[SOLVED] Shrink and clone for new SSD

[ChristopherAugst]

So my wife has an older HP Pavilion M7. I have been upgrading it for her to give it some new life. I already did RAM and upgrade from Windows 7 to 10.

She has a 1 TB HDD in it. I bought her a 250GB SSD. The HDD has only about 45 GB used as I wiped it clean to do Windows 10 from 7. I tried shrinking it down to go onto the new drive but I can only shrink it down to about 400 GB, even after a defrag. Obviously I need to make it smaller to clone it.

I tried to do a fresh Windows 10 install on it using boot media but it won't pick up the drive. I have already intialized it and it has a drive letter from being connected by USB, but when I pull the old HHD out and put the SSD in Windows Installer won't pick it up.

How do I shrink it more so I can clone, or alternatively how can I get the Windows Installer to give me a clean install? It only gives me upgrade option which won't work.

 

[richiestang_78]

What software are you using to clone it? Cloning software usually only requires that you have enough space on the new SDD to match how much used space is on the old HDD

I would try and use Macrium Reflect. https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree. It's pretty straightforward and easy

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LClr3FPg4_4

 

[USAFRet]

Given 40GB actual used space, and a 250GB drive, you do not need to shrink anything.
The newer tools (Macrium mentioned above) only consider the data size, not the drive or partition size.

It will work.

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Specific steps for a successful clone operation:
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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.
-----------------------------

 

[ChristopherAugst]

What software are you using to clone it? Cloning software usually only requires that you have enough space on the new SDD to match how much used space is on the old HDD

I would try and use Macrium Reflect. https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree. It's pretty straightforward and easy

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LClr3FPg4_4

So I did this first with this software but when I put the drive into the bay and started up I got the Windows icon for a few moments then black screen. When I clicked the screen I got the cursor and the blue thinking circle and then nothing again.

 

[richiestang_78]

The easiest way to do a clone would be to buy a cheap cable like this https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-SATA-USB-Cable-USB3S2SAT3CB/dp/B00HJZJI84 , plug the SSD into the SATA end, the USB into a free USB port on the laptop, then running the Cloning software installed on the HDD clone it form the HDD to the SSD.

After that, power off the laptop, remove the battery if possible, swap the HDD for the SSD and you shoudl be good to go.

 

[ChristopherAugst]

So I cloned it as directed initially. After cloning I swapped it with the HDD. I got the initial Windows logo then black. If I clicked the mouse I got the cursor and blue thinking circle momentarily then black again.

 

[USAFRet]

So I cloned it as directed initially. After cloning I swapped it with the HDD. I got the initial Windows logo then black. If I clicked the mouse I got the cursor and blue thinking circle momentarily then black again.

The there is either a hardware fail, or a procedural fail.

Can you put the system back together as it was originally?
Does it work?

 

[ChristopherAugst]

Yes it works perfectly when I put the old HDD back in. I will try the clone process again and if that fails try clean install from boot disk. Someone suggested I may need to change my BIOS settings when I do the clean install route.

 

[USAFRet]

If needed:

How To - Windows 10 clean install tutorial

If you are looking for the Windows 11 Clean install tutorial, you can find that here: Windows 11 Clean install tutorial (Click here) Otherwise, welcome to the Windows 10 Clean install tutorial This tutorial is intended to help you, step by step, to perform a clean install of Windows...

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[fzabkar]

Seagate and WD both provide a free OEM version of Acronis True Image. Seagate calls it DiscWizard. ATI can do "proportional cloning", ie it can expand or shrink the existing partitions to fit on the target drive, provided that there is sufficient free space.

I would defragment the source partitions, just to be sure.

 

[SkyNetRising]

So I cloned it as directed initially. After cloning I swapped it with the HDD. I got the initial Windows logo then black. If I clicked the mouse I got the cursor and blue thinking circle momentarily then black again.

First boot from cloned drive must be done with old drive disconnected.
If you fail to do this, cloning must be redone.

 

[ChristopherAugst]

So I redid the clone process. This time it failed to boot from it. I put in my boot USB and did a fresh install instead and it worked perfectly. Thanks for the help.