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Question How do I clone from a HDD with 512 byte sectors to a new SSD with 4K byte sectors?

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MrRyzGuy

Feb 6, 2021
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I've been using a 1TB HDD as my sole drive for a good amount of time before recently getting an internal 1TB SATA SSD. I want to transfer everything from my HDD (OS, pictures, movies, games, etc.) to the new SSD so I can use it as both a boot drive and primary data drive. I tried using Macrium Reflect, but I keep getting errors because the byte sector size is incompatible. Is there any way I can transfer everything? I don't mind using other software as long as it's free, but I'm not super knowledgeable on all this stuff, so I'm really struggling with how to do this. I've read around a bit and see people talking about both cloning and imaging, but the cloning has seemingly not worked and I'm unsure of how to go about it with imaging. Any help is greatly appreciated. Sorry in advance for my technological illiteracy.
 
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hotaru.hino said:
Check if the manufacturer of your SSD has a cloning tool.

Otherwise, you can install the OS anyway on the SSD, set everything up, then copy as much as you can in the previous OS drive's User\[username] folder to your new one.
Click to expand...
Would the cloning tool work from a non-Samsung HDD to a Samsung SSD?
 
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If your target is a samsung ssd, use the samsung ssd migration app.
Download the app and instructions here:
www.samsung.com

Tool & Software Download | Samsung Semiconductor Global

Download various software related to your product, including Samsung Magician, designed for use with Samsung's memory products, and find related information.
www.samsung.com www.samsung.com
The app is a windows C drive logical mover, not a clone which is a bit for bit copy.
 
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USAFRet said:
For a Samsung target drive, probably.

Try it.

How much space is consumed on the source drive?
Click to expand...
The source drive has 671GB consumed. I downloaded the Samsung Data Migration Software, when I try to select a source drive and target drive I'm told a lot of addition space is required. This is what my screen currently looks like. It seems like my SSD might not be registering correctly (maybe a formatting issue idk).
N1CQmUq.png
 
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You might try with a Macrium Reflect Image, not a direct clone.

This requires some other drive, with sufficient free space to hold the entirety of your current C drive. Nothing will be wiped out, it just needs ~700GB free space.

This also requires a small flash drive. This will hold the Macrium Rescue function. You'll boot from that after the Image is created and the new drive is connected.
 
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Strange.
Try using the magician app to check your ssd.

There are some restrictions explained in the user manual which you should download.
The source windows must be sound. Past that, I can't think of anything else.

Can you use windows administrative functions to create a partition and access the ssd?
Anything you do will get reformatted by the migration aid in the end.
 
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USAFRet said:
Yeah, that is strange.
I thought SDM would do it without issue.
Click to expand...
I believe it is already properly formatted. Would you recommend I just go with imaging instead of trying to troubleshoot since chances are it won't work anyway due to sector size difference? If so could you help me out with the steps of the imaging process, I basically need an ELI5 for this sort of stuff.

Thank you for all your help so far.
 
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MrRyzGuy said:
I believe it is already properly formatted. Would you recommend I just go with imaging instead of trying to troubleshoot since chances are it won't work anyway due to sector size difference? If so could you help me out with the steps of the imaging process, I basically need an ELI5 for this sort of stuff.

Thank you for all your help so far.
Click to expand...
Do you have some other storage device with 700GB+ free space?
Do you have a small blank flash drive?
 
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USAFRet said:
Do you have some other storage device with 700GB+ free space?
Do you have a small blank flash drive?
Click to expand...
Yes I do, I have a 1TB External Drive and a 8GB flash drive. The External Drive is what I used for backups, will I need to delete that first and if so is there any special way I need to go about deleting everything?
 
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MrRyzGuy said:
Yes I do, I have a 1TB External Drive and a 8GB flash drive. The External Drive is what I used for backups, will I need to delete that first and if so is there any special way I need to go about deleting everything?
Click to expand...
  1. Disconnect ALL drives except your current C drive and verify it actually boots up.
  2. In Macrium, create a RescueUSB. On the menu bar, Other Tasks - Create Rescue Media. This is the small flash drive. When done, remove this drive.
  3. Reconnect the external thing you're going to save the Image on.
  4. Run Macrium, and select "Image This disk..." option. Select ALL partitions on the C drive. This Image gets saved to the external. It results in a single file of xx.mrimage
  5. Power off, connect this new 860, disconnect ALL other drives.
  6. Boot up from the RescueUSB you made earlier
  7. Follow the steps for "Recover" Tell it where the Image is, and what device to recover to (the new 860)
  8. Hopefully, it works.
 
