This method is for cloning the entirety of your existing drive and OS installation to a new drive. As far as we're aware there is no way to copy purely the OS files from an existing installation and have it remake all the connections to your apps on your old drive. If you're looking to use a small SSD as a boot drive, and can't trim down your existing installation, you're probably better off installing Windows from scratch on the new drive.
Can you guys make a video about what to do once you've cloned the drive? You skimmed over how to get your computer to boot from the new drive if it doesn't do it automatically, I'd love to get some troubleshooting tips since my PC seems to be having trouble booting from the new drive.
What they failed to mention here is that when you're upgrading to a larger drive, at the part where you pull in the partitions to the new drive (4:34), pull in the part where all your documents etc are stored on (partition no.3 in the video at 4:37) LAST to your new drive. After that same way as making a partition smaller (by clicking "Cloned partition properties") you can make it bigger to fill the rest of your new drive by either using the slider or by clicking "Maximum size".
The first video that doesn't want you to buy some shady company's unwieldly software for ridiculous prices and, whilst keeping the video to a normal length, explains everything perfectly. Great video.
I love that this kind of video exists. I have cloned many a drive before and done tones of work on my own PC but I still used this video for the software links and general tips so I don't develop bad habits. There is sooo much media on RUclips for enthusiasts, but if someone is just learning, this kind of video is PERFECT.
One of the clearest tutorials I have seen in some time. A great source for users that are not sure of the procedure or have never cloned drives before. Well done guys!
I cloned my drive 120gb ssd to 256gb ssd. The new larger drive is still reading as 120gb. I went into disk management and it looks like portions of the drive aren't formatted. Do I need to repeat the clone process now? It only took 12 minutes, everything carried over fine. Could you explain the transfer and how to make sure the larger drive is properly formatted a little more?
Rachel - You should be able to right click on the existing volume and expand it to the full size of the drive using "Extend Volume". Reformatting is not needed; reformatting wipes the drive of all data and organizes the space on the drive into sectors where files are stored. Extending the volume of the drive allocates more of those formatted sectors to the drive letter to allow you to use them. An alternative to adding the sectors to the existing volume is to right click on the unallocated data and create a new "Simple Volume". Then you can assign a new drive letter to the extra space, so you will have 3 drives: C - your old SSD, D - the copied data on your new SSD, and E - the free space you added (note the exact letters don't matter).
Dave - "I am dave the hardware guru." Rich - "Hi, I am rich the assistant." Dave - "Yes, a lovely assistant." Rich - Upon realization of Dave's feelings, becomes very uncomfortable.
To anyone else who missed this important step like I did at 4:45 , make sure you increase the last partition size to be maxed out and filling up the whole blank (grey) space, I figured that since i only had two partitions to copy over the blank space would just end up as free space but instead it decreases the max storage of the new drive to only fit what was copied over.
@@soydelga2744 When you're dragging over the partitions, you might end up with extra space on the end. if you freeze frame at 5:03 that grey bit on the end at the bottom right is the extra space. You don't want that. Most people will assume that bit means you have free unused storage, what it actually does is remove that extra space from the device and shortens it's max storage capacity. So if in that grey bit it says "10gb" for example and you had a 100gb hard drive, it will just remove that 10gb from the device so the total size of the hard drive would be 90gb when you finish.
It's at times like these, 2am local time, when you're working and realize that your storage desperately needs an upgrade. Just gotta wait around 8 hours for my local hardware shop to open and right before we go back into lockdown.
My SSD isn't even showing up in Windows Explorer, BIOS, or Samsung Magician. I've got a Samsung EVO 970 Plus in my Lenovo Y720, so it should work. But nope. Update: It was because my motherboard got fried; Forgot to unplug my battery, unplugged it partway through opening and working on it, plugged it back in after I was done, and a big spark was produced where I plugged it in. Had to buy a new laptop because my fans, keyboard backlight, speakers, headphone jack, and SATA port stopped working. Did something similar with the new one, only I left it plugged in the whole time. Do yourselves a favor: If you forget to unplug your battery and realize it partway through an operation, *LEAVE IT UNPLUGGED.*
The best thing about Macrium Reflect is the capability to adjust the destination drive space to the desired smaller volume. This is really helpful ! Thank You.
@@dancarr2099 From another Commenter: What they failed to mention here is that when you're upgrading to a larger drive, at the part where you pull in the partitions to the new drive (4:34), pull in the part where all your documents etc are stored on (partition no.3 in the video at 4:37) LAST to your new drive. After that same way as making a partition smaller (by clicking "Cloned partition properties") you can make it bigger to fill the rest of your new drive by either using the slider or by clicking "Maximum size"
I think it was just for the people that don't understand that. Plus most bios versions will default to the drive with windows on it. But I totally understand what you mean! These guys just have to generalize all the info.
Did you have any trouble? I cant get my cloned SSD to boot. The only thing different is it assigned the system reserved from the original hhd a drive letter so it shows up as two different partitions in the library.
@@mursu1286 I just had to nm do it twice for some reason. Something must have went wrong the first time. I definitely had it set as the boot drive and it just wasn't booting. But the second time I cloned it worked right out of the gate.
Thank you so much! I've spent enough hours tracking down the hotfix for windows 7, so it's a huge relief that you've presented the installation and cloning in such a clear way.
oh my god, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!!! you just saved my arse from a buttload of trouble! twas a royal pain trying to figure out how to clone my ssd to my new one for free and you just showed me in minutes! subscribing and definately liking! good on you guys for helping people out!
Used this process and when I booted up my pc after running the software I was stuck on BIOS and couldn't load windows 10. To solve the problem, I first disconnected my HDD and then used the troubleshoot function of the Windows 10 installation media and selected startup repair. This solved the issue of not getting past the BIOS and now both my OS and my files are installed on my SSD. Hope this helps anyone with the same problem. :)
Im not sure why you were going to your bios unless you made an adjustment in the bios to make it go there in the first place. Just look in bios and choose to boot to the SSD with windows on it then exit save and reboot system.
Thank you for this tutorial. I would call myself confident in terms of hardware and storage drives in general, but I got really nervous about copying my old drive onto the new SSD without messing things up. You helped me out a lot. Reflect is running through now, hopefully it'll work out just fine.
