Windows 10: How do I move my operating system to a SSD.

fredc - I'll just share that I issued the clean command (from a diskpart prompt) to my Samsung 850 EVO 500 GB SSD after completing the Win 10 upgrade and as last step before commencing clean install of Win10. Upon boot, I had a black bar below my Dell logo (should fill in blue and accept either an F2 or F12 keystroke) and could not get into BIOS or even boot from the USN stick with the Win10 ISO on it- nada, zippo, nothing. YMMV and it could have depended on exact sequencing that I went through. After a few hours of panic and cold sweat, I was able to revive the dead SSD by inserting it in a USB enclosure I had on hand and re-initializing it from the USB port of another machine.

I would never have done "clean" on that SSD if I had known 1) What panic would descend upon me and 2) that clean install includes being able to select all partitions on the drive and delete every one of them.

YMMV - just sharing an experience on the exact same SSD even though a different machine/BIOS/(over)enthusiastic operator.

 

I don't have the EVO but anyway , i did not just use the clean command , there is quite a few others i was told to follow and "clean" is just one of them . One of the commands was to select a partition so thats probably important.

I posted the commands a while back , they should be around here somewhere, i asked around a lot and the guys at "Seven Forums" guided me step by step .

If Win 10 is different regarding adding a new SSD than i'm screwed lol.

 

Well, yeah you have to select the right disk and perhaps you can simply select a partition to "clean" - I just wanted all the partitions "removed" so I would only end up with the minimum partitions needed via clean install. Little did I realize you can accomplish exactly the same thing within the clean install and "clean" was not at all necessary (nor was my ensuing panic).

Sorry for the confusion. In those other threads, I saw you mention "clean", but must have you confused with someone else who menttioned they were getting the exact same SSD as I have.

 

I like minimum partitions as well , last time i let Windows do it i ended up with this :

I deleted the partitions during a clean install like i always do .

 

Guess you haven't looked MiniTool Partition Wizard in a while, version 9.1 includes right at the top "Migrate OS to SSD/HD Wizard" Works just fine and its free of course. *Smile

 

I do not have any experience with partitioning hard drives and have dowloaded the MiniTool Partition Wizard free edition 9.1, and will be using a separate HHD that I have just to try some test and learning some about it.

The tutorial and the minitool info (showing what all it can do) appears to be good info.

I seems that each HHD has different partitions, and some have different names.

What partitions are the STANDARD NAMES, and the ones that are needed .... it just seems they are all different.
all be safe.. cliff M.

Thanks to all.

 

Ok Cliff, here is a snap shot of mine, AFTER I used partition magic. All I wanted was the required System Reserved partition and of course your Primary partition. Some folks also make a restore partition, which I deleted on mine, I make backups using a 3rd party backup program, and don't want to waste 300 or 450 gigs of wasted space on my SSD.

 

Mike and all : Thanks, ..

My ACER desktop 1TB Drive C in formatter as NTFS and has my Windows 10 permanently activated OS on it.

I have had a Toshiba 1TB Drive (Drive H: below) for many years and it has always been formatted as GPT but last week I used MACRIUM software to clone my Drive C: (NTFS) desktop upgraded win10 over to it. The graphic below shows what my Windows 10 disk management software says about it now..

Attachment 36885

This weekend - I plan to reformat my Toshiba 1TB drive as NTFS (using either partition magic or Minitool 9.1) and hopefully do that .... I will be able to make it have less partitions. If I can get that done then I will use the Macrium Trial cloning software again to clone my Windows 10 desktop drive over to it.

Maybe if I do it that way -- I will not end-up with a few less partitions. ...but...

Remember I started out by saying the I know very little about hard drive partitions.......
so comments are welcomed. Thanks.. Cliff M

 

The free version of Minitool will not do anything with a GPT partition if I remember correctly. I've never made one, or had a GPT partition on any of my hard drives. They have always been NTFS. So I never had a problem using MiniTool. But I think your going about it the right way now, if your going to reformat your 1TB drive as NTFS, that should help you a lot!!! Good luck Cliff.

 

Thanks, and the Toshiba dirve is shown my Graphic as Drive H: (disk 2) below... I will try to do that when I arrive home today... and so I will use the MiniTool 9.1 to do it. Thanks ...

 

You can get the Macrium Trial or the Free version, and the software will clone to SSD.

 

Macrium free V6 is my choice for imaging/cloning and it can't be beaten for price! It now has disk management and differentials as well.

Mention was made earlier in this thread about finding out a cloned disk wouldn't boot. Macrium is great at fixing boot problems as well. I had a cloned SSD that wouldn't boot so I booted from the Macrium boot CD and let it at it and the SSD booted fine after the fix.

A lot of angst flows through this thread but cloning is as safe as houses. It doesn't change the source disk so what harm can it do? The worst that can happen is you have to start again.

I will also make a plug for the Mini Partition Tool. It works great.

We are very well served by this excellent software and the fact that it is free is amazing.

Well done OP - all done!!

 

Yesterday my Drive C (win 10) and my Toshiba 1TB drive was as above, so last night I downloaded and used the Free MiniTool 9.1 on my Toshiba drive as Disk2 to "wipe disk" and also "wipe sectors with zero" and those changes to that disk2 took about 3 hours. After that I used the MiniTool to convert my Toshiba Disk2 which was Basic MBR to basic GPT and I made that change because disk1 says it is Basic GPT.

