Now are their multiple partitions or no? And with macrium if you want just one partition uncheck the box to the left of the hard drive in the cloning window and then check the box that is below the partition you want to clone.

Also doesn't hurt to make a USB/CD of the Resuce disk. Sometimes if you aren't cloning the whole disk you have to boot off the disk, then once in Macrium click on Restore i beelive at the top, and in there is Fix boot problems. Just follow the directions and you should be good. If you do that i would suggest only having the SSD connected and no other HDD/SSD's just to be safe.

Also if you do reinstall with windows XP make sure the SSD is the ONLY drive installed. XP is the worse one when it comes to installing on the wrong drive letter lol plenty of times have people installed and XP is the D or E drive and not C drive lol

 

[buddhaseeking]

Thanks for your answer. I made a WinPE boot CD yesterday and tested it by booting from it. Here is the image of what WinPE sees. I have seen other Dell systems and they ship with 3 partitions:

1. A master boot partition
2. A hidden restore partition that contains the OS etc. for emergency reset to factory conditions
3. The c: partition that is visible to the windows user.

But, as you see in the image, Macrium is showing only c: and a X: partition. Not sure what the X: contains. So, i am wondering if there is a hidden partition (restore partition) that Macrium is not able to see.

The other thing i am wondering about is the cloning Vs imaging option. I am going to clone the disk as you suggested. But, i also wonder if the MBR will be saved to a file, in case i try to image this disk and want to store this image in a DVD for emergencies later on. Click here to see the image of what i see as soon as i start Macrium - only 1 partition with MBR.

 

[drtweak]

can you send me a screen shot of disk managment and the partition layout of the whole drive you are trying to clone

 

[drtweak]

making a backup image is a great idea. this way if you lose the hard drive you have something to restore from but the different between imaging and cloning is just that 1) makes a 1:1 copy from disk to disk the other just makes a 1:1 copy in a file to save for later or as a backup.

 

[buddhaseeking]

can you send me a screen shot of disk managment and the partition layout of the whole drive you are trying to clone

I guess you did not see the URL's of the two photo shots, in my previous post. I have shared the images of Macrium, using google drive and you should be able to see my partition/disk in those two weblinks (if not let me know, and i will try again). Windows XP disk management program reports the same 1 disk, 1 partition of NTFS in c:

When i make an image of the disk, do you know if the hidden partitions would also go into the image file ? I found another thread in macrium forums, where i person reported his difficulties in trying to clone to a smaller SSD, but under Win 7. (See this URL. I don't know if things have improved with this new macrium version 6, because his post is 4 yrs old. From what your instructions imply, this process for Windows XP should not be so complicated as he states.

 

[drtweak]

I saw the links. the reason why i was asking for disk management is because the pics you linked to do not show that X drive. If in macrium reflect it shows the disk with the C drive on it ans one big drive and no X drive on there then where is it coming from? Macrium would show any "Hidden" partition on the drive.

 

[buddhaseeking]

Thanks for your answers. I figured out what the X: partition (128MB) in my photo was. BTW, you can see it in the first link i gave (or copy this as your URL https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bw1pJPIG-O3WTWJNb3BFTEFycTg/view?usp=sharing). That partition appeared only once because i chose to reboot & run Macrium WinPE from the CD, right after the CD creation process (within Windows). That 128MB partition is a Microsoft secure area created (from what i gather on net) and that partition did not appear the second time i booted using WinPE. So, i consistently see a single partition now (c: with MBR occupying the entire disk). I see 1 disk, 1 partition under Windows Disk Management, Macrium, WinPE as well as Partition Master (from EaseUS). So, that puzzle is solved.