Worked great! What I did was reset my computer and fully wipe the hard drive. Even though I kept my PC, when resetting I chose the option for selling my pc something idk. I booted up my pc, installed antivirus. Then I mounted my SSD, had no screws so it's currently flying inside of the bracket, which I don't mind because I won't be moving it anyways! Then I installed macrium reflect, did the steps. When the download was completed I turned of my pc, removed harddrive, started my pc without the harddrive, checked in my file explorer to see if the ssd was the primary, it was. Turned of my pc, put the hdd back in, booted up 5x faster than with the hhd, checked to see that the ssd was still booting, which I already knew because it went super quickly!
@@actionjaxon33 on windows go into settings, type reset this pc, get started, choose either to remove everything or keep some personal files , next and reset. note it may take 30 minutes to a few hours to do. good day!
Just want to give my thanks. My ex bought my son a gaming PC and when I played around with it, I was amazed at how everything was so slow with the 2TB Seagate SATA HDD it came with. To give an idea of how bad his brand new Dell G5 5000 was, the HDD was maxed at 100% in perf monitor for 10-15 minutes after booting, while waiting for the system to fully load. I don't understand how Dell could sell such an unusable PC in 2021. I just followed this cloning process with an Adata XPG M2 SSD that I bought from Amazon. The entire process from installing Macrium Reflect to cloning the data took about 2 hrs. His PC feels like a gaming PC now. Thank you guys so much!
It's like magic. Amazing. I've never been able to do that so easily! GREAT program! Edit: I was going SSD to SSD, so it was actually only about~ 10 minutes for my 60gb drive to clone to my 500gb nvme.
i followed this tutorial and bumped into confusion and mistakes, but overall its a success. i had issues with drive not showing full capacity but a quick google search solved that easily. glad i found this video before formatting my whole pc and start fresh. thank youuuu!
Fantastic I am glad you have explained to the PC community in general the cloning of a SSD system you sir have demystified the migration process and I commend you, PC ownership is as far as I am concerned to many as TRICKY but if you continue producing video containing content like this more people will dip their toe into what I call the best platform into technology I can think of. well done please continue
Karl Walker dude, thank you! We're really trying to show people that messing around with your PC doesn't have to be scary. We think the PC is the ultimate platform and want as many people as possible to have a play.
Very helpful! I had a techy friend help me build a PC seven years ago and now I'm ready to expand my solid state boot drive from a 500gb drive to a 2tb one and this was very easy to understand!
thanks for presenting this in such a clear way and making it so easy to follow! props for also using software that doesn't have cloning features behind paywalls :)
This was a great help guys. I only need to do this every 5 to 7 yrs or so :) (so don't keep up with the latest methods) Really surprised that still can't do it easily in windows. I tried a few cloning apps from the disc vendors and they didn't work! Was about to give up and do fresh install - followed by weeks of sorting it out after.... Used your recommended app and 30 mins later, all done!!! first time. Thank you!
There's one problem with macrium - it cannot clone the drive with bad sectors, but I have a disk like this that is very important, whatever I cloned with ao mei, it worked well.
Thank you so much for this video! Everything worked well for me except my extra signal port wasn't working so I disconnected my dvd drive temporarily to perform the cloning process. After installing my new ssd drive it's only showing the same amount of disk space that the previous hard drive had available, but the new one is 130 gb larger. Maybe it will reset after a few reboots. I cannot state how helpful this video was to me because i have been working on another laptop for over a week and still haven't worked everything out. I did a system image onto an external hard drive and when I went to restore it, windows couldn't find the image that took literally 12 hours to back up. So had I seen this before, it would have saved me hours and hours! I think I can do the same thing, I just have to get a different cable. Really, thanks again, I have probably watched 30 videos before stumbling into this one, so great work! Definately subscribing!
that's probably to do with it copying the partitions from the previous drive directly, use the windows search bar and search for "create and format hard disc portions" you should see all your hard drives, including your boot drive, the chances are your boot drive will show one portion in blue called Windows C: and another portion in black with the remanding space on it, this will be labelled "Unallocated" which is why you cant use the space, right click and create new volume, this will now show as blue like the windows C: partition. right click windows C: and select expand partition, this will merge the two partitions, so you have full access to the storage on the drive.
@@johnbyng9203 not 100% sure, but have you tried doing it by leaving the second partition unallocated? It's possible that because the second partition is allocated, it won't let you extend the partition, if that's the case, that's my error in my original comment. It's been awhile since I've had to use disc partitioning.
Tim Wesselman I have the same problem. Someone help me. How can I “unlock” my full storage on my new ssd? It’s 1.92tb and I upgraded from a 1tb hard drive. Now they are both the same with the same amount of storage as my old one had. Please help me!!!
Thanks a lot for the instructions. I managed to upgrade RAM from 4 GB to 8 GB on my HP 14-cf0018no laptop. I updated my laptop from 1 TB HDD to 500 GB SSD.
Well exactly. And they also didn't include any help on whether the whole MBR setup won't let your system boot from the new drive (even when its cloned).
Each mobo manufacture generally has their own bios software, no way to cover how to get into and change it for each, but its generally straightforward, just follow the on-screen prompts at startup (or your mobo doc) to enter bios, and find the setting for boot priority.
@@muqrie I have the same issue. My gigabyte motherboard only lets me boot from my original drive. It has been 10 months since this but were you able to find a way to fix this issue? I'm being driven insane.
Not working for me, maybe the bad file system caused cloning failed, but I achieved with aomei partition assistant, I think it is probably a better one.
Followed the steps. Was successful at transfering all windows and personal files to new SSD drive, but I needed to make a windows reinstall from the SSD (keeping all existing files). I can say the steps still worked. I'm using my laptop from my new SSD now.
