Cloning/Secure Erasing A How To Guide

wazza300

wazza300

wazza300

Caporegime
Joined
11 Jul 2009
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Things you will need

Macrium Reflect (free 30 day trial)
or
Paragon Migrate (paid)
or
Acronis True Image 2012 (paid)
Samsung Magician Tool (free/works with samsung ssd's)

A usb memory stick for the Parted Magic Secure Erasing Software,or burn to a cd and boot from it

Heres the guide to setup a bootable usb stick and how to use parted magic to secure erase your ssd

http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-20115106-285/how-to-securely-erase-an-ssd-drive/

http://partedmagic.com/

Ok down to cloning your operating system to your ssd(in my case i wanted to clone my ssd to a blank 120gb hdd/secure erase the ssd to restore lost performance and then clone back the operating system to the newly erased ssd)

Its the same process if your cloning from your hard drive to your new ssd just select the hdd first and the ssd as the target drive

software i used was Paragon Migrate,simply becuase im used to it but all cloning software will be similar,heres the process from start to finish in screenshot form

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Remember to select the newly cloned ssd/hdd as first boot device in the drive boot order in the bios so that your pc will boot from it;)
 
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My SSD is arriving soon, at the moment, i have my OS and other stuff on my 2TB C: disk drive.

Would these programs allow me to select just the OS to copy over? I dont want to move any documents, other things. (I will keep on my hdd).

Also, If you know, would I be able to keep some program files on my HDD instead of my sdd? I Have large programs like steam and things, would i be able to keep them on my hdd with little trouble? A full on clone wouldn't really do me.


Nice guide though!
 
you cant clone it unless your c drive/windows is smaller than your ssd:(

best way is to just do a new/fresh install onto your new ssd and keep the 2tb as it is,then backup your data from it and format it

you can install steam to the hdd if you select custom when it prompts you where to install to and point it to the 2tb hdd
 
All my important stuff is on my HDD, which im happy about, so that shouldn't be a problem.

If i do do a fresh install onto my SSD, will the programs on my HDD work? since i don't want to move them over because the HDD is bigger. I would delete the windows files and just keep Program Files and Program Files (x86).

Would they carry on working, or would i need to reinstall?

So to hopefully clear things up.

SDD= Just Windows

HDD= Programs and everything else.
 
it depends,
some will and some will need reinstalling,just reinstall those that wont work and point it to the hdd instead of your ssd and they will work fine

remember to click "custom" and select the hdd when your installing games/programs

you can also look in the program folders on the hdd and look for the game/programs .exe file and create a shortcut to the desktop,some programs will work that way too

and remember to set to ahci mode in the bios before you install windows
 
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Easier way to do a secure disk wipe, is make a bootable Linux DVD/USB stick and use the shred command and make 7+ passes. Good luck recovering....
 
secure erase is different though,for ssd's it leaves 0's across the entire drive instead of 1's

basically it restores lost performance and puts it back to the state it left the factory(performance wise)
 
Just a thought, I have acronis backup and restore, if I do a selective backup of just my c: drive with my large files unselected i could restore that to the ssd couldn't I?

And just deleted everything else off the HDD, but the stuff i want to keep on it?

Or will this not help with ahci?
 
Yeah you can do that,and do a simple reg tweak to enable ahci without reinstalling windows
 
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