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USAFRet said:
  1. Disconnect ALL drives except your current C drive and verify it actually boots up.
  2. In Macrium, create a RescueUSB. On the menu bar, Other Tasks - Create Rescue Media. This is the small flash drive. When done, remove this drive.
  3. Reconnect the external thing you're going to save the Image on.
  4. Run Macrium, and select "Image This disk..." option. Select ALL partitions on the C drive. This Image gets saved to the external. It results in a single file of xx.mrimage
  5. Power off, connect this new 860, disconnect ALL other drives.
  6. Boot up from the RescueUSB you made earlier
  7. Follow the steps for "Recover" Tell it where the Image is, and what device to recover to (the new 860)
  8. Hopefully, it works.
Click to expand...
Thank you so much for your help, I'll be trying this later today and will update if it's successful.
 
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USAFRet said:
  1. Disconnect ALL drives except your current C drive and verify it actually boots up.
  2. In Macrium, create a RescueUSB. On the menu bar, Other Tasks - Create Rescue Media. This is the small flash drive. When done, remove this drive.
  3. Reconnect the external thing you're going to save the Image on.
  4. Run Macrium, and select "Image This disk..." option. Select ALL partitions on the C drive. This Image gets saved to the external. It results in a single file of xx.mrimage
  5. Power off, connect this new 860, disconnect ALL other drives.
  6. Boot up from the RescueUSB you made earlier
  7. Follow the steps for "Recover" Tell it where the Image is, and what device to recover to (the new 860)
  8. Hopefully, it works.
Click to expand...
1 last question, during step 5 when you say disconnect all other drives does this include the external drive with the image?
 
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Can you read the ssd?
In this pc, does it show up?
Does it show what the capacity is and what is available?
If there is a problem with the ssd, I would not try other methods until I knew that the drive was sound.
You might try samsung support on the issue.
Possibly, the drive needs to be returned under warranty.

Samsung magician should be able to test the drive.
Determine that it is a legitimate samsung 860 evo, and reinitialize it if need be.
 
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USAFRet said:
No.
That is where the image lies to recover from.
Basically, you want only the drives that are actually needed.
Click to expand...
I followed all the steps and it still doesn’t seem to be working. I’m successfully able to boot into the Macrium Reflect thing, but when I go to “Browse for an image file” and find the image it’s showing up as being in my original drive not my external drive. Then when I go to “Restore Image” and try to select my SSD as the disk to restore to it gives me the same message it did when trying to clone that sector size was incompatible. Am I doing something wrong? I’m so confused.
 
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USAFRet said:
You should be able to navigate to the external, and the Image on that.

After creation of the Image, power OFF and disconnect the original drive.

Have only the external and the new drive connected.
Click to expand...
I did, it was still showing up as my original drive even though I disconnected both SATA and power cables and the external was not showing up.
 
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USAFRet said:
I'm baffled as to how it can discover the old drive if it is not physically connected.

This is booting up from the Macrium Rescue USB?

Can you show a screencap of this?
Click to expand...
I will try to get a screencap in a second. In the meantime I reconnected all my drives to see if I could discern what was going on and for some reason it’s showing up as if my original drive has the image and the external has everything normally. I know this can’t be true because when I had the original drive disconnect it didn’t boot into normal Windows 10, but into the Macrium screen, so I’m baffled as to why this could possibly be occurring.
 
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USAFRet said:
I'm baffled as to how it can discover the old drive if it is not physically connected.

This is booting up from the Macrium Rescue USB?

Can you show a screencap of this?
Click to expand...
https://imgur.com/a/XmjzKeG
Here’s a screenshot of the sort of screen I get when booting without touching anything. Also I just booted in normally so I could look at the content of each drive, everything is where it should be, so I’m extremely confused as to how it could possibly have 1. Read the image as being in the original drive and 2. Detected the original drive at all since it was not attached to any power and SATA cables at the time. Looking in Disk Management my external drive doesn’t show up as having anything it but when I open it through Disk Management I can see the image file and it also shows up on Macrium.
 
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