So, i went ahead and attempted a disk clone. From macrium forum pages, i got the impression that it was better to do this from WinPE CD boot. So, i booted using the Macrium WinPE CD, attached my brand new SSD (Samsung EVO 120GB), and clicked on clone. During clone, it got a Read Error and aborted. Reading the Macrium Forums, i gathered that this is because of some form of corruption in the source disk (Samsung PM810). The suggestion was to fix SSD errors using Samsung diagnostics tool (which is called Samsung Magician Software). Unfortunately, this PM810 SSD is a OEM version specifically made for Dell to include in their laptops and Samsung Magician Software does not support it, even though it is their product. As a show of bad software writing, Samsung Magician will recognize the 470 SSD (which is exactly the same as PM810 sold to DELL).

I tried twice to clone, and both times got the same read error 13. Macrium forum suggested windows chkdsk /r /f as a second alternative, and i have done that also, but clone gave the same error. So, now i am stuck with the PM810 that can not be fixed because DELL sucks in their product support. Never a DELL in my life. Meanwhile, i have to post this problem in DELL support forums and see if there is any way to fix this corrupt PM810, since Samsung tool won't recognize it.

It is not critical that i fix this disk, but i would like to save all the work i saved on this for 3 years, without a backup. If this disk dies i would be in trouble, and i am going to try imaging it tonight. Will let you know how the imaging and restore panes out. If you have any ideas, i would try them too.

 

[drtweak]

Download Crytal Disk Info in my signature. lets see if the SSD is failing. If it is we may need to use other software to clone or you may just have to start over.

 

[buddhaseeking]

drtweak, I have picked your answer as solution to my original problem. My current problem is beyond the scope of the original post. Thanks for staying with this thread. As you suggest, i will run Crystal Info. I will also try to Image the disk and save it in the same (original PM810) disk. Then i can run WinPE with my brand new SSD attached as external USB disk, and try to restore the image to the external new SSD. I will look around and see if Crystal Info or some other freebie on net can fix bad sectors in a SSD. Chkdsk is obviously not enough to handle an SSD. If only i can get rid of the bad sectors, then the clone would succeed, as per Macrium Forum.

 

[drtweak]

Yea we will need to get some cloning software that can skip over the bad sectors because that is the one flay of Macrium. R-Studio is a good one but not free.

 

[buddhaseeking]

I ran Crystal-disk-info as you suggested, but don't know how to interpret the SMART values given by that program. So, i took a photo of output to share with you. Please see https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bw1pJPIG-O3WWHRnZjJIVWUtZkk/view . Meanwhile, the imaging of disk is in progress and is getting stored in the second/external/brand new SSD (Samsung EVO 120GB). Once complete, I will transfer image to the internal SSD (that has bad sectors) and then boot system using WinPE CD and restore image from internal to the brand new external USB SSD. I am hoping that this will create an exact replica which is bootable. Currently the system is functioning without any problems. But, i am going to attempt some complicated changes (like removal of Symantec Endpoint protection registry entries before i install Kaspersky on this Windows XP system). So, i wanted to save the original SSD (PM810 that is crappy with bad sectors) and attempt all my modifications on this restored image which will be on a brand new SSD. If things go south during my extensive registry changes, i can always bring back this current SSD back to system. I have done the research, and there is no easy way to remove Symantec Endpoint Protection (its a long story i will spare). Theoretically, i should be able to create replicas this way using imaging and keep progressing in the fixes that i want to apply to this system (including trying to activate AHCPI on the SSD, which is currently not active in BIOS). Apparently i need to update Intel RST to do this.

 

[buddhaseeking]

Yea we will need to get some cloning software that can skip over the bad sectors because that is the one flay of Macrium. R-Studio is a good one but not free.

I usually check with this website here and i read a top hit link on google that recommends GetDataBack. Perhaps, i do not have to resort to any of these software, if all i need is to clean up this Samsung PM810 a bit, make sure TRIM can run on it (because Windows xp does not have support for TRIM) and update the SATA controller, to make sure i get decent performance out of this old SSD. Crystal-Disk-Info says the SSD is still 82% good, and i am hoping that you can read that output and give some insights. I will continue to use this old SSD, as long as it is 50% good and shows no sign of dying. I will keep making disk images once a month, because there is over 50 apps i have installed on this over last 3 years.

