ATI2017 LaptopnMigration of HDD to SSD with GPT-UEFI & shrinking all Recovery Partitions& Shrink of HDD Pri PT
Dear Steve,
As always you&other MVPs are THE source! My question refers not only to CLONING but the alternate method of Backuo/Restore as a full disk image (in relation to installing a Bare Metal SSD in place of an existing HDD. I refer also to the excellent work of Mustang&Bobbo (especially Mustangs Guide in the ATI2016 forum(Guide to restoring a UEFI/GPT Win System to a new disk with TI2016.
I actually always to my daily Complete Disk Backups using the WinPE Media (its most stable IMHO) & of course use the same for disk restores (all BUs are 'FULL' mode) and I usually either WIPE the destination HDD *or are using a fresh bare metal drive). Of course, I select the PE boot Rescue media to match the system (MBR (legacy) vs GPT-UEFI) accordingly. Until this point, zero issues!
To my point in writing, I have a new DELL LAPTOP win10x64 uefi mode factory equipped w/ 1TB HDD. So, my goal is to transition the entire drive (os, sw etc) to a new Samsung SATA SSD of 500 GB...i;m only using 10 of the 1 TB HDD now!
Yes, the single C:] on the 1tb HDD will need to be shrunk, my biggest concern is that TI2017PE is able to:
1. Place ALL current Dell W10 partitions (hidden or otherwise), in the correct order on the bare metal 500GB SSD. My preference would be yje IMAGE BU/Restore vs. the CLONE function? Comment please?
2. Can TI2017 resize my existing 800TB C:\ during this process...still keeping all other partitions?
3. Alternately, what about (before creating the WINPE Rescue Drive Image)... using a utility to first SHRINK the existing C:\ Primary partition...then reboot, then Image B/U then swap in the Bare SSD and use WinPE to RSTORE ALL.
Hope this makes sense
Thx
BOB


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Steve,
First to clarify things, my 1TB laptop currently only has about 175GB of the C:\ partition in use...so surely it should port over to the 500GB SSD, likely even a 256GB SSD. Thx for your detailed pdf document and helpful comments. I suppose that normally I would have done exactly as you outlined (perhaps shrinking the C:\ partition first)...but using the full drive image backup/restore method...which seemed quite stable for me in the past years. I suppose Clone should work, but as you known, there are a few places along the way where things may go wrong (program-wise or user error -like a reboot with both HDDs connected!)
Then I (ever being careful!) had read the "Mustang Thread" - Guide to Recovering a UEFI/GPT..." (https://forum.acronis.com/forum/acronis-true-image-2016-forum/guide-res…)...
This SEEMED to me to be a big "heads-up" that restoring a UEFI/GPT system image to a NEW (BLANK..aka unallocated or "wiped") drive would, seemingly result in a restored system that "worked" (aka booted) but that partition-order would be somewhat inaccurate and lead to some, well future issues".
I'm not sure if this is accurate...and thus I hope you can now better understand the context of my original request for assistance?
There is also the issue of the DELL FACTORY RECOVERY PARTITION. As I created my own full set of Dell recovery Factory-configuration DVD's when the laptop was new, its not clear to me if 1) will the image BU/RESTORE capture and copy that (I think hidden) partition and 2. whether it even makes sense to keep it if it it would.
As I recall, windows 10 disk management shows the Dell factory HDD as having TWO recovery partitions! I guess I can use the Mini Partition tool you mentioned which might better ID ALL of the existing partitions.
Based on that thread, I'm simply looking for some confidence that a simple image backup/restore will be fine without any future issues.
Steve, once again thanks for you help and patience
Bob
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Bob, there was quite a lot of discussion a while back on the subject of partition order when doing disk restores but in all honesty I have not seen any issues arising since that time to give me cause for worry.
In terms of the Dell Factory Recovery partition, I guess it depends on what you may want to do with the computer in the future? If you think that you may want to dispose of / sell on the computer, then wiping the current partitions and doing a factory restore back to how it was shipped from Dell could be useful to show it is a working machine.
A full disk backup should always include all partitions on the drive, hidden/system/recovery/diagnostics etc. and given the low amount of used data on the source HDD, should shrink down fine to fit on the smaller SSD.
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The partition order issue has not been mentioned for a long time; probably goes back to either ATI 2015 or ATI 2016. So it is probably safe to assume that it is no longer causing problems.
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In reply to Bob, there was quite a lot… by truwrikodrorow…

hi Steve,
just thought i’d pass on some results of moving the dell inspiron i5 running w10-1709 from a 1 th hdd to a samsung 850 evo ssd. i first used the latest sansung mitration SW, connecting the ssd to usb. the migration went fine, swapped the ssd into the laptop. ran fadt and well. noticed that the factory OEM recovery partition, abt 12 gigs, was not migrated. googling seemed to show that was typical. but, then i decide to just use W10 to “Create a Recovery USB drive. not s good result....whether or not i checked the include system files...option, w10 told me files are missing, do even a minimal Win10 Recovery Usb could not be created..
at that point, eith the ssd mounted in the laptop, using the Acronis 2017-8058 full hdd backup made from the hdd just before the samsung migration, i booted the ATI RESCUE WINpe usb and did an full restore, all partitions ....great result, every, resized is on the ssd, invluding the OEM dell recovery partition.
hope this may help others...
bob
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Hi Bob, thanks for the update and glad to hear that all went well with the migration to the SSD.
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