[SOLVED] Transfer everything from hard drive to an ssd

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Insane Potatoz

Insane Potatoz

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Sep 22, 2019
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Hey everyone. Someone came to me becuase they knew I work with PCs a bit and basically asked me how I could make their PC go faster. After simply logging in to their PC, i could tell it needed an SSD. The HDD was under constant pressure even doing things like loading up google. I told them their PC needed, an SSD, and they said yes. To transfer their stuff from their hard drive to their SSD, I just need to clone it, right? I heard somewhere that it wasn't as easy as that and some other things needed to happen. Also, how would I go about doing that? any software I can install to do it?

Thanks!

Edit: Also I'm trying to find a decent cheap SSD for them. I've been looking at theTCSunBow X3. Would that be okay? It ranks pretty decent on this SSD tier list.
 
Solution
USAFRet
Insane Potatoz said:
Oh wow. That was helpful. Cleared up a lot of confusion.
So I just need to clone.
There is the old 750gb HDD, then there is the new 250gb ssd. Only about 113gb is used on the hard drive.
Click to expand...

Just like this.
No messing around with licenses and activation.
(Of course, you should always have a known good backup)



-----------------------------
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...
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Insane Potatoz said:
How would I do a clean reinstall? I’ve never done that before.
Click to expand...
In all your travels here at Tom's, you've never seen this?

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 forums.tomshardware.com

For all your flipped systems, you absolutely NEED to to do that before it goes out the door.
Full wipe and reinstall.
 
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As far as "cloning", this:

-----------------------------
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.
-----------------------------
 
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Upvote 1 Downvote
USAFRet said:
In all your travels here at Tom's, you've never seen this?

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 forums.tomshardware.com

For all your flipped systems, you absolutely NEED to to do that before it goes out the door.
Full wipe and reinstall.
Click to expand...
I've done all my builds from scratch since I started. You're saying wiping and formatting the target drive and then just installing windows from installation media won't work?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
There is "clean install" and then "everything else".

"Everything else" consisting of "system restore, refresh, reset, reinstall, upgrade, in place upgrade, clone or restore of the factory or third party recovery image".

Clean install means "completely new, fresh installation of the Windows operating system on a drive which includes the removal of ALL existing partitions on the drive with ALL secondary drives disconnected from the system". Everything else means, not that. LOL.
 
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Okay this is gonna be super embarrassing, but I’m still outrageously confused.
I have a lot of trouble retaining information from reading.
Again, gonna be embarrassing, but are there any video tutorials on this that I can watch? I really benefit from having the process shown to me instead of just reading the steps.

Sorry.

Edit: also to just verify I have a general idea of the steps, I clone the hard drive to the ssd first, then I associate the windows license with the account, then I back it up using macrium reflect, then I wipe the drive, then I install windows again, then I use the backup and out everything back on?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Insane Potatoz said:
Edit: also to just verify I have a general idea of the steps, I clone the hard drive to the ssd first, then I associate the windows license with the account, then I back it up using macrium reflect, then I wipe the drive, then I install windows again, then I use the backup and out everything back on?
Click to expand...
What are you ACTUALLY trying to do?

A clean install on (whatever) drive?
Clone?
Both?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Insane Potatoz said:
Exactly. I only do flips from scratch, so I have never done a clean install before.
But what you’re saying is all I have to do is clone it and be done with it? Above you guys kept saying I also needed to do a clean install.
Click to expand...
IF the current system is working perfectly from the HDD, and there is no malware or whatever...and you simply want to change to an SSD...
Clone.

Otherwise...wipe and full reinstall.

So, which is it?
 
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USAFRet said:
IF the current system is working perfectly from the HDD, and there is no malware or whatever...and you simply want to change to an SSD...
Clone.

Otherwise...wipe and full reinstall.

So, which is it?
Click to expand...
Oh wow. That was helpful. Cleared up a lot of confusion.
So I just need to clone.
There is the old 750gb HDD, then there is the new 250gb ssd. Only about 113gb is used on the hard drive.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Insane Potatoz said:
Oh wow. That was helpful. Cleared up a lot of confusion.
So I just need to clone.
There is the old 750gb HDD, then there is the new 250gb ssd. Only about 113gb is used on the hard drive.
Click to expand...

Just like this.
No messing around with licenses and activation.
(Of course, you should always have a known good backup)



-----------------------------
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.
-----------------------------
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
USAFRet said:
Just like this.
No messing around with licenses and activation.
(Of course, you should always have a known good backup)



-----------------------------
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.
-----------------------------
Click to expand...
So I don’t have to associate the account with the license key?
Also for the backup, should I just do a full disk image? Could I do that backup to just a 32gb USB?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Insane Potatoz said:
So I don’t have to associate the account with the license key?
Also for the backup, should I just do a full disk image? Could I do that backup to just a 32gb USB?
Click to expand...
Obviously, you can't back up 113GB into a 32GB space.
So you have to consider what is critical.
  • The owners personal docs.
  • username/password combinations that they may not think of
  • hardware drivers, primarily the LAN/WiFi.


And for the activation...changing to a different drive in the same system (motherboard) does not incur any licensing issues.
 
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