OK just a bit of FYI, if you are using a B350 mobo and if you are cloning from a HDD to an NVMe/PCIe M.2 Western Digital SSD, change your old drive to the GPT format first using the MBR2GPT disk conversion tool, then clone your drive, shut down, unplug your old drive, boot into bios, change everything to prioritize UEFI , Enable network stack, save changes and reboot, and Voila!!! it worked!! did not loose a single file!!, it only took me 13hrs to figure it out!!!! so pissed!! Do not have anything plugged into SATA 5-6, or M.2 will fail. You only have to convert the primary MBR boot drive to the GPT format, all other drives will still operate normally, but you will want to get them over to NVMe asap. Don't waste your money on SATA SSDs, go for the NVMe tech, 2000mbps max/ 850mbps min vs 600mbps max SATA. still SATA SSD is faster than platter drives. Samsung has its own software for all of this but most do not, and I wanted 512GB straight transfer of everything. Good luck.
1. Why do you have to change from MBR to GPT. 2. "Don't waste your money on SATA SSDs" Are you kidding me? I don't wanna waste money on NVMe when i won't use all of that speed. Also i don't have a NVMe port.
I did everything accordingly. When it came to the rebooting from the SSD/Clone alone I got a message saying, "Could not find BOOTMGR Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart" Basically it won't boot off of the clones one.
Enter your boot menu (Differs from board to board, but mine is F11) and select your brand new SSD. Hope this helps! Also, change your boot order in the BIOS. Every BIOS is different (COMPLETELY DIFFERENT) so I honestly can’t aid you in that end.
I would not ever reccomend using Macrium. It bricked my pc. I followed all the directions. The clone completed 100% successfully, I went into BIOS and made my computer boot from the new ssd. Everything was working fine, I booted and restarted several times. I then decide it is safe to format my old hard drive for more storage. After doing that I restart my pc again to confirm. Sends me to recovery and won't let me do anything. I disconnected my new ssd and left my old hard drive connected to make sure that I didn't format the wrong drive. Turns out I formatted the correct drive because my old hard drive is empty. My only guess is that the Macrium software failed to clone all of my system files correctly. Which resulted in me losing all of my data. Sucks that I have to run a new copy of windows.
Thanks, the application you recommended did not clone my C: drive right and bricked it. Having to do a fresh install of windows now :/ Edit: I was able to clone my HDD a second time and it worked. The program might not have worked correctly the first time. Thank god
Just tried this method out, I kept getting an error during cloning using Macrium Reflect. After being frustrated for 2 hours, I tried using MiniTool Partition Wizard and it worked like a charm. Simpler to use, and way more efficient.
Thanks, excellent video. I just installed a new SSD on my friends PC to replace his HDD. Just one thing to help others avoid 2 hours of wondering why the PC isn't booting -- make sure all other SATA ports beside the new drive are not being used. My friend had a Disc drive that was using a SATA port and caused the PC to not boot with the new drive. Once I unplugged it, it booted right up.
I tried this macrium for several times but not clone actually, I think this one made me a little confused too because of its interface, comparing with it aomei partition is the best tool I've ever noticed yet.
Hands down the best guide I've ever seen on anywhere ever! You both should do so much more than install guides. I think you should do some Udemy courses for a subject you are particularly good at. You have a knack for teaching! Subbed.
My current ssd is dying(also crashing from time to time) I should receive my new one tomorrow Thank you!!! :D every other vid of cloning software Ive seen all looked very sketchy(low view/sub count) I'll make a bootable usb in case everything goes wrong(for some reason) and it won't boot idk lol
What If I’m upgrading from a HDD to an SSD but I want to keep my HDD and only want Windows and a couple of games on my SSD? I don’t want my whole pc cloned onto my SSD :/
If you want to pick and choose then you'll need to either delete the stuff you don't want on your SSD and install them later on your other drive after cloning, or do a fresh install of windows and install everything else from scratch.
Old post, but just install a fresh copy of windows onto the SSD (you can use the install key from the HDD copy, look up how to find it if it was preinstalled), set boot priority to the SSD, and copy whatever files over. The HDD will retain everything on it, and operate as normal.
exactly the same issue. I have a 1 tb primary HDD with 2 partitions. I'm looking forward to buy a 128gb nvme ssd but can't figure out how to just clone the windows and not everything(programs, games etc) with it.
I think that is not possible. What you clone is not the OS but the full content of the disk. For you case the best is tu install from zero. If the problem is Windows licence better look for options to transfer it.
@@FarelLaban The problem is not windows license. I would like to remove only the windows from my current hdd and leave the data on it. And install fresh windows on ssd.
it very much IS possible.. when you're choosing which partitions to clone from your original hdd, one or two will have a little windows icon on them.. this means that those are required to boot windows. simply clone those to your ssd, and you're golden..once its all done you can go to disk management and delete those partitions from original hdd..make sure the ssd is 1st priority in boot options and all is good.. hope this helped as i was in the same exact situation, now i have windows on my ssd, and the rest of my files on hdd minus the OS.
thing is yeah i dont wanna free up half my harddrive space just to transfer it to my ssd, i just want pecific files transferred as well as windows itself
clone the storage to the new one and then delete the files you want to delete from each one, i dont know if theres a way to clone windows only to another ssd
The Macrium Reflect part is so confusing. Do I just follow what he is doing in the video and I will be good? or am I supposed to know what I am cloning and where to clone it?
@@jacksonn6766 Everything once its cloned it will be a 1:1 exact copy of your current HD. However pay attention if you are cloning from a 500gb to a 1tb you have to add the extra space otherwise it will think your 1tb hard drive is only a 500gb. So just drag the free space partition to full size, or specify it in the settings.
Simply get a i9 processor and place bacon in skillet placed above the stock cooler, in no time at all you will have medium-cooked bacon with crispy outside and cooked-but-soft inside :)
Just curious. If I clone my HDD to the new SDD, and disconnect the HDD, when I restart the computer, will it automatically know to boot from the SDD, or do I need to set that boot priority in the BIOS setup on restart?
I thought when I would do this everything would break and burn in a fiery hell, but it was PAINLESS thanks to you guys! I cannot thank you guys enough!
