Question How to transfer dual boot Windows 10/Linux drive to two seperate drives?

[Sparktown]

My system currently has a dual boot setup with Windows 10 / Linux on a single Samsung SSD with MBR. I just got a new, larger Samsung SSD. I want to transfer my Windows installation to the new drive and keep my Linux install on the old drive. I want to keep both drives in my system and select which OS I use on boot. I want to be able to do this easily through GRUB rather than having to always mess with the boot order (unless there is a way to make doing that easier than dealing with GRUB).

Samsung Migration software only seems to be able to just clone the whole drive, not move individual partitions. So, I'm not sure of the best way to go about doing this.

Also, the older SSD currently uses MBR and the newer one is still unformated. I would like to be able to use GPT instead. No particular reason, it just seems a little better. However, I may mess around with encrypting the Linux SSD, so let me know if GPT would get in the way of that.

If someone could steer me in the right direction on this, I would appreciate it. I want to do this soon. Thanks.

 

[TerryLaze]

Clone the whole disk.
Use your bios boot menu (or boot disk settings) to boot into the new ssd. (windows)
Delete the unneeded partition from each disk,you can use windowses own disk manager or get a free partition tool.
Extend the remaining partition to cover the whole disk.
Use the free version of easybcd to add linux back into the windows boot menu.

OPTIONAL
Use your bios boot menu to boot into the old ssd (linux) .
Replace/repair the MBR/Grub on the old ssd to boot into linux,make sure it does not mess with the new ssd,safest way is to take out the other ssd.

 

[karenjoly]

Here is an answer to the MBR/GPT issue. Macrium Reflect Free version will allow you to clone the MBR disk to a GPT disk. The process involves setting up the new disk in a GPT partition and then cloning the MBR disk to the new one, making sure to place the old partitions after the small (128 MB) partition at the front of the disk. I don'y have time now to deal with the other issues. Remember that windows needs to be in UEFI to boot a GPT disk
See this :

http://reflect.macrium.com/help/v5/how_to/conversions/convert_an_mbr_disk_to_a_gpt_disk.htm

 

[Sparktown]

I will post what I did in case this might help someone. I decided to just try the Samsung Data Migration Tool. Samsung Data Migration Tool doesn't really give you any additional options, so I just let it run to see what it would do. The tool just cloned my Windows 10 system partition. The Linux partitions and the WinRE partition were not cloned.

This gave me a drive with only one large Windows 10 NTFS system partition and MBR. Later, I converted from MBR to GPT using MBR2GPT.

 

[sylum.mail]

Here is an answer to the MBR/GPT issue. Macrium Reflect Free version will allow you to clone the MBR disk to a GPT disk. The process involves setting up the new disk in a GPT partition and then cloning the MBR disk to the new one, making sure to place the old partitions after the small (128 MB) partition at the front of the disk. I don'y have time now to deal with the other issues. Remember that windows needs to be in UEFI to boot a GPT disk
See this :

http://reflect.macrium.com/help/v5/how_to/conversions/convert_an_mbr_disk_to_a_gpt_disk.htm

Best answer. Macrium are life savers