How to install an SSD - clone your boot drive without losing a thing | SSD upgrade
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- Опубликовано: 14 июл 2024
- Learning how to install an SSD without starting from scratch means you can get your PC back up and running again as though nothing has happened. Except everything will be just that little bit quicker! Switching from a laggardly hard drive to a modern SSD will make a huge difference to the responsiveness and performance of your gaming PC. But starting from scratch can be a pain, so here's our simple guide to cloning your existing Windows installation to a new SSD without missing a beat.
Though if you need to install Windows fresh on your new SSD, you can check out our guide:
• How to install Windows...
WinDirStat
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Macrium Reflect
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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!😁
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.
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
The other guy was like what a knob
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
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.
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.
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!
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 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.
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
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.
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
"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 😂
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!
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'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?
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!
Worked straight off the bat, no problems / errors! Very informative, to the point video. Thanks!
Dave, your videos helped pick which parts I wanted for my gaming PC. Thank you, endlessly
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 is the best tutorial ever, so simple and easy to follow. Thanks for making this such an easy process :)
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
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.
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?
@@garetc7706 Still haven't had any luck as I kind of gave up on it for now. Lol.
@@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"
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??
Love it when windirstat gets plugged, literally the best random utility for storage I have found
You guys are lifesavers! Thank you so much! Saved my computer, my save games and my entire semester!
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
Y’all need to be more popular. That was the first working tutorial I’ve gotten so far.
This worked so well I'm honestly shocked at how well it worked. And it was so easy too!
Kudos and thanks 👍
I’ve used this tutorial 3 times and it worked ever time. Thank you :)
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 😊
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.
By far the easiest video to follow along to, well explained, and not confusing like nearly all other videos on this subject. Thansk
Thank you so much for this tutorial!
Easy to follow guide. Ssd installed beautifully and pc booted up so fast. Macrium Reflect worked wonderfully.
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!
I just got my new SSD today and this was quite helpful, thanks a lot! :)
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 :)
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!
worked the first time and very happy. thanks for this video.
This is the single greatest tip for cleaning up my drive. SinDirStat is awesome.
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.
thank god a decent video on this. nice guys!
I followed step by step and it worked! Thank you very much.
That is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you guys! Awesome video!
I followed your instructions :) Thanks!
This worked wonders. Thank you so much!
Hey is it ok for you to help me? It would be appreciative
This video was.. literally perfect. Like straight to the point and perfect explanations. Thanks!
Super helpful. Didn't know this was possible, you saved me an evening of resetting my PC. Thanks!
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.
Very informative and on point. I like the way how the other guy ask and the other guy answers. thanks
cheers guys, three years later and still perfectly useful
that software is a godsend. so are you guys, thank you so much! I'd consider myself pretty good with computers in general but i had no idea how to do this! 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.
This video is extremely helpful. Ty for making this for people like me.
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 the informative video, here is what I had to say to Macrium: I had been looking for alternative disc clone software after my Easeus licence was rejected after 1 use... Watched PCGamesN on youtube talking of your software... grabbed it, LOVE IT! Thank you all so much for a brilliant piece of software that was fast, faultless, and best of all... FREE! (Ohh and the HP envy Win10 Drive I cloned to SSD now boots in around 10 seconds instead of 2 minutes)!
God this would have been useful before I wiped my pc, haha
Joe Worpole how do u wipe ur pc
@@jaxonmyren7451 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
thanks! made this whole process much easier than it originally seemed.
Thank you very much! this worked for me after searching everywhere and trying so many softwares.
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
Im getting a new ssd and this one was really helpful, y'all explained really politely, subbed :)
What he said :)
This is a really good video, it helped me a lot. I had to figure some things put myself but it just made me think im smart.
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?
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
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!
This is a very good guide. Good job guys
Wonderful! Best video on this subject matter I have found. Holy shit, you guys made this simple. Thank you! #ontotheOscars
Same thing for a m.2 ssd? Never mind I see you did mention it. Thanks for the help. This video is great
Followed the instructions with the SSD EVO plus and worked perfectly. Thankyou!
Thanks for the thorough instructions
Anyone else think that 960 evo looks like a pack of sat on Rolos?
That assistant is like having a Hollywood hunky at your side
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
Worked like a charm. Thanks gents.
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.
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
Worked as breeze. Thank you so much.
AWESOME !!! WORKED LIKE A CHARM
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 :((
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...
Tanks!! Still worked october 2021. Great vid
Thanks! Has worked without any issues.
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
I really appreciate this a lot I love you
Lifesaver. Just finished building my first pc. Made sure everything was setup and working right before I rewired it to fit snug it the case and part of the plastic that keeps my ssd prongs from bending snapped off. Got a new ssd and transferred everything over before the prongs could get bent👍🏼
Really helpful thank you! Followed your video on upgrading my GPU and it worked like a dream for a novice like me.
When I installed my win10 as usual I just make a 40gb partition on my 750gb HDD. Do I get this right I can just clone this 40Gb boot partition on my new SSD of 575GB and not the remaining part of my 750gb storage? (since I only want to put windows on the ssd and then reinstall some games on it)
please note: anything on your SSD will be over written in the process.
Super dope video. Just bought a 1tb SSD so i cant wait to try this out
Excellent perfect video for my needs. Many thanks
Im watching this at fking 3:56am havent slept yet damnit cant even consentrate
the NTFS primary bar is red and it gives my errors when i clone?
same for me, now i cant access my ssd , what was your solution?
I’m having the same issue
ReigningAnt TTV hi I managed to fix mine after some fiddling you should be able to re format the ssd
When you installed the ssd you probably formatted it and doing the same again should fix it
The data size you're trying to copy is too large for the destination drive. You need to uninstall stuff, or delete files so it fits on the new drive.
Thank you so much. This worked for me well and the ssd cloned itself in under 30 minutes.
Great, it worked a treat, thank you.