New boot disk
I have just upgraded to TI 2021
I went on to Microsoft to install new Flight Simulator but it turns out I do not have enough free space on my SSD on my Dell XPS 8930. I am plannng to replace the SSD which contains the Windows 10 OS with a larger one.
I have no idea how to do this but I would like to avoid having to complete reinstall all my software. I have only ever used TI to back up my system and so far have never had cause to restore anything
Any help would be appreciated.
John Cattell


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I thought I had posted a reply to this but it seems to have disappeared
Thanks for the reply which seems to be exactly what I want.
My only question relates to point 3 whhere you refer to an external drive. Can I use a spare internal HD which I am currently not using?
Thanks
John
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John, if you replacing like for like, i.e. same type of SSD, then using your spare internal drive to store a backup image should be fine. If you are moving from a SATA SSD to a NVMe SSD then it is best to use an external drive and disconnect or remove any other drives temporarily until after the new NVMe SSD has been booted into Windows successfully after the recovery. This is to avoid any boot information (BCD) being written to the second drive if it happens to be on SATA port 0.
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The existing SSD and the replacement are both NVME SSD so I think you are saying I can use my spare HD for the disk backup
Thanks again
John
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On this same subject, and not to hijack the thread but I want to confirm this and perhaps it's relevant to the OP as well. When I did an Acronis backup (I forget what process I used and where I stored the backup during transition), replacing a 240GB SSD with a 512GB SSD (I believe both were mSATA), all went well, but, my drive is only partitioned for 240GB. It did not automatically expand the volume or anything like that. Disk Management sees the unused space, so I could of course create a D: partition or the like. I'd rather expand C: if I could. For that to be possible, it seems all I can do is convert my C: to Dynamic Disk, then I can expand my volume. I'm very leery of working with Dynamic Disk though as I recall years ago when that tech first came out, there were a lot of problems doing it on system partitions.
I'm kind of surprised Acronis doens't have a "would you like to expand your volume" options during recovery. Perhaps it's more complex than that though, but it'd be a great feature to have.
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If your new SSD is larger than the original one, then you may find that ATI has not expanded the C: OS partition to use the full new size of the new SSD. If so, then this is quite simple to resolve as below:
First, download a copy of the free MiniTool Partition Wizard software, install this, then use it to move the Windows Recovery partition (that is shown after the C: OS partition) to the end of the available unallocated space.
Next, resize the C: OS partition to use the available unallocated space.
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I always take the approach described by @Steve Smith when this happens to me.
So that is a +1 from me.
Ian
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I don't spot a way to upvote the post Steve made but thank you Steve. Funny enough for unrelated reasons I spotted Minitool yesterday, downloaded it, but then didn't do anything with it because my goal had been to find a way to do encrypted disk wipes (or maybe the tool does that, I just hadn't launched it to find out).
Alright I will check into this and set up a test system to try it out, don't want to mess with my main computer just yet :) Thanks again guys.
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Steve
Apart from the other issues we have been corresponding about I now also have the problem referred to above. When Dell fitted my new SSD they onlty fitted a 256gb. Today they have been and fitted the correct 512gb SSD but, as above, the system is only recognising it as a 256gb one.
I downloaded the Minitool Partition Wizard but cannot get it to solve the problem. I attach a couple of screenshots. The first shows that it is a 512gb but I cannot do what you suggested unless I have got the wrong partition. I assumed it was the WINRETOOLS partition but I can't move that. I was able to move the DELLSUPPORET partition to the end but that did not help.
Any idea what to do?
Thanks
John
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John, this is a case of shuffling the boxes to the right, so before you can move the WINRETOOLS box, you have to first move the Image(NTFS) box so that the (Unallocated) box is then to its left, then do the same with the WINRETOOLS box. Once the Unallocated box is next to your C:OS(NTFS) box, you can expand that box to use all the unallocated space.
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Steve
Brilliant. That did the trick.
My only question is why does windows show it as 460gb when it is sold as 512?
many thanks
John
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John, the simple answer is 'Sales' talk - disks are sold as if 1MB = 1000 megabytes but the reality is that 1MB = 1024 megabytes, which then gives the lower actual value, along with some loss of capacity caused by the partition formatting and scheme!
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