Windows 10: How to clone a boot drive so I don't have to reinstall?

So my current boot drive is running very low on space and I got a spare HDD that's bigger.

What's the best way to migrate/copy/clone the boot drive over so I don't have to set up and reinstall everything?

:)

 

Trojan:Win32/Rundas.A is it same as Trojan: Win32/Rundas!plock

The disk that is the result of the weekly cloning exercise of the C:\ (Boot Drive) I refer to as the Clone. I used to write down the date when I cloned the boot drive I don't do it any more but I usually do it on the week end I think it was on

the 4th. I am curious why does the date matter? I am a little concerned after giving this a little more thought. My setup is this, I have two 240GB SSD's That are both active on the system. Every week I Use Macrium Reflect to do a Cloning Process of the
boot drive. When the cloning process is complete I boot from the "Clone" to make sure that it is good. The thing that now worries me is that this Clone that I am now using was live on the system although not being used. There is a possibility that the Trojan
could have been put there although it was not being used as a boot drive by the system at that time. I guess I need to figure out a way to be able to take the new "clone" offline so nothing can get to it.

 

Replacing Hard drive - Windows 10 (upgraded) Product Key

My laptop is Vaio SVF13N12CGS. The laptop's hard drive is a mSATA SSD drive (128 GB) and I want to replace it with a mSATA SSD (500 GB). I don't have mSATA adapter (connector) to directly clone my current Windows to the new hard drive. Then it seems that
I should clone it on a usb (my laptop doesn't have in-dash DVD), make a boot usb, replace the hard, turn the laptop on by means of boot usb, and recover my Windows. Am I right? If yes, how should I make the boot usb and recover my Windows when I don't have
my Windows' Product Key?

 

Macrium Reflect Free Edition is the standard recommendation. Good tool. No cost.

You'll have to decide between cloning or imaging. Different processes with the same result, assuming it works.


Macrium will do both.

Cloning probably "simpler", but anecdotally maybe not as high a success rate.

Imaging involves making an image file of the partitions on your boot drive and later restoring that file to some other drive. Usually thought of as a backup or disaster recovery thing.

On the other hand, cloning is a transfer of an existing system in real time, not a restoration, not a "backup". Typically done when all is well and you are just low on space.

If cloning fails, you can try imaging instead.

There's a learning curve with Macrium. Not insurmountable, but not a 5 minute study either.

Tutorials on this web site.

 

Backup and Restore with Macrium Reflect Windows 10 Backup Restore Tutorials

 

thanks i'll give it a try tomorrow, looks like a thing i can't do under an hour.

Also is this better/easier than using clonezilla?

How to Create a Bootable Clone of your Windows 10 Drive - Make Tech Easier

 

I have no personal experience with Clonezilla, but I notice the following quote at your link:

"Clonezilla’s lack of a GUI can make it challenging to navigate confidently."

Who needs unnecessary challenges for something that critical?

And you won't find a lot of people here with Clonezilla experience. Macrium is highly refined and about as intuitive as such an app can be.

You should make a Macrium "recovery disk" immediately after installing Macrium.

It's NOT needed if you clone if I recall correctly. Been a long time since I tried cloning.

It would be needed if you wanted to restore via imaging and your C drive had failed and would not boot your PC.

 

Use Macrium Reflect Free for cloning as others say. As Tina says "simply the best".

 

ok i'm having issues: when i did it the way like the first screen shot, every seems to work fine, but windows won't let me merge that empty volume with my primary partition.

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With # 2, i did it manually by moving the main partition first (maximizing it until I have the exact space left for the 450 mb recovery partition, and then moving it). This way failed to clone.




With # 3, i reversed the order of the partitions so that I can maximize main partition. everything worked, except that when I boot up, i get the windows 10 BSOD screen.




What am i doing wrong?

 

Regarding your first attempt, you say "ok i'm having issues: when i did it the way like the first screen shot, every seems to work fine, but windows won't let me merge that empty volume with my primary partition."

How are you trying to "merge"??

I assume you are trying to add that gray 111 GB to the destination partition with the red bar showing 34.70 GB occupied. Correct?


Are you using Windows Disk Management to do that? I don't think it likes that situation because of that intervening partition with the blue bar showing only 373 MB used. If that blue partition weren't there, WDM could probably "merge" the 111 with the 34.70. It likes to work only on IMMEDIATELY ADJACENT areas--without anything else in the way.

So try another tool---Minitool Partition Wizard. It doesn't care about that intervening partition.

Or am I misunderstanding??

If that won't work, my only suggestion is to try imaging instead of cloning. I have very little cloning experience.

 

Use method #1 to clone. Keep the same layout as was on the original disk. The second partition is the Recovery Partition. Once you get the drive cloned and it is booting up properly, then you install and use MiniTool Partition Wizard free. Move the recovery partition to the end of the drive. The unallocated space then ends up next to the C: drive partition and then you can extend C: drive partition to fill it.

Best Free Partition Manager for Windows | MiniTool Partition Free

There are other ways of doing it with Macrium Reflect Free, but the above is just the simplest way.

 

yes, yes, and yes. I was trying to use disk management to extend the 34.70 GB partition to the 111 GB unallocated volume via right click "Extend Volume".

I'll try using that software to bypass that middle partition

 

Cloning seems to be not successful since when I try to boot up, i keep getting this windows 10 BSOD. pressing enter and F8 doesn't do anything. Only thing i could do was boot into my windows 7 partition (which is on a separate HDD).




I have a feeling it's not playing nicely with my system due to dual boot.

EDIT: i try the system image route, same results.

 

Did you create a Macrium Reflect rescue drive and boot from it? Under the restore menu is an option to Fix Windows boot problems.

 

yes I burned it onto a dvd. When I try to boot from it, I get an orange and white screen like my computer is overheating.