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Clone HDD to SSD in realtime

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Hi, I plan to acquire a license to retire my metal brick (hard drive), I buy an M.2 SSD of the same capacity 1TB and I do not want to have to reinstall everything from scratch.
What I want to do is the following:
1- Install the new SSD in motherboard and verify that my OS detects it without partition.
2- Clone the entire disk from the HDD to the SSD.
3- Restart the OS from the SSD.

Is it possible to do this?

My cordial greetings.

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Yes, technically it is possible.  There are caveats though.

1) What is the original OS version and is it a OEM license (came with the original hardware) or is it a full retail license (purchased separately via a boxed license).  OEM license can not be re-activated on a new computer.  

Windows 10 is a little different for OEM licenses, but requires that the old OS be Windows 10 and previously activated with Microsoft.  And the new system must have come with the same exact same type of Windows 10 OEM license (home vs home or pro vs pro)

2) You are also talking about moving from SATA to PCIE NVME.  So hopefully this is a Windows 10 OS. It is possible to get PCI NVME with Win 7, but Win 7 doesn't natively support it and requires hotfixes

If you do have Windows 10 now, be sure to get the latest IRST drivers installed before you image to the new drive.  That will help with compatibility on the new hardware.

3) If you are cloning from rescue media - you will likely need to use WinPE rescue media built with Windows 10 ADK to detect the PCIE NVME drive so it can be used.  YOu'll want to build this on the existing machine now as the one that you can download from Acronis is Linux and does not support IRST.  If your bios SATA mode is ACHI and not RAID, this may not be an issue.  However, many manufactuers set the SATA mode to RAID when they ship systems with PCIE NVME drives so can be an issue if they are not aware.

Ultimately, yes, it's all doable though.

Sorry, I may have jumped the gun thinking you are changing motherboads \ computers above.

If this is all on the same system, it should be pretty easy.  Will your new drive be SSD or PCIE NVME though?

 

Skylar,

I would recommend that you first install the True Image app on your computer.  Once installed create Recovery Media using the Media Builder found in the Tools tab in the app.  Go for the Simple version and create the default WinRE media.

With that media boot your computer and create a full disk image backup of your existing drive and store that image on another drive such as an external USB HDD.

After you have the backup image created remove your existing drive from the PC and install the new one.  Use the Recovery Media to boot the PC again and restore the backup image to the new drive.  After the restore has completed shutdown the PC and remove the Recovery Media from the PC and then start the PC.  It should boot to the new drive.

If you are using Win 7 and have not patched it for NVMe support you will need to do that prior to the instructions above.