Is it possible to clone a system drive and keep existing software licenses?

[marvindash]

Hi. I've been having some trouble with my PC. I got the blue screen of death last week and now have a very hard time getting my PC to recognize the C drive. I tried various things suggested on YouTube but these didn't work, but eventually (after about 45 minutes of shutting down and switching back on) the C drive will get recognized and I'm into Windows with everything working fine. To avoid experiencing such a problem again I've now simply left my PC on for a week.

Obviously that's not an ideal permanent solution, so I suspect (correct me if I'm wrong - I'm not knowledgeable on computer matters) the only solution is to get a new C drive and reinstall everything. Except that's going to be a problem, because I have some software installed that is important for my work (bear in mind I'm self-employed) and is no longer supported or available. So ideally I'd want to be able to copy all data from my current C drive to a new C drive and hopefully still have existing software licenses recognized. Is that possible? And is there a risk of data corruption during the transfer? I don't want to take my PC to a repair shop because that would mean shutting it down, and then the C drive might be not be recognized this time.

 

[13thmonkey]

OK, go and get the following.

USB caddy for your new HDD/SSD
a new HDD/SDD
Download macrium reflect or similar

Then you can clone to the new drive (ask before doing), and then switch off, change the boot order and you'll be fine.

This is all assuming that whatever you've done from youtube hasn't caused problems, and that data is not corrupt on the old drive.

 

[marvindash]

I've got a 2.5"/3.5" HDD docking station which connects via USB. I presume USB caddy is just another term for such a docking station? Problem is, my C drive is an SSD, and this docking station says 'HDD Support: 2.5"/3.5" SATA', so I guess I'm going to have to purchase an SSD docking station.

Macrium Reflect is free for non-business use, so that's good.

The suggestions from YouTube were all fairly straightforward. Press F12 on booting up and try standard troubleshooting, but nothing beyond that. The drive itself wasn't being recognized, so there was nothing I could do to it. Getting into Windows was more luck in the end.

I'm off to the shop to get a new SSD and an SSD docking station/caddy. Will report back later. Thanks for your response!

 

[13thmonkey]

You just need the SSD. The caddy will work.

 

[CountMike]

Cloning may fail if source disk is damaged but full disk backup with MR could work (did it few times myself). When doing full disk backup only sectors in use are transferred.
In either case, exact copy of all data is transferred so no licenses are affected.

 

[USAFRet]

If your current drive works fully, cloning usually works. Usually.
And assuming the drive sizes and current consumed space meet requirements.

These steps exactly, adjusting for having a drive caddy...

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 as necessary.
Delete the 450MB Recovery Partition, 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
-----------------------------

 

[marvindash]

Thanks for the responses guys. I’ve purchased a new HDD and initialized it. I downloaded Macrium Reflect. However, I’ve run into a small problem. Although my existing C drive says 24.9 GB free of 107 GB and the replacement (B drive) says 111 GB free of 111 GB, when I go to clone it in MR leaving all partitions selected, MR says ‘Not all copied. Insufficient space’. (Bear in mind that I’ve removed all the files that were in the C drive’s Photos, Downloads, Documents, Music and Videos folders, and I also deleted any non-essential programs, such as ABBYY Fine Reader, which was taking up quite a bit of space, and a few smaller programs like Firefox. I also ensured the Recycle Bin was empty.)

Here are the listed partitions on the existing C drive:

1 – WINRE (None)
NTFS Primary
226.5 MB
300.0 MB

2 – SYSTEM (None)
FAT32 (LBA) Primary
25.7 MB
260.0 MB

3 – (None)
Unformatted Primary
128.0 MB
128.0 MB

4 – WINDOWS (C
NTFS Primary
82.62 GB
107.57 GB

5 – IMGSTOR (None)
NTFS Primary
8.88 GB
11.00 GB

Here’s what’s showing in MR for the source disk (B) after I try to copy selected (all) partitions to it:

1 – WINRE (B
NTFS Primary
226.5 MB
300.0 MB

2 – SYSTEM (None)
FAT32 (LBA) Primary
25.7 MB
260.0 MB

3 – (None)
Unformatted Primary
128.0 MB
128.0 MB

4 – WINDOWS (Auto)
NTFS Primary
82.62 GB
107.5 GB

…and the fifth box, where ‘5 – IMGSTOR (None) 8.88 GB 11.00 GB’ should end up is greyed out and the only text in it is ‘3.55 GB’.

Does the new (B) drive need to have something done to it to ‘prep’ it for the data?

 

[USAFRet]

Still too much space consumed to go into a 120GB SSD.
It needs plenty of free space to work.

What is in the IMGSTOR partition?
Possibly just deselect that one during the cloning process.

 

[marvindash]

I have no idea what's in it. I did a bit of research online and some guy was asking why there was an IMGSTOR partition on his drive, and as is the same in my case he hadn't created the partitions himself. I've deselected the IMGSTOR partition and am cloning the rest.

 

[USAFRet]

I have no idea what's in it. I did a bit of research online and some guy was asking why there was an IMGSTOR partition on his drive, and as is the same in my case he hadn't created the partitions himself. I've deselected the IMGSTOR partition and am cloning the rest.

Was this a prebuilt PC or laptop?

 

[marvindash]

Prebuilt. The clone is complete (minus the last partition, the IMGSTOR one). I'm about to have dinner and then put the kids to bed, but will return to this issue after that.

EDIT: Now there's not just a B drive in This PC. There's a B drive with 71.2 MB free of 299 MB and a (new) E drive with 27.9 GB free of 107 GB.

 

[USAFRet]

For a prebuilt system, that IMGSTOR partition is the original Factory Reset data.
Used to bring the system back to original out of the box condition.


I'd have to see a screencap of your current Disk Management window to see what you're talking about with your EDIT info.

 

[marvindash]

Here's one. C is the existing system drive. D is the CD/DVD drive (with Windows backup disk in it). F is my data disk. B is the new drive, and E appeared after doing the cloning, so the cloning process must have created two drives out of the same SSD.

 

[USAFRet]

Here's one. C is the existing system drive. D is the CD/DVD drive (with Windows backup disk in it). F is my data disk. B is the new drive, and E appeared after doing the cloning, so the cloning process must have created two drives out of the same SSD.

No, Disk Management.
Not Windows Explorer.

Looks like this:

 

[marvindash]

Apologies. Here's the Disk Management one. EDIT: For some reason I can't see the image, so if you can't see it here's the link: https://i.imgur.com/FD6SQWn.png

 

[USAFRet]

Ok, so which physical drive is your new OS on? the one you want it to be on?
Disk 0 or Disk 2?

 

[marvindash]

Disk 2.

 

[USAFRet]

Disk 2.

OK...as referenced in the above instruction list...
At the end of the cloning process, you NEED to power off, disconnect the old drive, and allow the system to try to boot up from the new drive.

Also, you needed to have ALL other drives disconnected during this process.

 

[marvindash]

OK, cool. That's something I'll have to try Monday morning as it's getting late here now and I'll be out all day tomorrow. Thank you so much for your help so far!