SOLVED Moving from one SSD to a larger SSD
My "C" SSD has run out of space and needs to be upgraded to something bigger. With Acronis True Image 2015 what is the preferred method?
In the help there are instructions to go from a traditional HD to SSD, Will this move be essentially the same?
Once the transfer is done.. what needs doing to make my new SSD the boot drive?
I wish to continue using as a third drive my small SSD. What happens to the sequence of letters, can I / do I have an option to change them?
Currently:
"C:" 120GB SSD to be changed to 250 SSD to hold my operating system Windows 7 Pro and all my programs.
"D:" 500GB traditional HD.. with all my data. I think to avoid complications want to keep this as "D:"
"E:" my current small SSD.. unclear as to what function it will have, but seems a shame to throw away.
Thank you for your time, and advice.
Thank you Pat. Followed your instructions and.. naturally (for me) it did not work. My first problem when I rebooted after switching the connectors was bad MBR. Even switching back to the original placements gave me a bad MBR. So, changed the boot order to boot from my recovery CD.. Tried the clone thing and it failed.. many times.
Eventually after more error messages than I could remember.. Using my recovery CD, I had a semi working Windows back on my 120G SSD (No windows Explorer).. but I was able to access my installed copy of Acronis. Tried the clone thing with that.. Comes up wanting to change the location ???. Tried several things.. and the clone would fail each time.
Eventually.. I managed to recover the contents of "C:" from my external HD backup to my new 250G SSD.. And it seems to work just fine.. EXCEPT
I only have the original 120G of space available (and shows 95% full) .. the rest seems to be not available. Obviously I missed something..
How can I adjust the size to be the full 250 ish? I thought Acronis has some wizzard that allowed changing partition size.. which is what I am assuming needs doing but I can not find it.
Any thoughts on how I can.. Reinstall my backup "C:" into the full space.. or change the space.
For what it is worth.. trying to use the built in Windows partition wizard (Disk Management).. but it will not let me touch 121.10GB of Unallocated space. By right clicking the only option I have is to make a new simple volume with a minimum size of 8 MB. I hesitate to try this fearing I may end up making the problem worse.. but I "think" that by doing that I may free up the remaining space?? Any one know??
Thank you for any advice / suggestions.
Ralph2:
Is the unallocated space located to the right of the Windows partition? If so, in Windows Disk Management, right click on the WINDOWS partition (the one that you want to make larger) and choose "Extend Volume..."
Thanks Mark..
After a most frustrating day.. I am in the same position I started with. No mater what I try the best I can get is a working system on my new SSD that is full at 95% with 120G of unusable space.
I specifically upgraded from 2014 to 2015 because.. I was led to believe that the clone operation.. moving from a smaller to larger SSD would be painless. NOT.
Acronis seems to think you "may" need to adjust partitions on your storage / data / drives. BUT will not let me change partition size on my new SSD. AND.. neither will Windows with its Disk Management system. That unallocated space.. to the right of the Primary partition only gives me an option to to make a new simple volume with a minimum size of 8 MB. I tried a free partition managers from Paragon.. and the same thing, would not touch it.
No doubt.. I am doing something wrong... but...........
Tomorrow is another day to try again.
Ralph:
Do not try to do anything directly to the unallocated space with Windows Disk Management. Leave it as unallocated. If you made it into a new simple volume, delete the new simple volume. You need to have it as unallocated space.
Once you've done that, try what I've suggested in reply #3 above. You must work on the Windows partition; not on the unallocated space. You extend the smaller Windows partition to make it larger.
You might want to download and install EASUS partition manager and use it to move/extend your C:\ partition as you. Note that leaving about 10% of space unallocated on a SSD is actually a good thing, often recommended by manufacturers, but strictly speaking not an absolute requirement for the average consumer.
Thanks ALL for your help. I have finally, after much frustration made it work. Trying various options eventually had me where "if" my new SSD was plugged in.. Windows would not go past the "ASUS" screen. No access to the BIOS or any recovery disks.
So, to the store, hat in hand as it appeared I must have wrecked it.. but they gave me a new one. So what did I learn.. The instructions on the disk cloning utility are misleading to say the least. From it you are recommended to have the source drive on some removable media. To a novice like me.. that first sounded like backing up the "C:" drive to removable media.
So, with my new SSD plugged in, started Windows.. started Acronis and selected Clone. Follow the prompts, Automatic sounds good > select the source drive > Well my new backup right? Wrong, Acronis will not give you access to a specific file, one is left with the only option of selecting the drive. OK.. Acronis must have found the right file by magic.. Wrong. > Now select the destination disk.. easy, my new Samsung SSD.. with an immediate error message about it being too small.. Evidently Acronis was going to try and put ALL of my 1T external HD on this SSD. So, this can't be right so I cancel.. go back and try the manual approach.. Same story. Okay..now what, Well it wants a complete drive, so I try again in automatic, select my Corsair SSD as the source.. my Samsung SSD as the destination.. And Bingo... Almost.
Computer shuts down, I disconnect my Corsair and plug that lead into my new Samsung.. leaving my Corsair unplugged. Start the computer and.. Black screen Windows Boot Manager with instructions on inserting my Windows CD / DVD and select repair your computer.. which I do..
AND.. it works............. And immediately asks for a reboot.. which I do and it still works.
Thank you all for your time and help.
And note to Acronis.. It would help if you had instructions on what to do when you have a "Boot Manager Missing" message and the only option is to hit control/alt/delete. And.. that you will need your Windows installation disk to repair what Acronis failed to clone / fix / move
My technical proficiency is not that great, but after a lot of experimenting and trying procedures in forums that failed, I found a fairly simple way upgrade from one SSD to a larger one using Acronis backup and restore functions. It may not work for you, as the partition configuration of your machine may be different than mine (see below) in critical ways.
Initially, I found that I could do a full image backup of my original 128 Gb SSD, swap SSDs in the machine for the larger one, then restore the full image backup in one step to the new SSD. The problem was that I couldn’t allocate the empty space on the new SSD to the OS (C:) partition, because the OS (C:) partition was positioned between other partitions. You can only extend the size of a partition into contiguous unallocated space.
Without getting into everything I tried that ultimately failed (e.g., restoring partitions one at a time), my solution was to delete the partitions between the OS (C:) partition and the unallocated space on the larger SSD, then use Windows Disk Management to extend the OS (C:) partition. The partitions I deleted were recovery partitions, which I don’t really need if I am doing regular full image backups. My understanding is that I could recreate the recovery partitions after the fact, if needed or desired.
If there is an essential partition between your OS (C:) partition and unallocated space, maybe one that cannot be moved without destabilizing your machine, then this process may not work for you.
So the basic process was this:
- Make full image backup of existing SSD (fallback if things go wrong)
- Use Windows Disk Management to delete the recovery partitions
- Make another full image backup of the SSD
- Open computer and replace SSD with the larger one
- Boot using Acronis Bootable Media
- Do a full disk Restore of the second full image backup (the one after deleting partitions) to the new SSD
- Reboot to Windows
- Use Windows Disk Management to Extend the OS (C:) partition into unallocated space
- You may need to leave some unallocated space if you want to recreate the recovery partitions
Dell Latitude E5470 with 128 Gb Sata SSD.
Part 1: none shown
Part 2: EFI System
Part 3: OS (C:)
Part 4: Recovery
Part 5: Recovery
Thanks for sharing your experience for this topic. There is an easier method that you could use to recover / deal with the issue of resizing partitions etc, that is to use a partition manager tool to do this. One that I use is the free MiniTool Partition Wizard which allows you to resize, merge or move partitions as needed.