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Acronis 2019 clone or recovery --> small SSD to large SSD

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I am trying to use Acronis 2019 to either clone or do an image recovery of a SSD 512MB system drive on the same computer to a larger SSD that is 2TB. I have tried both methods (recovery or clone) and end up with the same size C partition from the small SSD on the larger SSD.  I did try using the booting rescue flash drive which works well for backup and restore functions.

So, what are the exact steps to allow the C partition to fully expand? 

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Dave, if your cloned / recovered SSD is booting / working correctly albeit at the original smaller size, then there is an easy way of resizing the C: partition for the new larger drive.

Download a copy of the free MiniTool Partition Wizard software and install this.

Launch the partition wizard and look at the current layout of the new SSD, where you will see a large amount of unallocated disk space at the right side.

You will probably see a Windows Recovery partition sitting to the right of your C: partition - you need to use the Resize / Move option to drag that partition to the right end of the drive, so that all the unallocated space is now next to the C: partition.

Now you can use the Resize / Move option to drag the right end of the C: partition to increase its size and use some or all of the unallocated space.

When all the changes are made, click on the Apply button and allow the tool to restart Windows to complete the change operation.

Steve,

Thanks for the tip on using the Mini Tool Partition Wizard. I was able to move the Recovery Partition to the end of the SSD and it's size was close to the original size.  However, that partition lost its Recovery designation and no longer was hidden. I have been trying different products from different vendors and cloning/recovering a system windows 10/11 drive to a larger SSD has been problematic. Cloning is close but some UEFI partition name such as " partition 2" gets attached during the cloning process. After the cloning process is completed and the system shuts down I remove the original source drive then reboot. That's when the UEFI partition 2 name appears on the PC's BIOS boot menu.

Dave, I haven't seen any problems with moving the Recovery partition when I have used this method previously, but that isn't a major issue as it can be resolved by doing an in-place upgrade of Windows 10 or 11 if necessary.  Just upgrading from such as Win 10 2004 to 21H1 would recreate the Recovery partition.

You can re-hide the Recovery partition and remove any allocated drive letter using the MiniTool app.

One other method that you could use would be doing Backup & Recovery but manually assigning the partition locations on the recovery by not selecting the top Disk level option first - this would allow you to manually resize the C: partition to a larger size while leaving sufficient free space for the Recovery partition at the end of the drive (with some additional free space for expansion in the future).

Steve,

Thanks for the suggestions.  I have decided to do it the hard way. I am going to do a fresh install of W11 to the larger SSD and then install the additional programs that I need.

It seems strange that the software developers for numerous companies haven't designed their products to handle Windows system migrations from smaller SSDs to larger SSD. 

Steve,

As re-installation is not an option for complex software and OS configurations, I'm wondering if you happen to know whether we can simply delete the ostensible Recovery partition without untoward consequence?

Mike, personally I would always try to keep the working recovery partition where possible and only look at removing any redundant recovery partitions that can get left over after upgrading between versions of Windows.

If you do a search on this topic in Google etc, then you will see lots of discussion on the merits for & against doing this.

Thanks, Steve. MiniTool Partition Wizard finished my M.2 upgrade by way of Acronis TI Restore perfectly. So, big thanks for that post as well. And yes, Acronis did finally recognize my uninitialized M.2 disk. So I'm grateful to know that as well.

Glad all went well Mike!