After alot of tries, it seems like i have to factory reset my pc to then choose my ssd as boot drive because just cloning didn’t seem work to make my ssd bootable
Hi, thanks for this video, worked like a charm. I do have a question however. I moved from a 5400 old-school drive which came with my laptop to a new Nvme. I deliberately bought the same size (1 TB) so that I didn't have to worry about partition sizes. Macrium Reflect worked flawlessly, I then went into my BIOS and changed the boot drive. Worked perfectly! My question; since I had cloned the previous installation, wouldn't Win10 assume it needed to load the driver for an old-school HD? How did it know to load a different driver for an M.2 drive? Do I have to do anything after the fact in order to ensure it uses the proper driver? Thanks again.
This method is for cloning the entirety of your existing drive and OS installation to a new drive.
As far as we're aware there is no way to copy purely the OS files from an existing installation and have it remake all the connections to your apps on your old drive.
If you're looking to use a small SSD as a boot drive, and can't trim down your existing installation, you're probably better off installing Windows from scratch on the new drive.
And what to do with the other Windows in the older disk?
Can you guys make a video about what to do once you've cloned the drive? You skimmed over how to get your computer to boot from the new drive if it doesn't do it automatically, I'd love to get some troubleshooting tips since my PC seems to be having trouble booting from the new drive.
you must change the boot order in your bios settings if you got both connected at the same time@@stephenpatterson2860
I have a windows key already activated on my pc, should i use the same code when booting the ssd?
Is the windows automatically activated on the cloned drive?
What they failed to mention here is that when you're upgrading to a larger drive, at the part where you pull in the partitions to the new drive (4:34), pull in the part where all your documents etc are stored on (partition no.3 in the video at 4:37) LAST to your new drive. After that same way as making a partition smaller (by clicking "Cloned partition properties") you can make it bigger to fill the rest of your new drive by either using the slider or by clicking "Maximum size".
thx mate
Old Comment but this needs an upvote, since it's fairly important if you want the extra space from your new bigger drive
Bumping this comment. Thanks for the save.
this helped so much thank you! definitely need to pin this comment .
Thank you so much!😁
The first video that doesn't want you to buy some shady company's unwieldly software for ridiculous prices and, whilst keeping the video to a normal length, explains everything perfectly. Great video.
Did anyone else notice the assistants face, when the guru said "lovely assistant"
Yeah lol, looks like my guys dying inside
That face is why I immediately started scrolling through the comments for this comment.
lol yeah dude on the right is gay
@@mmmmmMuffinz lol gay lol
yes that was so funny i died
Actually the first really use full and to the point video, without all the subscriber BS, well done
Peter Evertse thank you! We aim to please.
Any requests for future 'how to' guides gratefully received :)
Seriously, awesome jobs mates!
Indeed, w a nice software that allows u to just choose the partition w/put buying it.
I love that this kind of video exists. I have cloned many a drive before and done tones of work on my own PC but I still used this video for the software links and general tips so I don't develop bad habits. There is sooo much media on RUclips for enthusiasts, but if someone is just learning, this kind of video is PERFECT.
One of the clearest tutorials I have seen in some time. A great source for users that are not sure of the procedure or have never cloned drives before. Well done guys!
start at 4:01 if you've already connected your ssd
thanks homie
I cloned my drive 120gb ssd to 256gb ssd. The new larger drive is still reading as 120gb. I went into disk management and it looks like portions of the drive aren't formatted. Do I need to repeat the clone process now? It only took 12 minutes, everything carried over fine. Could you explain the transfer and how to make sure the larger drive is properly formatted a little more?
clutch
Rachel - You should be able to right click on the existing volume and expand it to the full size of the drive using "Extend Volume".
Reformatting is not needed; reformatting wipes the drive of all data and organizes the space on the drive into sectors where files are stored. Extending the volume of the drive allocates more of those formatted sectors to the drive letter to allow you to use them.
An alternative to adding the sectors to the existing volume is to right click on the unallocated data and create a new "Simple Volume". Then you can assign a new drive letter to the extra space, so you will have 3 drives: C - your old SSD, D - the copied data on your new SSD, and E - the free space you added (note the exact letters don't matter).
tx.
Dave - "I am dave the hardware guru."
Rich - "Hi, I am rich the assistant."
Dave - "Yes, a lovely assistant."
Rich - Upon realization of Dave's feelings, becomes very uncomfortable.
I noticed that too🤣
Nah rich is just the bottom
YOU DO NOT put SSD's into a drive bay,
You in Fact TAPE THAT MFer where it fits
lol
Some cases have a slot on the back, too
this was the strat with any laptop drives i had in my mac pro from 2012.
@@silas.anderson "it just works"
Or plug in the SATA Data and power connector. Mine is sitting at a 30 degree angle.
@@YeNZeC exactly
What a guy
after trying a bunch of softwares and failing....this one worked perfectly for me. thank you very much for this video
Do I need to format the new SSD?
Hey mine went successfully, just curious if I am supposed to wipe my HD that i cloned from for more space, thanks!
@@gabrielcruz480 yes you are!!! sorry!
To anyone else who missed this important step like I did at 4:45 , make sure you increase the last partition size to be maxed out and filling up the whole blank (grey) space, I figured that since i only had two partitions to copy over the blank space would just end up as free space but instead it decreases the max storage of the new drive to only fit what was copied over.
@@soydelga2744 When you're dragging over the partitions, you might end up with extra space on the end. if you freeze frame at 5:03 that grey bit on the end at the bottom right is the extra space. You don't want that. Most people will assume that bit means you have free unused storage, what it actually does is remove that extra space from the device and shortens it's max storage capacity.
So if in that grey bit it says "10gb" for example and you had a 100gb hard drive, it will just remove that 10gb from the device so the total size of the hard drive would be 90gb when you finish.
@@soydelga2744 I think that's a safe bet, yeah
Anyway to deal with this after the cloning has already been done?
Super helpful comment thanks my man
Then what should we do?
This is way more better with the guy on the left answering questions. Because he sometimes explains the questions us newbies have with upgrading PCs.
It's at times like these, 2am local time, when you're working and realize that your storage desperately needs an upgrade. Just gotta wait around 8 hours for my local hardware shop to open and right before we go back into lockdown.
"This will be fast to do."
...
*Three hours later*
"o no"
😂
My SSD isn't even showing up in Windows Explorer, BIOS, or Samsung Magician. I've got a Samsung EVO 970 Plus in my Lenovo Y720, so it should work. But nope.
