Is there a free Cloning tool to go from a larger HDD to a smaller SSD

Mel_P · 20 Oct 2021 at 11:26

I have a HP mini desktop with an older 1TB HDD with Win 10 freshly installed. The HDD is nearly empty. I wish to make a clone onto a smaller (but plenty big enough SSD).

The two free cloning tools I have tried (Macrium / AOMEI) won't seem to do this. Any suggestions please?

Thanks, Mel

Mr Badger · 20 Oct 2021 at 11:41

What's wrong with Macrium Reflect? It should do exactly what you want. I think you can download a free trial of the latest version if you are still using an older one.

mickyflinn · 20 Oct 2021 at 11:53

Macrium Should do it

Hp using todo back up.

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Deskt...nd-Recovery/Cloning-a-Hard-Drive/td-p/6332728

Purgatory · 20 Oct 2021 at 12:05

Mel_P said:
I have a HP mini desktop with an older 1TB HDD with Win 10 freshly installed. The HDD is nearly empty. I wish to make a clone onto a smaller (but plenty big enough SSD).

The two free cloning tools I have tried (Macrium / AOMEI) won't seem to do this. Any suggestions please?

Thanks, Mel

I'm guessing you are cloning an OS drive ?

What you can do is change the partition size to same size (or smaller and then expand it later, but making sure big enough for the data on it) as the new drive you want to clone on, that way the cloning software doesn't complain about the drive sizes, or when you clone the drive make sure not to have sector by sector cloning as that will throw up a size error as it can't clone the drive due to size.

Mel_P · 20 Oct 2021 at 17:09

Thanks all. Macrium reflect with manual input does it.

Mel

rodders · 2 Nov 2021 at 14:44

I tried to do with on Macirum, but my source HDD has a bad sector and it throws up an error.
Read someone else had this problem and AOMEI did it no problem, but you can't clone on their evaluation trial, doh!

Anything else to use?

Can I clone just the recovery partition from the source HDD to the SSD and run a recovery?
It's the windows installed partition that seems to have the bad sector.

Also, Macirum only sees the source HDD in the PC it comes from, if I plug it into my laptop, with an adaptor, it sees it, but doesn't show any partition data or anything?

I thought I'd be able to image the HDD to my laptop, then build it onto the SSD?

Edit - HDD no good, ended up making a Windows usb key and installed a fresh on the SSD.