*** I was doing that yesterday on 911 <<--->> and each of us will never forget about what happened on 911 ***

So new day is here, 12 Sept and in the MiniTool graphic below you see that my drives are both Basic GPT and same size GB.

Attachment 37077
and at this point I suspect it does not make any difference that my Disk2 says it is "unallocated" as I plan to use Macrium Reflect software to make it the same as Disk1. Is that correct ???

Mike: So at this point I am going to stop and ask this question to you -- ref the Macrium Reflect
Attachment 37083
??? In your opinion, should I use the "CLONE this disk" or "IMAGE this disk"? I had used Clone before but now I wonder about it ? I am not really sure about the difference of the two commands as shown on the Macrium Reflect screen ???

So now - I am on-hold until I see your reply....and or comments.... Thanks so much to all for any comments, as I am always learning and later will be very willing to discuss experiences about this . . .
All be safe . Cliff M.

 

Well Cliff, I'll answer your question 1st. Clone is for making a exact copy to transfer to another drive. Image is to make a backup image of your hard drive. So you can restore your hard drive to the date of when you made the disk image. I use Image a lot, but I don't use the programs you do. I own Acronis True Image. Used it for years. But the programs you have should work fine.

Now, this is the part you might not like. *Smile I have looked at your partitions that you made, they looked pretty messed up to me, Don't understand why you used GPT at all, but that's your choice. Why you have so many partitions on your Toshiba I have no idea.
The recovery partition is ok, if you really need it, ESP fat, no idea why that was even made? and those 3 partitions labeled *: should not be their in my opinion which all seem to be recovery partitions. I count 7 partitions.....which maybe 3 of them will be actually used. maybe..... right now your partitions looked pretty messed up.
All you need is ONE reserved partition, ONE recovery partition (IF you really need one) and then your primary partition C: If you want to split your drive in half, then you would want a drive D: that's all you should have. Right now you got lots of wasted space on your hard drive. If your computer uses UEFI then you have to use the GPT method. (newer computers use this) This part I don't know about your computer. All my partitions are MBR. I'm sure their are others on here that can also chime in here for their thoughts too. *Smile Hope at least I helped you a little.

 

CLIFF - the answer really depends on what you intend to do after that.

From what I have seen of your posts, you want to get your new Samsung SSD installed and get Windows 10 on it. Is that correct?

Difference between clone and image:

Clone will just take an exact COPY of all partitions, their structure and ALL of your files and put them onto ANOTHER disk exactly the way they were on the disk they came from - that's what I see on your Disk 2 (EARLIER, before you WIPED IT), having come from your Disk0 earlier (NOTE - don't get confused between Disk1/Disk2 and Disk0/Disk1/Disk2 as reported in Windows Disk Management, Macrium, and MiniTool 9.1! They are numbered different according to the creators of the different software! I am using Disk0 and Disk2 the way Windows Disk Management has them numbered!) This clone could have been used (before you wiped it) to clone to your new SSD once you put it in and once booted and all working OK you could have wiped both Disk 0 and Disk 2.

Hope you are with me so far.

Image will (if you select image entire DISK) will take ALL of your partitions from that disk, the entire structure, how they tie together, how you boot off of that disk, all of the FILES on each PARTITION and CONVERT them to Macrium backup files, a different animal altogether and ONLY for use by Macrium to do a restore. Then, if you wanted to, you could do a RESTORE of that image to your new empty SSD and boot from it. The IMAGE files are in a completely different format from the files you CLONED to Disk2, are ONLY useable by Macrium and will be decoded in a restore by Macrium to give you back the exact same files in the exact same format they started in when you took the image.

The choice how to do the SSD install and whether to use clone or image is up to you once you understand the difference.

HOWEVER, Cliff, NO MATTER how you do the SSD install and whether you put a clone on it or restore to it, I would highly recommend that:

FIRST you make an IMAGE of your entire Macrium Disk1 (Disk0 in Windows Disk Management - your original Acer 1TB HDD) with Macrium with that image targeted to store on your EXTENRAL USB drive.

SECOND, may sure you create the resuce media for Macrium if you haven't already (in Macrium menu: Other Tasks - Create Rescue Media). You can create the resucue media on the external USB you will use to store an image or you can create it on a separate USB flash drive but my recommendation create is that you create this first on the external USB drive you will store your image on. This way you have something to always go back to where you started from in case the SSD install and applying your clone or image restore all goes haywire on you. You can boot from that external USB disk and have it pull the restoire from the same USB disk to apply them back to your original Acer 1TB HDD that you took the image from.

Help us be sure where you want to end up with this so you can get more specific help.

I will stop for now since I want you to have all your ducks in a row on this and I don't want to overwhelm you with detail until we get your real target in sight.

P.S. - if my guess is correct and you want to get the new SSD installed first, I think the focus should be on that. All of the partitions you have can be explained and we can work on that too but we should follow the K.I.S.S. principle if you want to make a smooth transition to the SSD and hit the ground running with it before we start teasing apart the reason you have all those partitions on that disk.