Update: It was because my motherboard got fried; Forgot to unplug my battery, unplugged it partway through opening and working on it, plugged it back in after I was done, and a big spark was produced where I plugged it in.
Had to buy a new laptop because my fans, keyboard backlight, speakers, headphone jack, and SATA port stopped working. Did something similar with the new one, only I left it plugged in the whole time.
Do yourselves a favor: If you forget to unplug your battery and realize it partway through an operation, *LEAVE IT UNPLUGGED.*
For 1 TB mine took an hour and 30 minutes
I always assume my process will take like 50% longer than the tutorial.
Cannot read that three hours later without that spongebob sound 😂
We appreciate the benefits of an SSD. That's why we came to this video to find out what to do. You don't need to sell us on the idea.
The best thing about Macrium Reflect is the capability to adjust the destination drive space to the desired smaller volume. This is really helpful ! Thank You.
No worries, glad we could help!
@@dancarr2099 What did you end up doing?
@@dancarr2099 From another Commenter:
What they failed to mention here is that when you're upgrading to a larger drive, at the part where you pull in the partitions to the new drive (4:34), pull in the part where all your documents etc are stored on (partition no.3 in the video at 4:37) LAST to your new drive. After that same way as making a partition smaller (by clicking "Cloned partition properties") you can make it bigger to fill the rest of your new drive by either using the slider or by clicking "Maximum size"
Excellent content. Gave me the confidence to install myself. Saved me $150.00 and 3-5 days of my PC being in the shop. You guys rock!
And your confidence gives me confidence!
05:54
You don't need to take out the standard drive to load windows. Just access the bios and change the default drive to the SSD.
I think it was just for the people that don't understand that. Plus most bios versions will default to the drive with windows on it. But I totally understand what you mean! These guys just have to generalize all the info.
uh guys. when I boot with the M2 SSD as primary it tells me to swap booting technique... FML took 5 hours to clone the operating system too
Hey mine went successfully, just curious if I am supposed to wipe my HD that i cloned from for more space, thanks!
@@gabrielcruz480 Only if it was successful. As in you booted it from new drive & tested it with no issues.
Gamer Rant forgot to thank you earlier for the fast reply! got everything taken care of thank you!
Spot on advice and instructions. I had a hard drive on the verge of failing and cloning to the SSD saved my butt. Thanks!
Glad we could help!
@@PCGamesN so help the people talking about how the new drive isn't booting.
@@fragalot 1 year later
I've been trying to do this for so many months now, I'm so happy because I finally did it thanks
Did you have any trouble? I cant get my cloned SSD to boot. The only thing different is it assigned the system reserved from the original hhd a drive letter so it shows up as two different partitions in the library.
@@SlideShowSidney no I had no issues, I cloned it, restarted my pc and went to my BIOS and switched it, look up how to switch on your specific BIOS
@@mursu1286 I just had to nm do it twice for some reason. Something must have went wrong the first time. I definitely had it set as the boot drive and it just wasn't booting. But the second time I cloned it worked right out of the gate.
@@SlideShowSidney That's good :)
Hi guys, quick question. Was your software still labeled as "activated" in the cloned drive?
Thank you so much! I've spent enough hours tracking down the hotfix for windows 7, so it's a huge relief that you've presented the installation and cloning in such a clear way.
oh my god, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!!! you just saved my arse from a buttload of trouble! twas a royal pain trying to figure out how to clone my ssd to my new one for free and you just showed me in minutes! subscribing and definately liking! good on you guys for helping people out!
does it still work?
Florence Guiao yes
Xavier Smith pls help I cloned it and finished the clone what do I do next
@@jakeregister7832 go into the bios and put ur ssd as primary boot device
Used this process and when I booted up my pc after running the software I was stuck on BIOS and couldn't load windows 10. To solve the problem, I first disconnected my HDD and then used the troubleshoot function of the Windows 10 installation media and selected startup repair. This solved the issue of not getting past the BIOS and now both my OS and my files are installed on my SSD. Hope this helps anyone with the same problem. :)
i dont get it please help :(((
ty :)
Im not sure why you were going to your bios unless you made an adjustment in the bios to make it go there in the first place. Just look in bios and choose to boot to the SSD with windows on it then exit save and reboot system.
Great Video helped me in 2020 as well and took my pc from booting in 5 MINUTES to booting in 5 SECONDS. Thank you very much.
Thank you for this tutorial. I would call myself confident in terms of hardware and storage drives in general, but I got really nervous about copying my old drive onto the new SSD without messing things up. You helped me out a lot. Reflect is running through now, hopefully it'll work out just fine.
Never heard from you again
@@THthunder64 Probably cuz he's gaming up a storm
@@THthunder64 He is still trying to get it to boot.
So it's a literal copy?? Pics, downloaded games, everything??
Y’all need to be more popular. That was the first working tutorial I’ve gotten so far.
Love it when windirstat gets plugged, literally the best random utility for storage I have found
Worked great!
What I did was reset my computer and fully wipe the hard drive. Even though I kept my PC, when resetting I chose the option for selling my pc something idk.
I booted up my pc, installed antivirus.
Then I mounted my SSD, had no screws so it's currently flying inside of the bracket, which I don't mind because I won't be moving it anyways!
Then I installed macrium reflect, did the steps. When the download was completed I turned of my pc, removed harddrive, started my pc without the harddrive, checked in my file explorer to see if the ssd was the primary, it was. Turned of my pc, put the hdd back in, booted up 5x faster than with the hhd, checked to see that the ssd was still booting, which I already knew because it went super quickly!
God this would have been useful before I wiped my pc, haha
Joe Worpole how do u wipe ur pc
@@actionjaxon33 on windows go into settings, type reset this pc, get started, choose either to remove everything or keep some personal files , next and reset. note it may take 30 minutes to a few hours to do. good day!
@@Wilkotheminer hes just being sarcastic lol
@@bryanswaggbeast8194 he gave an honest reply to a sarcasm. He's a Gandhi lol
@@krishnabaro532 he's zeus
I cloned to my new ssd with ao mei partition and it worked well for me too.