 

[drtweak]

Does Crystal disk Info say that is is in good or does it show as caution or bad?

 

[buddhaseeking]

Does Crystal disk Info say that is is in good or does it show as caution or bad?

I am starting to wonder if you are able to see the photos that i am sharing in my prior posts. (OR, maybe you did not see my prior post because i posted 2 messages in a row). I posted the link in a prior post (with message time stamp showing 6.10pm on my PC) that shows the output of Crystal Disk Info. Are you able to see the links that i am including in my posts ? if i remember correctly so far i have given 3 photos in this thread. The last one is the shared URL https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bw1pJPIG-O3WWHRnZjJIVWUtZkk/view (BTW, the SSD is 82% healthy according to that program. It also publishes SMART values, but i have not learnt how to interpret them). Macrium created the disk image successfully, but took 1.5hrs on USB 2.0 and now copying that to my internal SSD is taking another 1.5 hrs. Will try restoring that image after that - perhaps tonight. Within another 24 hrs, i will swap the disks, and find out if the restored image is any good ; i will try to open all programs and check if all apps are working in the newly formed/restored bootable SSD that theoretically will be a replica.

 

[drtweak]

Yea i got bad eyes XD sometimes it best to make a new paragraph and then the link so people see it easier lol that is what I always do.

Ah ok sweet so it did image it at least

 

[buddhaseeking]

Good suggestion on how to post links here. I also thought it is being difficult in this forum to see URLs because they do not stand out from the rest of the text. Perhaps i will try to make the link letters be in BOLD & italic in future. Finally, i got the system transferred last night. Cloning failed and i had no software from DELL to fix bad sectors in the SSD they supplied. But, imaging worked - took 1.5 hr to create image (on the external USB SSD), then another 1.5 hrs to copy that image to the internal, then another 2 hrs to restore from image on internal SSD to the external new SSD (using WinPE). I tried booting from the external USB SSD, but got the BSOD even though it did start loading from the USB SSD. Then, i simply swapped the SSDs and made the new one as the internal one pulling out the old as backup copy i can safe keep. Now, i got the system up and running and apps are doing ok so far. Thanks for your pointers. I will start another thread, because the storage drivers old and from Microsoft and i am sure i can get this SSD to move to AHCI when i get some time later on. Lesson -> Cloning is faster than imaging, but imaging is more reliable way to replicate an existing system.

 

[drtweak]

Yea they both have their ups and downs and also having the right software is great as well

 

[buddhaseeking]

Wanted to close out this thread with a note about my observations. I have run the system using the new SSD for 10 days now. While it was stable overall, i noticed BSOD once or twice. During very first boot, Windows XP said that it recognized new hardware if i wanted to install drivers. I let it install drivers, and SSD worked fine. But, i noticed that my ATA drivers were old MS drivers, and the performance is miserable. So, updating all drivers is needed, since the laptop is 6 years old and has never had a BIOS or driver update. The second thing i noticed is that some application won't work even though it is a disk image - specifically, my "Hardware Monitor" won't start up to show the temperatures inside. Minor issue. I am about to nuke the system, and do a fresh install of BIOS, drivers, OS etc, to restart life of this laptop. Overall, a successful backup, thanks to your help.

 

[drtweak]

Wells since you are running XP and it is a 6 year old laptop i don't expect there to me any "New" ATA drivers. I mean windows 7 uses drives that came out 3 years for it did. I just checked my windows 10 here and the MS ATA AHCI drives form 2006 as well do don't worry about those as much.

Also what is the BSOD error code do you know? Also if that laptop is the one you said in the first post it is more like 4 years old not 6 and more than likely may or may not have a BIOS update. My Studio XPS from 2009 had BIOS A01 and then A02 and that was it. The laptops dont see as many BIOS updates as the desktops do in which some hit up to A09/A10.

If you need a Dell XP CD Let me know. I got all dell version of windows from XP to Windows 10.