[SOLVED] How do I transfer Windows 10 to my SSD without having to clone it?

[JMusharb]

I am trying to figure out how to get my OS to my SSD from my HDD. I am a Samsung 970 Evo 500gb and it can hold everything that is on my HDD.

 

[shadi shtaklef]

you cant. u have to clone it

 

[JMusharb]

you cant. u have to clone it

What is the easiest way to clone it?

 

[Alabalcho]

Your SSD most probably came with a utility to do that.

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

the SSD you have as Alabalcho said will most likely have come with something like Acronis True Image software for this purpose.

Things you should know before hand though, when creating a cloned image, the cloned image has to be the same size or less as the current available capacity of your SSD.

So even if you are only taking up 300GB of space on your HDD but the HDD is a 1TB then the clone won't work since the cloned image with be of the entire HDD with partitions and everything.

So what you'll need to do is use software that can make a cloned image of your HDD, but be able to shrink it's size and partitioning in the clone so that it only is the size of what was on the drive.

I am not sure if Acronis can properly do this or not, but I am pretty sure that Macrium Reflect can, or maybe even EaseUS.

Othwerise, you'll need to manually shrink your HDD partition to be just slightly above what is being taken up in space using the built in disk manager in Windows 10, then clone that specifically using the cloning software.

 

[shadi shtaklef]

windows has a way you can clone a whole drive. see https://www.faqforge.com/windows/windows-10/take-full-backup-windows-10-on-an-external-hard-drive/

 

[britechguy]

windows has a way you can clone a whole drive. see https://www.faqforge.com/windows/windows-10/take-full-backup-windows-10-on-an-external-hard-drive/

First: A system image backup and a clone are not, in any way, shape, or form, the same thing.

Second: The built-in backup & recovery utility of Windows was deprecated (though not yet removed) by Microsoft all the way back at release 1703.
Microsoft Announcement of things removed/deprecated as of Fall Creators Update, including SIB [Backup and Restore (Windows 7)]

There are many utilities that allow you to downsize or upsize to a different drive when cloning an disc. When downsizing the drive being cloned to does, of course, have to have enough capacity to deal with what's actually taken up already on the drive being cloned.

I've used Miray HD Clone in the distant past and several of the major backup utilities, but I can't recall specifically which I used for cloning. Almost all of them support a disc clone function with resizing as part of the clone.

 

[shadi shtaklef]

ok but if you restore from that backup that you took then your windows drive will get restored to exactly how it was at the time when you made the backup. thus you can say that the backup is a clone of your windows drive

 

[TerryLaze]

you cant. u have to clone it

You can but it's not worth the hassle.

Othwerise, you'll need to manually shrink your HDD partition to be just slightly above what is being taken up in space

Or just slightly below the size the new disk is if you don't need partitions on it and want to use the whole space.

 

[USAFRet]

Going from a SATA drive to an NVMe drive brings its own special oddities.
It may work, it may fail.

Try it and see what happens:
-----------------------------
Specific steps for a successful clone operation:
-----------------------------
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
This is to allow the system to try to boot from ONLY the 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 all partitions on it.
This will probably require the commandline diskpart function, and the clean command.

Ask questions if anything is unclear.
-----------------------------

 

[USAFRet]

the SSD you have as Alabalcho said will most likely have come with something like Acronis True Image software for this purpose.

Things you should know before hand though, when creating a cloned image, the cloned image has to be the same size or less as the current available capacity of your SSD.

So even if you are only taking up 300GB of space on your HDD but the HDD is a 1TB then the clone won't work since the cloned image with be of the entire HDD with partitions and everything.

So what you'll need to do is use software that can make a cloned image of your HDD, but be able to shrink it's size and partitioning in the clone so that it only is the size of what was on the drive.

I am not sure if Acronis can properly do this or not, but I am pretty sure that Macrium Reflect can, or maybe even EaseUS.

Othwerise, you'll need to manually shrink your HDD partition to be just slightly above what is being taken up in space using the built in disk manager in Windows 10, then clone that specifically using the cloning software.

The current cloning tools don't much care about the physical drive sizes.
Only the source data size in relation to the target drive size.

1TB source with 300GB consumed will easily clone into a 500GB target.

Older tools like CloneZilla did require that the source drive or partition be actually smaller than the target, irrespective of how much space was consumed.

 

[britechguy]

thus you can say that the backup is a clone of your windows drive

No, you can't.

A cloned drive is a "plug n' play" item after it has been cloned. It is ready to go as is. No restore process is necessary.

It is important that people understand terminology and use it correctly. A drive that is created by restoring a backup will do what you say, but it is not, absolutely not, a cloned drive. It's a drive that's been restored to. It is unusable until or unless a restore process has been run to get content on to it.