To be honest I tried a few methods from different sources and this video was the only one that worked. Well done guys very informative 😊
This is the best tutorial ever, so simple and easy to follow. Thanks for making this such an easy process :)
Just want to give my thanks.
My ex bought my son a gaming PC and when I played around with it, I was amazed at how everything was so slow with the 2TB Seagate SATA HDD it came with. To give an idea of how bad his brand new Dell G5 5000 was, the HDD was maxed at 100% in perf monitor for 10-15 minutes after booting, while waiting for the system to fully load. I don't understand how Dell could sell such an unusable PC in 2021.
I just followed this cloning process with an Adata XPG M2 SSD that I bought from Amazon. The entire process from installing Macrium Reflect to cloning the data took about 2 hrs. His PC feels like a gaming PC now.
Thank you guys so much!
I don't normally keep an eye out for tech videos but liked and subscribed to you guys regardless. Thanks again.
Worked straight off the bat, no problems / errors! Very informative, to the point video. Thanks!
It's like magic.
Amazing.
I've never been able to do that so easily!
GREAT program!
Edit: I was going SSD to SSD, so it was actually only about~ 10 minutes for my 60gb drive to clone to my 500gb nvme.
i followed this tutorial and bumped into confusion and mistakes, but overall its a success. i had issues with drive not showing full capacity but a quick google search solved that easily. glad i found this video before formatting my whole pc and start fresh. thank youuuu!
Easy to follow guide. Ssd installed beautifully and pc booted up so fast. Macrium Reflect worked wonderfully.
Fantastic I am glad you have explained to the PC community in general the cloning of a SSD system you sir have demystified the migration process and I commend you, PC ownership is as far as I am concerned to many as TRICKY but if you continue producing video containing content like this more people will dip their toe into what I call the best platform into technology I can think of.
well done please continue
Karl Walker dude, thank you! We're really trying to show people that messing around with your PC doesn't have to be scary. We think the PC is the ultimate platform and want as many people as possible to have a play.
Karl Walker also, if there are any topics, or guides you'd like us to cover let us know :)
Very helpful! I had a techy friend help me build a PC seven years ago and now I'm ready to expand my solid state boot drive from a 500gb drive to a 2tb one and this was very easy to understand!
Anyone else think that 960 evo looks like a pack of sat on Rolos?
Thanks guys, this tutorial just took my 20 minute boot to a 60 second one!
thanks for presenting this in such a clear way and making it so easy to follow!
props for also using software that doesn't have cloning features behind paywalls :)
Thank you so much for this tutorial!
This was a great help guys. I only need to do this every 5 to 7 yrs or so :) (so don't keep up with the latest methods) Really surprised that still can't do it easily in windows. I tried a few cloning apps from the disc vendors and they didn't work! Was about to give up and do fresh install - followed by weeks of sorting it out after....
Used your recommended app and 30 mins later, all done!!! first time. Thank you!
great video, i just wished you guys could zoom in the pc screen recording because it’s hard for everyone to see, what exactly your doing
please note: anything on your SSD will be over written in the process.
Thank you
cheers guys, three years later and still perfectly useful
That assistant is like having a Hollywood hunky at your side
thank god a decent video on this. nice guys!
For anyone on the fence, my computer went from glitchy/unusable to a powerhouse. Glad I did the upgrade
There's one problem with macrium - it cannot clone the drive with bad sectors, but I have a disk like this that is very important, whatever I cloned with ao mei, it worked well.
What software did you use?
@@teja7217 Aomei backupper
@@LKZ405 sadly it's not free :((
0:08 when you new GF's dad asks you to drink a shot of the worst smelling vodka you've ever seen
Everytime I need to clone an SSD I just search for this in my history, it's like meeting up with old friends again 🤗
Thank you so much for this video! Everything worked well for me except my extra signal port wasn't working so I disconnected my dvd drive temporarily to perform the cloning process. After installing my new ssd drive it's only showing the same amount of disk space that the previous hard drive had available, but the new one is 130 gb larger. Maybe it will reset after a few reboots. I cannot state how helpful this video was to me because i have been working on another laptop for over a week and still haven't worked everything out. I did a system image onto an external hard drive and when I went to restore it, windows couldn't find the image that took literally 12 hours to back up. So had I seen this before, it would have saved me hours and hours! I think I can do the same thing, I just have to get a different cable. Really, thanks again, I have probably watched 30 videos before stumbling into this one, so great work! Definately subscribing!
that's probably to do with it copying the partitions from the previous drive directly, use the windows search bar and search for "create and format hard disc portions" you should see all your hard drives, including your boot drive, the chances are your boot drive will show one portion in blue called Windows C: and another portion in black with the remanding space on it, this will be labelled "Unallocated" which is why you cant use the space, right click and create new volume, this will now show as blue like the windows C: partition. right click windows C: and select expand partition, this will merge the two partitions, so you have full access to the storage on the drive.
It's because your disk petition is still the size as your old drive. You need to resize it to fill the whole thing.
@@elliotlaw1590 any ideas why i cant select expand partition? its greyed out
@@johnbyng9203 not 100% sure, but have you tried doing it by leaving the second partition unallocated? It's possible that because the second partition is allocated, it won't let you extend the partition, if that's the case, that's my error in my original comment. It's been awhile since I've had to use disc partitioning.
Tim Wesselman
I have the same problem. Someone help me. How can I “unlock” my full storage on my new ssd? It’s 1.92tb and I upgraded from a 1tb hard drive. Now they are both the same with the same amount of storage as my old one had. Please help me!!!
Thanks a lot for the instructions.
I managed to upgrade RAM from 4 GB to 8 GB on my HP 14-cf0018no laptop.
I updated my laptop from 1 TB HDD to 500 GB SSD.
Absolute Legends! Thanks guys. This is the only video I found in over an hour of searching that even came close to helping me out. Cheers
I literally only came here for boot priority help, and thats the thing they just glossed over...
Well exactly. And they also didn't include any help on whether the whole MBR setup won't let your system boot from the new drive (even when its cloned).
Each mobo manufacture generally has their own bios software, no way to cover how to get into and change it for each, but its generally straightforward, just follow the on-screen prompts at startup (or your mobo doc) to enter bios, and find the setting for boot priority.
