Moving operating system to SSD
Good morning, can anyone refer me to an article on the correct process to moving Win10 to a SSD?
Desktop computer, running Win10. New smaller SSD drive (250gb). Would like to boot from SSD, but not reinstall Windows. Is there a way to just move the operating system (and maybe some programs) to the SSD from an existing TI backup?
Thanks,
Keith


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Kmt,
Basically, I did just what Bobbo suggested.
I had a 1TB hdd with Win10 and programs and a seperate partition on the same hdd for data.
I did not want the data partition. I just wanted the OS and programs.
I made a partition image of the "C:" drive, removed the C: Drive HDD and replaced it with a 256gb SSD.
I booted with TIH2016 recovery media (DVD) and restored the "C:" partition to my new ssd.
Removed the DVD recovery media and booted. That was it... all was well, the new SSD booted fine and works like a champ on steroids !
Steve
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kmt,
One of the problems with SSDs, especially the newer ones, is ATI does not see them when booted from rescue media. Windows sees them fine, but the Linux rescue media may not see them. If that is the case, you will need to create a WinPE rescue media.
WinPE is covered extensively in the blogs...if required, you can do a search.
The Linux rescue media had no problems with my Crucial SSD. The increase in performance is awesome. You are in for a treat.
Regards,
FtrPilot
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To clarify, once I push by backup to the SSD what will happen since the capacity of the SSD is less than the hard drive?
Also, once I put the original drive back in, I assume win10 will boot from the SSD, but will it recognize the hard drive as well? How will the system know where to look for programs?
Somewhat confused :)
Thanks,
Keith
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kmt123,
If you backup your entire existing drive and push it to the SSD it will be exactly the same when you boot it up - the purpose of backing up the existing drive and restoring it to the new one is so that it looks, feels and boots just like the original, but your just moving the existing data to the new one. Since you are going from a larger drive to a smaller SSD, you just need to make sure that the amount of actual data on your larger drive, will actually fit on the new one. For instance, if you have a 500GB drive and are only using 150GB of that drive, when you take your image, it will only consume 150GB of the new smaller SSD, but the SSD will need to be at least that big and you don't want it to be too close.
Once you have successfully copied and restored to the SSD and verified it boots, you can use your existing/old drive as secondary storage. HOWEVER, you do not want them to both be installed with the exact same data as this will cause problems. Once you have your backup image on another drive and have successfully booted your new SSD with the restored data, you really shouldn't need to maintain the data on the original drive. If you want to for posterity though, don't plug it in and use it. If you are satisfied that the SSD is workign after you restore, plus have a backup image of the original drive, and want to use the old drive for extra storage or as your backup drive in the future, you want to wipe the drive and then you can use it as extra storage space for backups, pictures, photos, whaterver you want. Just don't leave it installed with the original OS and data - it will cause you boot problems if you do because both drives will register themselves in the bios as being the same one.
Don't be afraid to try it out. You really can't hurt your existing hard drive and setup unless you accidentally overwrite it somehow. This is not possible if you 1) take a full disk image of the original drive first and save it to another disk (it cannot be the same one you plan to migrate to though).
2) remove the original disk and insert your SSD (with the original disk removed, you absolutely can't overwrite it)
3) boot to the offline bootable recovery media and restore the backup on the other drive to the SSD.
4) once recovery is complete, disconnect the drive with your backup image so it's just the SSD with the data you recovered on it. Boot the system and see what happens. If you took a full image and pushed everything back to your SSD and there is not problem with the size, you should have a full functional system that looks and feels like your old hard drive, but will run much faster now since you're using an SSD.
Migrating to SSD using the backup and recovery method
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Bobbo:
Thank you for your GREAT answer, I appreciate it.
Removed my regular drive, and installed the new SSD drive in less than 30 minutes! Your answer gave me the confidence!
I now want to put my regular drive (still with the operating system on it), back in the computer - to use as extra storage and/or backup. Can I get it in there, then format it clean? Or will this cause confusion on boot up? What do you think the best approach is?
Thanks,
Keith
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Once you have shutdown and booted off your new drive at least once you can put the old drive back in the machine and format it.
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thomasjk wrote:Once you have shutdown and booted off your new drive at least once you can put the old drive back in the machine and format it.
That should be correct. If there's any doubt, or it does cause issues, you can boot back into Acronis offline bootable media and format a drive there. To be on the safe side, you may want to remove the SSD first though, to make sure you don't accidentally format it (it's not necessary to remove it, but just be careful to selet the right disk if you have them both connected to the system at the same time).
This explains the add new disk wizard for formatting a disk within Acronis offline bootable media
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Do i have to use the bootable media rather than just using the regular recovery process?
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Paul, if you are intending to use Clone then you should only ever use the bootable Rescue Media to avoid any problems caused by modifying the Windows bootloader configuration otherwise.
If you will be using Backup & Restore to migrate from your current OS drive to a new SSD, then you could potentially do this from within Windows using the ATIH application GUI, but you need to ensure that you do not attempt to boot your computer with two copies of Windows connected, i.e. the original drive and the restored copy of the same on the SSD. The SSD should replace the original drive using the same connectors etc before attempting to boot.
Personally, I would recommend using the bootable Rescue Media for this type of operation unless you are working with a drive from a different computer.
