Need help cloning on a laptop.
Hello,
Forgive me if this has been posted before. If so, hopefully I can be pointed in the direction of that thread.
For the first time I am adding and migrating to a new drive on a branded laptop (HP Envy M7 with Win 10 Pro). I am migrating from a 1tb WD Blue to a 1tb Samsung 870 Evo (so the size is the same). Physically, I moved the WD drive from the "1st" drive position to the "2nd" drive position and put the new Samsung in the "1st" position. Then I booted into windows and ran True Image.
I executed the "Clone Disk" tool, with "Automatic" checked, instead of manual settings. What happened occurred to be a successful clone, however three things:
1) The new drive was formatted with 512 sector size instead of 4k/512e (which the existing WD drive was formatted at, and what I want).
2) The new drive did not get the "full complement" of sub-partitions in the main Windows partition. Meaning, the old WD drive Windows partition contains: Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, and Basic Data Partition, where the new Samsung drive only has Basic Data Partition for the entirety of the Windows Partition.
3) The machine is still booting from the WD HDD.
I am guessing that I will have to start over from scratch. That's fine. So:
1) How do I clone the disk, formatting the new drive with 4K/512e sectors, as well as the "full complement" of sub partitions in the Windows partition?
2) If anyone knows how to change the boot order, I would greatly appreciate it, though I understand that might be a question for an HP support thread. I have a lot of experience with desktop PCs, building them from raw parts (where "I" am the OEM), where I have full access to all BIOS settings. This is my first time with a branded laptop, and it is very frustrating working with the limited BIOS access. HP doesn't allow editing of the "legacy" boot order, so I have no access to tell it which drive to boot from first, which is a basic 101 task in a custom build from raw parts in a typical MOBO BIOS. Normally I'd clone the disk, restart the machine, change the boot order, and boom, done. Can't do that here. But I'm also wondering if the new disk won't boot because it didn't get the Boot, Page File, & Crash Dump partitions in the main partition? After all, as I first said, I DID move the physical drives so the new SSD is in the primary drive location.
Thanks for any and all contribution.
Steve Smith, thank you so much for the contribution!Question 1: as you say, perhaps the Samsung does not support 4k sectors. I did a quick search and didn't find anything, but I will do a more exhaustive search. Assuming it DOESN"T, then I'm not worried, as the performance is spec'd how it's spec'd, so supported sector size probably doesn't really matter in that case. I just want to make sure I'm getting the best spec'd performance form the drive. It's a performance agenda over sector size/compatibility agenda. 512 just seems like old tech compared to 4k, but I'm not an expert on sector size.
Q2: UEFI for sure.
Q3: I don't have a stand alone partition program at this time. Just using Disk Management. So you think that all those sub partitions might be there, and they're just not being "shown" by windows? That's fair. I had thought about that, that perhaps those sub partitions are only show for the active boot drive. That would make a good degree of sense. Another subtle clue as to which is the active boot drive and which is a secondary drive.
Q4: I have not yet. Again, normally with a custom desktop build, this would all be done while performing "open heart surgery", with the case open, until all things were as they wanted to be, then I'd button the PC back up again. That's not as simple a task with a laptop. I was trying to avoid that step, but will take it if necessary. The one concern is that I hope that makes some type of "permanent" (think Registry entry) change in the active disk, because I want to keep the WD mechanical drive in the laptop for extra storage. Unfortunately, as long as windows sees it and treats it as the active drive, I can't delete it. From within Windows at least. If I have to--and maybe I will--I can always boot from a CD/USB and wipe the HDD from there.
Just hoping to solve things without all the extra steps and assembling/disassembling.
Thanks again!
Jeff, you can download and install MiniTool Partition Wizard for free for non-commercial use.
In your UEFI BIOS settings, check whether you can choose which drive the Windows Boot Manager is being selected from, and change this if possible to come from the Samsung SSD.
I understand about laptops versus desktops in terms of ease of swapping drives etc. I am using a HP Omen laptop and have played that game a few times since getting it, with upgrading the supplied NVMe M.2 SSD from 128GB to 500GB to 1TB, and the internal HDD from 1TB to 2TB, along with ramping up the memory from 8GB to 32GB.
Hey Steve, thanks again. I downloaded and ran MiniTool Partition Wizard. Thank you for turning me onto that. Great little program. The drives look much more similar here. I have a lot of info to follow. Feel free to pass over. Or read if interested. I just don't want to consume more of your time. Your contribution has been very much appreciated.
MiniTool shows 5 versus 4 partitions.
It shows a 128MB "Reserved Partition" on each disk, which Disk Manager does not.
It does show the "Recovery Partition" label on the two recovery partitions on both drives, so that's good.
The EFI System Partition is the same label on both. The WD drive says Active & System under Status, while the Samsung only says Active.
As for the Data Partition, the other--what I am calling "sub partitions"--are not listed for either drive: the Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, and Basic Data Partitions. They both just say "Data Partition". However, the WD drive says Boot under status, where the Samsung says None. Maybe all those sub partitions get assigned to the active "Boot" drive.
As such, I am holding off on swapping the drives until I get the sector size issue handled. I haven't gone into the UEFI BIOS since before, but I remember looking at every single possible option (of which there are not many) and not finding anyway to modify any parameters regarding the disks. Worst case scenario, I will open this machine back up, remove the WD drive, boot from the Samsung (to make sure it works), then boot from some USB with tools to wipe the WD drive from there. Hopefully I don't have to, but whatever. Better than agonizing over it (though probably a useful "know how" bit).
As for the sector size, I have opened a ticket with Samsung. All roads point to larger sector sizes, particularly 4K. This includes a page on Intel's website (along with a downloadable tool and instructions to change the sector size) specifically for their SSDs, pages on Microsoft's website, and several independent sites. I am even studying for the CompTIA A+ certificate (on 2nd exam), and all of the above resources point to 512 byte sectors as "old, backwards compatible" tech, and 4K as the current standard. One resource--I believe Microsoft--goes so far as to say that with ever increasingly larger file sizes, 512 sectors become problematic. Even Disk Manager allows formatting all the up to 2048K!!!
I found a cool command line command to verify this info: fsutil fsinfo ntfsinfo c:
This verifies that the WD drive has 512 logical sectors and 4k physical sectors and clusters. The Samsung has 512 logical AND physical sectors, and 4K clusters. So we'll get this worked out before moving things, in case I have to start over again.
Thanks again!
Steve, you posted this once before in a different thread. It applies to my situation: Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office, Acronis True Image: how to clone a disk | Knowledge Base
I used the Acronis "Clone Disk" tool, because both drives were 1tb drives and I wasn't considering sector size. It seemed the quick and easy way to do things, which it was. As such, because the WD "logical" sector size is 512, and the default Samsung logical sector size is 512, this would have been the only option available.
So the bigger sequence then is, I would have to start over, change the logical and physical sector size of the Samsung drive, and then use Back Up and Restore to "Restore" the image to the new drive. The Clone Disk tool will not work. (I'm jsut assuming at this point that you can restore an image to a disk of any sector size. This is now directly an Acronis support issue, not drive manufacturer issue. Because, if the source drive logical sector size is 512 (which it is), I might be hamstrung in my options.