Question Trying to Clone OS to new SSD

[davidohk]

I purchased a larger capacity SSD a while back (November 2018) and I planned on trying to use Macrium Reflect to clone the OS and everything from my old 128GB SSD and onto to my WD Blue 500GB SSD. It ended up not working and I freaked out because I thought I messed up my whole system. Luckily, I was able to get my PC working again with my old SSD and just set aside the new one for a while. I don't even remember how I got the old one to work again, but I've been using it since and the 500GB SSD I bought has just been collecting dust. Now, I've simply just run out of space on this current SSD and decided to try again with the cloning. However, I was wondering if someone would be able to walk me through it because clearly I couldn't get it the first time after watching several cloning videos on Youtube and tried to do exactly as they do. I'll post my specs and the new SSD I am trying to clone to. I want to keep everything as is on the 1TB HDD and just move the boot drive over to the new 500GB SSD. The problem I ran into initially was that my PC just wouldn't boot off of the new SSD after I cloned everything on the boot drive to the new one.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/KgNGr6
*Currently running Windows 8.1 Pro 64bit

https://imgur.com/a/Dyh2y3h

*disk management

 

[PC Tailor]

USA Fret is resident expert on this - so I will quote them here from a previous post detailing the same thing and I'm sure they'll add to the thread if anything is missed - this is geared towards using Macrium Reflect:

(this works the same for HDD's.)
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.co...thy-efi-system-partition?forum=w8itproinstall

 

[USAFRet]

The above instructions work.

 

[CountMike]

With Macrium Reflect, my favorite way is not do direct clone but to make full system disk backup and than to restore it to new disk using MR Rescue USB or disk. Resulting .mrimg (image file) can be kept for future incremental backups and Rescue USB or disk to fix BOOT problems if any.