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I would only use rescue media for any full disk or parition operation such as backup/restore or clone.
Bios firmware is changing rapidly and new security features are preventing default bootable linux recovery media from booting correctly. For instance, if you have secure boot enabled, or your bios doesn't have CSM/legacy enabled (or as an option), or if you are using RAID as the SATA mode in the bios, any of these can prevent Acronis from booting. When you start such a full disk backup, recovery or clone in Windows, the system must shutdown, Acronis will attempt to replace the Windows bootloader and boot into Linux Acronis environment. if your bios prevents this, it may stop Acronis in its tracks and prevent the original Windows bootloader from being restored - resulting in a non-bootable system.
This can be completely avoided by using your offline bootable rescue media instead and is why i recommend it for any full disk (or parition) backup, recovery or clone. it's not worth the risk of making your system unbootable to start in Windows, when it's just as fast to boot from a USB recovery flash drive that has already been created, and it's 'safer' since it won't mess with the bootmanager.
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Maybe i should have been a little clearer. I have both drives in the computer but only one is connected at a time. I have W10 on both drives.
What I was hoping to be able to do was recover a full backup from the old drive, disconnect that drive, connect the SSD and use ATI to put the full backup on the SSD without having to use the bootable media.
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Paul, when you say you "have both drives in the computer but only one is connected at a time" - does this include the SSD you are wanting to restore to?
If you attempt doing this type of operation from within Windows, then Acronis has to modify the Windows bootloader in order to create a temporary Linux OS based environment from which to launch the Acronis True Image application, but if you are going to be replacing the drive where the bootloader is stored then you have a catch-22 situation because the second drive won't have these changes etc.
The best way of doing what you want to do would be as follows:
- Backup the current Windows 10 drive to an external USB drive.
- Boot from the Rescue Media with the external drive connected, and with the new SSD replacing the original Windows 10 drive.
- Restore the backup from the external drive to the SSD.
- Shutdown, remove the rescue media and USB drive.
- Boot the SSD into Windows.
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Paul Miller wrote:Maybe i should have been a little clearer. I have both drives in the computer but only one is connected at a time. I have W10 on both drives.
What I was hoping to be able to do was recover a full backup from the old drive, disconnect that drive, connect the SSD and use ATI to put the full backup on the SSD without having to use the bootable media.
You should use the bootable media to do this since you're doing a full disc recovery. I would not recommend ANY full disk recoveries as started in Windows. It's not worth the risk. Create your bootable media to a decent USB 3.0 flash drive and keep it handy. It's quick, easy to use and most importantly safe. Unless you want to take the risk of corrupting your Windows bootloader, don't restore full disk images from the Acronis Windows GUI interface.
It's OK to have both drives connected when booting to the Acronis recovery media (if you need to get an image from one drive to restore to the other). Just make sure that one is always disconnected, after a recovery, before you attempt to boot back into Windows.
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In reply to Paul, if by truwrikodrorow…

Hi Steve, I've been searching for a forum regarding a possible work around to using the rescue boot media.
I'm trying to backup my laptop's hdd (C:) to a new ssd so I created an "Entire PC" backup to an external hard drive using Acronis 2018. I then tried using the non-WinPE boot media and it didn't boot, just a black screen with a blinking white underscore. I'm using a Dell Laptop that uses a RAID connection which I think caused the problem, so the WinPE boot media might be the solution. In your prior post though, you recommended using the rescue boot media unless you are working with a drive from a different computer. With that being said, could I avert using rescue boot media if I use my desktop computer (not the laptop) while still in Windows, to restore the backup from the external hard drive to the new ssd? Would this have any negative side effects to my desktop's OS?
In other words, I would like to restore my laptop's Acronis backup to the new ssd using my desktop computer instead of my laptop. I've heard others who have used Acronis in this way to clone failing hard drives with a lot of success. Through my research, I haven't uncovered any videos or tutorials explaining the steps involving a backup/clone from a desktop using a laptops hard drive. Thank you for your time with these forums, it's much appreciated.
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Gus, welcome to these User Forums.
There are a number of 'it depends' in any answers to your questions here.
Yes, you should be able to restore a backup of one drive to a SSD drive where these are from another computer. The dependency here is that the correct drive partition formatting is being used, i.e. that both the source and target drives look the same when the process is completed, both have either the GPT partitioning with NTFS or both have MBR with NTFS etc.
Using the Acronis Rescue Media for doing recovery of backups to a new drive such as an SSD using the original computer where the backup came from is the recommended method to use, but again a dependency here is which version of the Rescue Media you are using? The Rescue Media can come in up to 3 flavours with ATI 2018 - there is the legacy Linux kernel based media as provided with all earlier versions, but this does not have support for RAID; then there are 2 flavours of WinPE Rescue media, one that can be created from the Windows Recovery Environment and one that can be created after installing the Windows ADK - these again do not have RAID support by default but this can be added to the media - the MVP Customer ATIPE media creator tool will do this very easily for you.
The other point regarding the use of Acronis Rescue Media is that this should be booted in the same BIOS mode as used by the Windows OS, this in turn can be identified by running the msinfo32 program then looking at the BIOS mode value shown in the output report.
See KB 59877: Acronis True Image 2017: how to distinguish between UEFI and Legacy BIOS boot modes of Acronis Bootable Media which has screen images showing the differences.
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