Windows 10 Cloned on External nvme drive

RussD

RussD

RussD

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Hi All, For safety's sake I Cloned my Win 10 onto a NVME drive inside a caddy. So far I not need to use it. Reason I put on an external is because to get to my internal nvme I have to take out my Huge cpu cooler.
If my Internal nvme goes bad or if I install Win11 then find I hate it. (of which I did once before) how do I install this cloned backup on the external nvme to the internal nvme.??
Hope you can follow what I said lol..
 
What tool did you use to copy clone the NVMe to the external drive?
Does the tool have a restore function?

Without knowing what method you used to clone the drive and what format the backup is saved as, we can't really answer how to restore.
 
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Presuming your clone process went well, in theory, you could just remove the nvme drive from the external caddy and stick it straight into your PC where the existing nvme drive is.

You'll end up losing everything from the clone onwards though, but that might not be too much of an issue.

I'd probably just recommend re cloning back to a new drive from the external one though, presuming the clone is good.
 
I used Macrium Reflect. On the older self build PC I cloned the C: drive (ssd) to another ssd and when I swapped it. it worked great after I chose the Drive in bios.
On this NEW MSI PC built by Overclockers for me, The nvme is Blocked by the Huge Noctua. (so are my RAMS) I could insert the cloned nvme on the motherboard but I not sure which slot to us. I have three slots spare. My mobo is the Micro-Star International Co. Ltd. PRO Z690-A DDR4(MS-7D25) (U3E1) with 32gb ram, +
5589GB Seagate ST6000DM003-2CY186 (SATA ) 30 °C
2794GB TOSHIBA HDWD130 (SATA ) 34 °C
3726GB Seagate ST4000DM004-2U9104 (SATA ) 32 °C
931GB Western Digital WD_BLACK SN750 SE 1TB (Unknown (SSD)) This one is the OS, Others for Photography.
So I was wondering that If I put the external nvme via usb and start up it would recognise both..Or Clone from the external to the internal ?? Not sure if that will work.
I am thinking of redoing the Clone as I now have three new programs on the original that's not on the cloned one.
 
Macrium Reflect is a good clone program so if you selected the right settings then the clone will be good. I'm not sure if Macrium clones the disk signature by default (or if you selected it to do that) but you can't have two disks that share the same signature online at the same time. I'm sure there're tools or methods to change the signature so both drives can be on together though, but then it's not a 1:1 clone anymore.

I'm not sure if the slots are rated for different speeds or not on that mobo but if you can't get to the slot your existing one is in, due to obstruction, then you should be able to use one of the other slots and then disable the current one in the bios / uefi while enabling the new slot as the boot one.

Edit: Depending on the three programs and how difficult they are to reinstall would depend if it's worth making a new clone or just reinstalling them if you do revert back to the older clone. Windows updates aren't so bad any more with the rollup packs so they're not likely to take long updating again if you do revert to the older clone.
 
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