Skip to main content

cloning

Thread needs solution

I want to clone my old PC to a new PC. I used Acronis to create a full backup to an external drive. Can I clone both the C and D drives in one operation or do I need to first clone the C disk and then clone the D disk?

Harley

1 Users found this helpful

Harley, what exactly are you wanting to clone from and to here?

If you clone your C: drive then you will be migrating your installed Windows OS & installed applications to the new PC which would then overwrite any installed OS that comes with that PC.  For this to be successful, both PC's should be using the same edition of Windows, i.e. both using Windows 10 Home and both be already activated to avoid activation issues.

There are other considerations when migrating from old PC's to a new PC - what is the BIOS boot mode used by both PC's - are these using the same boot mode? 

The boot mode can be Legacy / MBR for older PC's and is most likely to be UEFI / GPT for new PC's (with or without secure boot enabled).

What type of disk drive is installed in both PC's - are these of the same type, i.e. are both using SATA drives or does the new PC use the newer NVMe SSD type drive?  If so, then device drivers will be needed in order for the OS from the old PC to boot successfully on the new PC.

With regard to having C: & D: drives in the old PC, I would recommend making separate backups of each drive then dealing with each in turn but with focus on getting the migrated OS working first on the new PC.

If the new PC does come preinstalled with Windows 10, then I strongly recommend making a full disk backup of that PC before attempting to replace the OS from the old PC on it!  Ideally you should install a copy of Acronis on the new PC to both perform the backup and also to create 'Simple' Windows PE rescue media on that PC to be used to restore the OS backup from the old PC.

KB 69472: Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office: how to create bootable media

To be able to recover to dissimilar hardware, create Acronis Bootable Media with Universal Restore.  See Creating Acronis Universal Boot media

KB 69330: Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office: Restoring to dissimilar hardware with Acronis Universal Restore

KB 69427: Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office: How to restore your computer with WinPE-based or WinRE-based media

KB 59877: Acronis True Image: how to distinguish between UEFI and Legacy BIOS boot modes of Acronis Bootable Media

Thanks Steve, you gave me many good suggestions. My new Dell is expected to arrive on Oct 21 so I have  lot of time to prepare. I talked to Acronis tech support about another problem and he said I could either clone or do a recovery. I am leaning toward cloning. He also said that since my old and new PC are both Dell with windows 10, I could use the bootable flash drive that I created with my old PC. I will take your advice and create one with my new PC.

Harley, for migrating to new / different hardware then cloning should not be used, especially if laptops are involved.

The process documented for Acronis Universal Restore only uses Backup & Recovery, not cloning and the key advantage of using B & R is that you do not need to start removing any disk drives from either PC but instead store the backups on an external drive that is connected to each PC in turn during the process.

Most new laptops now come with NVMe SSD drives installed for the Windows OS drive hence my earlier comments about device drivers and having rescue media that is able to correctly recognise the target internal drive to allow backup data to be recovered to it.  These NVMe drives also normally require UEFI boot mode and GPT partition format.