Cloning 2nd hdd to new 2nd NVme m.2 drive

Ashley, welcome to these public User Forums.

If these drives are being used only for storage, not for the OS to boot from, then there shouldn't be any real issue here.

Given the drives use different connection methods, assuming the 3TB HDD is SATA and that you can install the new NVMe M.2 drive alongside your existing drives, then that should be the first step to action to get the new drive installed and check it can be seen in Windows Disk Management.

After that, use the Acronis True Image - Active Clone feature to clone the contents of your 3TB HDD to the new NVMe drive from within Windows.

Once the clone is successful, then I would recommend disconnecting the 3TB HDD initially then testing that all is as expected with the NVMe drive, especially if you want this to use the same drive letter as the HDD was using.  If all is OK, then either remove the HDD to be reused as an external drive, or reformat it if reconnecting as an internal drive and giving it a different drive letter.

It is recommended that you should do a CHKDSK /F for the source drive before doing a clone to ensure that there are no file system issues present that would cause the clone to fail or switch to using Sector-by-Sector mode (which would require a much larger target drive!).

Thank you Steve

yes i want to keep the 3TB as a general storage drive. im intending to use the 1TB NVme for games especially Arma 3 which with mods is over 500gb.

i also have a 1TB SSdc Firecuda which is again for general storage.

one question i have is i dont really mind what drive letter the new drive has was kinda liking it be A but not heard of drive letters below C.

when i install the NVme on the Motherboard and check it in disk management will i assign it a drive letter at that point before cloning and it will obviously have to be A or something different to the drive letter of the 3Tb Toshiba which is G 

the NVme will be coming tomorrow so like to be all up and running in my head before i start

thanks again for your quick response

Regards

Ashley

Ashley, you can assign any available drive letter to the new NVMe drive using Windows Disk Management, which can be A, B or any letter above those already in use, i.e. H, I, etc.

If you only have data stored on the G: HDD drive, i.e. there are no installed program folders, then you could do a simple file & folder copy of the data to the new NVMe drive, once it has been formatted, without the need to use cloning at all.

For example: you could use XCOPY G: A: /S

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.17763.379]
(c) 2018 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>xcopy /?
Copies files and directory trees.

XCOPY source [destination] [/A | /M] [/D[:date]] [/P] [/S [/E]] [/V] [/W]
                           [/C] [/I] [/Q] [/F] [/L] [/G] [/H] [/R] [/T] [/U]
                           [/K] [/N] [/O] [/X] [/Y] [/-Y] [/Z] [/B] [/J]
                           [/EXCLUDE:file1[+file2][+file3]...]

  source       Specifies the file(s) to copy.
  destination  Specifies the location and/or name of new files.
  /A           Copies only files with the archive attribute set,
               doesn't change the attribute.
  /M           Copies only files with the archive attribute set,
               turns off the archive attribute.
  /D:m-d-y     Copies files changed on or after the specified date.
               If no date is given, copies only those files whose
               source time is newer than the destination time.
  /EXCLUDE:file1[+file2][+file3]...
               Specifies a list of files containing strings.  Each string
               should be in a separate line in the files.  When any of the
               strings match any part of the absolute path of the file to be
               copied, that file will be excluded from being copied.  For
               example, specifying a string like \obj\ or .obj will exclude
               all files underneath the directory obj or all files with the
               .obj extension respectively.
  /P           Prompts you before creating each destination file.
  /S           Copies directories and subdirectories except empty ones.
  /E           Copies directories and subdirectories, including empty ones.
               Same as /S /E. May be used to modify /T.
  /V           Verifies the size of each new file.
  /W           Prompts you to press a key before copying.
  /C           Continues copying even if errors occur.
  /I           If destination does not exist and copying more than one file,
               assumes that destination must be a directory.
  /Q           Does not display file names while copying.
  /F           Displays full source and destination file names while copying.
  /L           Displays files that would be copied.
  /G           Allows the copying of encrypted files to destination that does
               not support encryption.
  /H           Copies hidden and system files also.
  /R           Overwrites read-only files.
  /T           Creates directory structure, but does not copy files. Does not
               include empty directories or subdirectories. /T /E includes
               empty directories and subdirectories.
  /U           Copies only files that already exist in destination.
  /K           Copies attributes. Normal Xcopy will reset read-only attributes.
  /N           Copies using the generated short names.
  /O           Copies file ownership and ACL information.
  /X           Copies file audit settings (implies /O).
  /Y           Suppresses prompting to confirm you want to overwrite an
               existing destination file.
  /-Y          Causes prompting to confirm you want to overwrite an
               existing destination file.
  /Z           Copies networked files in restartable mode.
  /B           Copies the Symbolic Link itself versus the target of the link.
  /J           Copies using unbuffered I/O. Recommended for very large files.

The switch /Y may be preset in the COPYCMD environment variable.
This may be overridden with /-Y on the command line.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>

I agree with Steve that just doing a copy would be fine for copying all the data over. Be aware if there are any links or junctions which refer to the source drive. If after the copy, you change the drive letter of the source drive and then change the drive letter of the destination drive to the same as the source drive originally, then that should present no problems.

Drive letters A: and B: were historically used for floppy disks and it would be very uncommon to use them for a fixed hard drive. Still today it is standard to start with C: for the hard drives and I would stay with that trend.

thanks Bruno

i have have a few program files on my existing drive and my steam library so i think i am going to have to clone it, i remember the floppy drivs and see what you are saying, ill use a new drive letter maybe H , im sorry to steve i did reply to his last post directly from gmail but maybe that doesnt work for the forum

Ashley, if the source drive is not a system drive and just has the one partition, you should still be able to just copy the files.

My thought is to do something like this...

1. Install the new drive with a different drive letter (anything unused, e.g. H:)

2. Copy everything from G: to H:

3. Change the old drive letter from G: to something unused (e.g. I:)

4. Change the new drive from H: to G:

Now everything looks the same and you can clear I: or change its drive letter to something else.

Hi Bruno

Thanks, that is a weel explained way to do it. with 500-600Gb of Arma game and mods on the source drive i dont want to have to verify and install all that lot again.

So a simple copy and paste of the source drive contents will be fine.

I'll do a CHKDSK on the source drive while im waiting for new drive to be delived

Thanks again

Ashley

Bruno's plan sounds good to me, and providing you give the new drive the old drive letter used, then all the linkages for your games etc should be fine too.

On the subject of drives A & B, no new systems ship with floppy drives so these are 'fair game' to be used, but normal convention would use letters later in the alphabet.  I do use A or B for the odd USB stick from time to time, but only as a temporary assignment.  I still have a USB Floppy drive somewhere in a cupboard but would struggle to work with floppy disks with only 2MB of storage capacity, though do have a box of these on a shelf!!

Thanks Steve 

You both been super helpful. 

Just installed drive after finding another standoff and screw from my main pc 

It's obviously OK to change drive letters about in disk management. I'll do it way Bruno discribes, was wondering if changing the source drive letter before naming new one would make any difference but I'll do it the way its described.

I did CHKDSK before I started

Thanks again Steve