Clone Windows 10 to a new drive

B&W · 19 Nov 2017 at 16:59

Hi, I want to copy/clone my existing windows 10 installation to a new drive. Is this possible, I really dont have the time to reinstall windows 10 and all apps.

andy_mk3 · 19 Nov 2017 at 17:09

Macrium reflect will do it, it's totally free and very easy to use. It will clone everything to the new drive and Windows will boot straight off it.

I recently swapped around 4 SSD's between my server and a couple of laptops with it.

Lartyconshayo · 19 Nov 2017 at 18:27

+1 for macrium . Used it several times with no hassle

B&W · 19 Nov 2017 at 22:35

Have tried but the cloned drive won't boot into Windows, it just freezes. Could it be because the original drive was upgraded to Windows ten from seven?

A real pita this is, this ssd is sitting useless while Windows is on this rubbish ten year old hard drive.

Pho · 20 Nov 2017 at 00:10

Have you gone from an MBR disk to a GPT disk or something?
This has worked for me in the past: https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW7/Fixing+Windows+boot+problems

Not sure off-hand if you can do this in Windows without the bootable recovery version, or if you're able to make a recovery version with the free edition though.

This may also help: https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW7/Adding+a+boot+menu+option+for+Reflect+recovery

jonneymendoza · 20 Nov 2017 at 07:21

B&W said:
Hi, I want to copy/clone my existing windows 10 installation to a new drive. Is this possible, I really dont have the time to reinstall windows 10 and all apps.

I was about to create the same thread! thanks.

Does i just copy stuff on the C: only? i have multiple hdd on my machine and just want to backup and move windows 10 from c: to a new SSD drive but still maintain shortcuts etc from my other hdd's?

andy_mk3 · 20 Nov 2017 at 10:13

jonneymendoza said:
I was about to create the same thread! thanks.

Does i just copy stuff on the C: only? i have multiple hdd on my machine and just want to backup and move windows 10 from c: to a new SSD drive but still maintain shortcuts etc from my other hdd's?

Yup that will work fine. Shortcuts will still work as long as the drive letters stay the same.

B&W · 21 Nov 2017 at 00:28

Pho said:
Have you gone from an MBR disk to a GPT disk or something?
This has worked for me in the past: https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW7/Fixing+Windows+boot+problems

Not sure off-hand if you can do this in Windows without the bootable recovery version, or if you're able to make a recovery version with the free edition though.

This may also help: https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW7/Adding+a+boot+menu+option+for+Reflect+recovery

Thanks did try what it said but not working, I'm thinking this ssd is faulty. It's only four years old and not used much.

Disappointing if true, as initially it failed to post and Windows installed on it but lots of file errors so couldn't use it. Now the cloning is not working either.

Kingston smart says it's ok though.

bremen1874 · 21 Nov 2017 at 01:02

Imaging a drive with Macrium should be fairly painless.

Have you tried with a different SATA cable and/or port?

Is the system overclocked? If it is try it at stock.

Have you got another system available for testing?

B&W · 22 Nov 2017 at 19:58

bremen1874 said:
Imaging a drive with Macrium should be fairly painless.

Have you tried with a different SATA cable and/or port?

Is the system overclocked? If it is try it at stock.

Have you got another system available for testing?

Initial Problem with this PC was my existing Windows 7 install was corrupt, it wouldn't boot into the SSD just said no boot loader etc. I believe this was due to the little one turning it on and off numerous times.

I tried to reinstall Windows 7 but to no luck, eventually I got Windows 7 installed on the SSD but there were numerous file corrupt errors and file is missing errors so it was useless, in the end I installed it on the other older SATA hard disk and upgraded that to Windows 10. It works fine but is quite slow in boot up.

Now I can access the SSD from my current install and have run numerous hard disk scanning tools on there but none shows that it has any errors.

So I tried this cloning attempt and it tries to boot up into Windows 10 on the SSD but just hangs at the loading screen with a mouse pointer visible.

So im still wondering is it the hard disk/sata cable or sata port.

B&W · 25 Nov 2017 at 22:14

Right have plugged the SSD into various ports with different leads.

Basically it attempts to boot into Windows but then restarts. I can access it from the other Windows install and have copied files from and to it without any problems. Plus I've run various tools and the say it's fine.

I'm thinking of doing a fresh Windows 10 install from USB but I've lost my old windows 7 key so don't know if that's a good idea.

bremen1874 · 25 Nov 2017 at 22:18

You can install Windows 10 without a key.

Certainly good enough for testing.

B&W · 26 Nov 2017 at 13:57

bremen1874 said:
You can install Windows 10 without a key.

Certainly good enough for testing.

And it worked, SSD boots up fine now. And somehow windows says its activated. "windows is activated with a digital license linked to your microsoft account"

Orcvader · 27 Nov 2017 at 14:48

B&W said:
And it worked, SSD boots up fine now. And somehow windows says its activated. "windows is activated with a digital license linked to your microsoft account"

Yup, that's because Windows remembers your system being upgraded to 10, so no need to retype the key during reinstallation.

jonneymendoza · 7 Jan 2018 at 13:30

Hi all. So i just cloned my windows 10 C drive that was in a 128GB ssd and cloned it into a new 1tb HDD and i noticed how it does not make use of the extra 700+gb space my new HDD has and instead does a direct clone of the partition instead of extending it?

Is it possible to clone to a bigger capacity hdd and make use of all the bigger capacity in one partition or am i stuck like this? defeats the purpose because i wanted my C: to be larger without reinstalling windows

bremen1874 · 7 Jan 2018 at 15:37

Macrium Reflect will clone and expand the partition at the same time.

jonneymendoza · 7 Jan 2018 at 16:40

bremen1874 said:
Macrium Reflect will clone and expand the partition at the same time.

It diddnt in my case. I found the option to manually set the expansion. Trying it now

Orcvader · 8 Jan 2018 at 11:49

jonneymendoza said:
It diddnt in my case. I found the option to manually set the expansion. Trying it now

Another option is to just jump into disk management on the new cloned drive, and expand the partition.

easyrider · 13 Jan 2018 at 15:45

I have tried using Macrium to go from 120 GB ssd to 480GB ssd

But unless Im missing something obvious I cant get the drive to fill the free space...Im left with 110 gb system and 300gb odd unallocated space....

How do I extend the partition?

what im going to be left with here is 335gb of unused space. I have ran this once and there was no way to extend C partition in disk manager...In macrium I cant make the drive any bigger as it wont let me....

Orcvader · 13 Jan 2018 at 16:58

@easyrider You need to have the main partition as the last partiton, that 450mb partition is blocking it. You should be able to just drag it which will then allow you to extend the other partition.