@@mpc007 how do you do this
@@mpc007 I've cloned everything and switched tmy ssd on my boot priority on the bios but its windows is not booting
@@muqrie I have the same issue. My gigabyte motherboard only lets me boot from my original drive. It has been 10 months since this but were you able to find a way to fix this issue? I'm being driven insane.
Not working for me, maybe the bad file system caused cloning failed, but I achieved with aomei partition assistant, I think it is probably a better one.
Really AOMIe is good? Or are you sponsered fron the company 😅,JK, tell me brother Aomie or mini tool partition?
This is the single greatest tip for cleaning up my drive. SinDirStat is awesome.
When cloning your drive make sure you drag the smallest files first then drag the biggest main files last it will automatically size it to your ssd ..
Thank you
Followed the steps. Was successful at transfering all windows and personal files to new SSD drive, but I needed to make a windows reinstall from the SSD (keeping all existing files). I can say the steps still worked. I'm using my laptop from my new SSD now.
OK just a bit of FYI, if you are using a B350 mobo and if you are cloning from a HDD to an NVMe/PCIe M.2 Western Digital SSD, change your old drive to the GPT format first using the MBR2GPT disk conversion tool, then clone your drive, shut down, unplug your old drive, boot into bios, change everything to prioritize UEFI , Enable network stack, save changes and reboot, and Voila!!! it worked!! did not loose a single file!!, it only took me 13hrs to figure it out!!!! so pissed!! Do not have anything plugged into SATA 5-6, or M.2 will fail. You only have to convert the primary MBR boot drive to the GPT format, all other drives will still operate normally, but you will want to get them over to NVMe asap. Don't waste your money on SATA SSDs, go for the NVMe tech, 2000mbps max/ 850mbps min vs 600mbps max SATA. still SATA SSD is faster than platter drives. Samsung has its own software for all of this but most do not, and I wanted 512GB straight transfer of everything. Good luck.
Any chance you know if you still need to convert to GPT if the M.2 is SATA rather than NVMe/PCIe??
western digital?? phfff loser
1. Why do you have to change from MBR to GPT. 2. "Don't waste your money on SATA SSDs" Are you kidding me? I don't wanna waste money on NVMe when i won't use all of that speed. Also i don't have a NVMe port.
I am changing from a HDD to an SSD and have a B350 motherboard, does this apply to me?
if you're using an NVMe/PCIe M.2 SSD
I did everything accordingly. When it came to the rebooting from the SSD/Clone alone I got a message saying,
"Could not find BOOTMGR
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart"
Basically it won't boot off of the clones one.
Did you find a solution
Same
Enter your boot menu (Differs from board to board, but mine is F11) and select your brand new SSD. Hope this helps! Also, change your boot order in the BIOS. Every BIOS is different (COMPLETELY DIFFERENT) so I honestly can’t aid you in that end.
You guys are lifesavers! Thank you so much! Saved my computer, my save games and my entire semester!
I would not ever reccomend using Macrium. It bricked my pc. I followed all the directions. The clone completed 100% successfully, I went into BIOS and made my computer boot from the new ssd. Everything was working fine, I booted and restarted several times. I then decide it is safe to format my old hard drive for more storage. After doing that I restart my pc again to confirm. Sends me to recovery and won't let me do anything. I disconnected my new ssd and left my old hard drive connected to make sure that I didn't format the wrong drive. Turns out I formatted the correct drive because my old hard drive is empty. My only guess is that the Macrium software failed to clone all of my system files correctly. Which resulted in me losing all of my data. Sucks that I have to run a new copy of windows.
Thanks, the application you recommended did not clone my C: drive right and bricked it. Having to do a fresh install of windows now :/
Edit: I was able to clone my HDD a second time and it worked. The program might not have worked correctly the first time. Thank god
Thank you so much. Successfully cloned an Intel PCIe SSD to M.2 SSD. I now have twice the capacity and 3X the speed.
Just tried this method out, I kept getting an error during cloning using Macrium Reflect. After being frustrated for 2 hours, I tried using MiniTool Partition Wizard and it worked like a charm. Simpler to use, and way more efficient.
That’s what I needed. Thank you!!
It may have been your antivirus that was stopping it that's what happened for me and I just turned it off
When you clone the hard drive to the SSD again with another program, what do you do with the partitions created by Macrium? How do you delete them?
I followed your instructions :) Thanks!
Thanks, excellent video. I just installed a new SSD on my friends PC to replace his HDD. Just one thing to help others avoid 2 hours of wondering why the PC isn't booting -- make sure all other SATA ports beside the new drive are not being used. My friend had a Disc drive that was using a SATA port and caused the PC to not boot with the new drive. Once I unplugged it, it booted right up.
I tried this macrium for several times but not clone actually, I think this one made me a little confused too because of its interface, comparing with it aomei partition is the best tool I've ever noticed yet.
i was trying aoemi but for cloning don't we have to pay 50 dollars? that's why I'm here lol
@@Trollerx1 it's free for mbr disk though, this macrium also needs to pay
Sweet! Cloning my M.2 to a HDD right now! xDDDD
@pixelflux - why not to an SSD?
@@plazmicflame not the sharpest tool in the shed
@@plazmicflame bruh you're D-U-M-B
@@myggen2111 why’s he dumb? It’s a fair question
hahahaha Love it
I’ve used this tutorial 3 times and it worked ever time. Thank you :)
Hands down the best guide I've ever seen on anywhere ever! You both should do so much more than install guides. I think you should do some Udemy courses for a subject you are particularly good at. You have a knack for teaching! Subbed.
My current ssd is dying(also crashing from time to time)
I should receive my new one tomorrow
Thank you!!! :D every other vid of cloning software Ive seen all looked very sketchy(low view/sub count)
I'll make a bootable usb in case everything goes wrong(for some reason) and it won't boot idk lol
Just used this video in 2022 for my Asus laptop (HDD --> SDD). Had no issues following these steps 5 years later.
What If I’m upgrading from a HDD to an SSD but I want to keep my HDD and only want Windows and a couple of games on my SSD? I don’t want my whole pc cloned onto my SSD :/
If you want to pick and choose then you'll need to either delete the stuff you don't want on your SSD and install them later on your other drive after cloning, or do a fresh install of windows and install everything else from scratch.
