Cloning Laptop HDD to SDD with Partitions & Complications!
Hi guys!
So basically I want to:
Replace my 500GB Dell 13 7000 Series laptop HDD (Let's call it Old Dell HDD) with a new 500GB Sandisk SSD (New Dell SSD) without having to reinstall Win 10 or programs.
Complication 1: Old Dell HDD is split into two partitions - C: (73GB of 120GB used for Windows 10 & Programs) & D: (210 GB Used for Data) I'd like to 1) Clone only C drive & adjust the size of the new C drive partition. It is currently 120GB on Old Dell HDD, I'd like to make it 100GB on New Dell SSD thus leaving more room for data.
Complication 2: Acronis True Image 2015 is installed on my Desktop running Win 8.1. (I can't afford another license at the moment sadly. Can I do the above with the Recovery Media Creator on a USB flash/pendrive and perform the clone on the laptop, given that I'm not actually installing Acronis on a second machine?
Complication 3: The Dell 13 Laptop does not have a CD/ROM drive. Only 3 USB 3.0 ports.
Item: I have a powered external Anker USB 3.0 Harddrive dock that can take both desktop & laptop drives. I do not have access to a USB enclosure for Old Dell HDD. Will the dock be compatible for this process?
I have read several posts that are similar but I thought I'd run the procedure as I see it past you guys lest I hit any snags!
1) Create Rescue Media USB on Desktop.
2) Plug USB pendrive into Dell Laptop and boot to ensure the environment works
3) Shut Down laptop - Physically remove Old Dell HDD - Install New Dell SSD - Plug Old Dell HDD into Anker USB 3.0 Dock - Plug Anker Dock into Laptop USB 3.0 port - Plug Acronis Bootable Media USB Flash Disk to Laptop USB 3.0 port - start laptop & go into Acronis Bootable Media menu
4) Clone C: drive from Old Dell HDD to New Dell SSD whilst adjusting the new partition size (can I even do this?!)
5) Disconnect all USB connections and restart Laptop , thus booting from freshly cloned New Dell SSD
6) Reattach Anker USB 3.0 dock and manually copy files and folder from Old Dell HDD Partition D: (Should I clone this too after Step 4 or will that mess up the making of partitions?
I would appreciate any help and guidance - I'm about to take delivery of the new SSD so want to get the process moving and I'd prefer to do it properly! Thank you so much in advance!
Hi Kesara, you will not be able to "clone" in this case.
A clone is a one-for-one copy of the original drive and will make the new drive exactly as the orignal.
Since you are interested in only moving your C: drive to the new drive and resizing it as well, you should take a full disk backup image of the old drive and save it to another drive (say another USB external drive). I would recommend backing up the entire drive, even though you only intend to recover just the OS originally - better to be safe than sorry.
Then, you will restore your full disk image to the new SSD, but can de-select your data parition (recover all other patitions though). The resulting image recovery on the new SSD should be exactly what you want with a bootable SSD and just the C: drive. I would, however, recommend that you remove the original drive and replace it with the recovered one before booting up the computer so there is no conflic between the hard drive ID's (which will essentially be the same when you restore the MBR track 0 partition from your full disk image in the process).
After restoring and booting into Windows, you can then use Windows disk management to shrink the C: volume to 100GB if desired. You can then use Windows disk management to create a new partition with the remaining available space so that you can either copy the data from the original drive through Windows to it, or, restore the data partition from the backup you took earlier to the newly created data parition on the new drive.
You do not need ot create the Acronis bootable recovery media to a CD/DVD disc. Acronis is fully capable of creating a bootable USB drive that functions the same way. You just need to be sure to use a flash USB drive that is marked as "removable" - most are, but some sandisks were created as "fixed disks" when Windows 8 was released in preparation for Windows2Go portable drives. Likewise, external USB hard drives are always "fixed disks" in Windows so Acronis won't be able to use them to create bootable media either. There is a work-a-round though - create a UsB flash drive first with Acronis recovery media builder. Then image it with Acronis. Then push the image to your USB external hard drive and you now have a bootable USB external hard drive. I'd also recommend, that if you do that, that you parition the USB external hard drive with 1GB free at the front and push the Acronis bootable media image to that small parition since it will be formatted and set to FAT32. With 2 paritions, recovering your image this way will only impact the one you push the image to, and the second partion can maintain your data and retain the NTFS file parition).
Hope that helps. Regards!