Flikz copy everything and then deleted everything you don’t want
If that's all you're trying to do then this video aint for you
What did you end up doing?
Old post, but just install a fresh copy of windows onto the SSD (you can use the install key from the HDD copy, look up how to find it if it was preinstalled), set boot priority to the SSD, and copy whatever files over. The HDD will retain everything on it, and operate as normal.
Im watching this at fking 3:56am havent slept yet damnit cant even consentrate
Dave, your videos helped pick which parts I wanted for my gaming PC. Thank you, endlessly
Is it possible to only transfer windows? And then uninstall it from the hdd but keep the data on?
BlackMambaKO that’s what I’ve been trying to figure out
exactly the same issue. I have a 1 tb primary HDD with 2 partitions. I'm looking forward to buy a 128gb nvme ssd but can't figure out how to just clone the windows and not everything(programs, games etc) with it.
I think that is not possible. What you clone is not the OS but the full content of the disk. For you case the best is tu install from zero. If the problem is Windows licence better look for options to transfer it.
@@FarelLaban The problem is not windows license. I would like to remove only the windows from my current hdd and leave the data on it. And install fresh windows on ssd.
it very much IS possible.. when you're choosing which partitions to clone from your original hdd, one or two will have a little windows icon on them.. this means that those are required to boot windows. simply clone those to your ssd, and you're golden..once its all done you can go to disk management and delete those partitions from original hdd..make sure the ssd is 1st priority in boot options and all is good.. hope this helped as i was in the same exact situation, now i have windows on my ssd, and the rest of my files on hdd minus the OS.
I tried aomei before I think it is better because this one will not clone.
By far the easiest video to follow along to, well explained, and not confusing like nearly all other videos on this subject. Thansk
thing is yeah i dont wanna free up half my harddrive space just to transfer it to my ssd, i just want pecific files transferred as well as windows itself
clone the storage to the new one and then delete the files you want to delete from each one, i dont know if theres a way to clone windows only to another ssd
The Macrium Reflect part is so confusing. Do I just follow what he is doing in the video and I will be good? or am I supposed to know what I am cloning and where to clone it?
You've probably done it already but for anyone reading your comment. Yes just follow what he's doing.
SWIFTzTrigger ok thanks
@@SWIFTzTrigger thanks
@@SWIFTzTrigger I have a question, It clones the OS only? Or does it clones other programs?
@@jacksonn6766 Everything once its cloned it will be a 1:1 exact copy of your current HD. However pay attention if you are cloning from a 500gb to a 1tb you have to add the extra space otherwise it will think your 1tb hard drive is only a 500gb. So just drag the free space partition to full size, or specify it in the settings.
Im getting a new ssd and this one was really helpful, y'all explained really politely, subbed :)
What he said :)
instructions unclear.. Bacon not cooked properly :(
The SSD runs cooler. You have to wait a little longer for your bacon to get crispy.
Simply get a i9 processor and place bacon in skillet placed above the stock cooler, in no time at all you will have medium-cooked bacon with crispy outside and cooked-but-soft inside :)
you probably forgot to put the bacon in the ram slots smh
need some DDR1 RAM spice to give it proper flavor.
instructions unclear, my cat-duck hybrid can't speak Gaulish yet
When you clone the drive, does the target drive get the drive letter from the source drive? Is the new cloned drive going to be C:?
New cloned drive going to be. Well the Partition it going to be C: if you have a larger hard drive
I just got my new SSD today and this was quite helpful, thanks a lot! :)
love how none of these videos show what to do in bios
Thats cause every bios is different and they cant show all of them, but i agree he didnt show even his
to be fare, it's pretty easy as long as the computer detects the drive, you just go into boot and select that as the priority
Does anyone know how to do it in alinware bios
BIOS is pretty much self explanatory, spend 5 minutes navigating the menus and options and you will soon familiarise with it
Ok maybe that's a stupid question but how do you even record the bios?
Hey look it's Chris Hemsworth's skinny brother
Liam Hemsworth? Lol
@@Jaybird98 i guess so
Very informative and on point. I like the way how the other guy ask and the other guy answers. thanks
Just curious. If I clone my HDD to the new SDD, and disconnect the HDD, when I restart the computer, will it automatically know to boot from the SDD, or do I need to set that boot priority in the BIOS setup on restart?
If there's no other drives that have higher priority, then it should boot from the SSD, but its very easy to change boot priority from BIOS anyways!
was also thinking about that
This vid still viable 2 years later? If it is, thank you !!!!!
it is
I thought when I would do this everything would break and burn in a fiery hell, but it was PAINLESS thanks to you guys! I cannot thank you guys enough!
When you installed the new ssd or HDD did you have to format the new one first before you cloned over or did you just do it right after plugging it in
After alot of tries, it seems like i have to factory reset my pc to then choose my ssd as boot drive because just cloning didn’t seem work to make my ssd bootable
Hi, thanks for this video, worked like a charm. I do have a question however. I moved from a 5400 old-school drive which came with my laptop to a new Nvme. I deliberately bought the same size (1 TB) so that I didn't have to worry about partition sizes. Macrium Reflect worked flawlessly, I then went into my BIOS and changed the boot drive. Worked perfectly! My question; since I had cloned the previous installation, wouldn't Win10 assume it needed to load the driver for an old-school HD? How did it know to load a different driver for an M.2 drive? Do I have to do anything after the fact in order to ensure it uses the proper driver? Thanks again.
great question, ever get an answer?
@@acat6000 Windows 10 automatically detects your storage devices and uses the appropriate drivers.
Thank you very much! this worked for me after searching everywhere and trying so many softwares.
Is there away to keep my files on the hardrive but only make the ssd as my boot drive?
For that i would suggest simply installing the wanted OS on the SSD and use the BIOS to select the SSD as the standard disc to run first =)
Spacegoat thanks :)
PERFECT!!, the last time i used a software to clone an os i was unable to reset my pc
something to do with the installation media not being carried.
So with this software I am able to perform a factory reset? I used minitool partition wizard and I'm unable to reset the pc...