It becomes easier to wrap your head around if you consider that hard drives (and SSDs) are really just storing complex databases. When you are interacting with the hard drive, you are modifying the database using prescribed rules defined by the partitioning scheme and FS type. When you create an image of the hard drive, you are just reading block data from the disk and storing it in a sparse file (which can have empty space removed from it) for later use by mounting the file or writing the file to a new disk.
Bless Luke, Linus has made the main channel self absorbed and this is all he has left to present on. Prefer Luke in most cases, to see him get excited about building systems is brilliant and he breaks everything into more explainable content than Linus' messy not planned stuff
Surprised this video isn't sponsored by a disk imaging software company. Don't forget you can go to Control Panel - Backup and Restore - Create a System Image in Pro versions of Windows 7 to 10.
Maybe you should make a video on 'how to upgrade your harddrive to an ssd'. I haven't found a lot of step by step guides. It is especially very confusing when it comes to the software/cloning part. Just an idea.
Rémi Rooms considering that you said 'upgrade', then I guess you already have an HDD. Install the new SSD (better unplug the old one) Instal windows/Linux Re install your old drive and use it for archive (Re format/partition if necessary) Move your temp files to the HDD Deactivate restoring points Move swap to HDD (in Linux you can do this while installing) And you're pretty much done Partition alignment should be correct and trim should be activated.
PING - Partimage Is Not Ghost. Download it, burn to a CD (yes, it's THAT lightweight) and then boot from it to run the backup/restore in a simple Linux-based command prompt UI. Bada-bing, bada-boom. Mentioning them in the video might be construed as giving preferential treatment to those mentioned over those the script writer/s and editor/s might not know about directly.
I use Clonezilla at work all the time to create images of drives. I make a bootable USB of it and then just run through the prompts. And like the person above me said, you can get Acronis free with some drives. I think my Kingston HyperX drive came with a copy.
I have to mention that, even if past videos have been in general informative or entertaining, these are the types of videos I not only like the most, but also the ones I find more useful. These types of videos are also more on point with the info, unlike say the electronic components video. That one was pretty unnecessary or just kind of useless to the average pc user, and the info was very simplified. Almost to the point that it seemed misleading or that the host didn't know what he was talking about. The intel i3/5/7 video, hyperthreading, gpu scaling, ram drives, full disk encryption, cpu cache, drive partitions, file systems and nvme videos are all examples of very useful videos for us pc users or maybe useful information to have since there's a good chance you may one day need to use it (also as a pc user; for example full disk encryption). I just hope that you are able to push more videos of this type. VEry good work nonetheless ;)
Would have been interesting to see you use (test) a couple of these free Drive Imaging/Cloning and show pros/cons. For example: Would it work if you clone/image a clean installed and registered Windows OS to a different Drive then put it onto another motherboard, or would you have to reactivate the key? (And other wierd stuff)...
Perhaps its a good idea to mention, that while cloning drives is a form of backing up, it should not be your only method! If you clone a drive with a virus, the virus gets cloned aswell!
You forgot to mention shadow volume copy, which makes one of your points about not being able to clone live system invalid. It's extensively used by backup software (such as Veeam) to backup files or even incremental system drive backup. It's also used to back up live guest OS on hypervisors or take snapshots of them, etc etc.
It's not sector by sector. Cloning copies the boot sectors and the partition layout and then just copies the files. It's basically a file copy program with some additional tweaks
I have used Acronis for years. Those disk images have saved my bacon so many times... With 1TB external drives under $60, and USB 3.0 being common, images can take less than 15 minutes. Worth it.
You should make a video about the backup routines done @ Linus Media Group! we have seen the hardware, and the servers, but what software, how is your backups setup on individual computers? is it window server and client based? is it image based? do you even have full system backups? etc.. or maybe do a video where you test and try different backup solutions both free and paid, preferably only solutions that have been around for a long time that are tried and tested
Good man! Concise but comprehensive enough to be useful as a starter. Great style. I was going to ask whether image making software could disregard free space, given that I have just re-installed W7 and the ususal programs for the 9999th time, which I am sick of doing, and I do not have another drive as big as the one I want to create an image of. Thanks. Liked/Subscribed.
They didn't seem to mention when you load a system image from a backup drive, you get all your files but also identical partitions, so if you want to upgrade to a larger size you have to jump through a few more hoops
So if I am going to use an offline cloning dock. And I’m cloning 1tb to 1tb, will my data and partitions all be okay? Or will I have to use a computer to adjust partitions?
I would like to clone my drive without all of its free space onto a USB, and have it be bootable on this computer. Is this possible, if not, why not, and what would be the closest I could come to this? I was referenced before to G4L.
There are actually cloning programs that act kinda like a disk image. With many free cloning software you can only clone to a disk that is either the same size or larger. The problem with the more advanced ones that can clone to a smaller drive is you have to pay for them.
Can you make a video talking about Sectors vs Blocks; Tracks vs Cylinders; etc explaining what each one is and the differences between all of them? Another one could be about MBR vs GPT and those partition tables? Or Gibibytes vs Gigabytes Tebibytes vs Terabytes, etc.
So... to put it in simple terms, cloning is a faster version of imaging except that your USB can only contain one clone while if you use images, you can store multiple clones?
+Techquickie I really like your videos, they are always very informative. But I don't like the fact that you never mention Linux as a very versatile option for pretty much everything you could want to do. For cloning and backup there are dd and fsarchiver as very powerful tools. I would like to see more Linux related content, because it gets more and more popular, even for gamers because Steam provides a big library for Linux.
If you have Windows 8 or above then you can use DISM, this is built into Windows and has some fun features such as offline servicing (You can install applications to an image without needing the reference PC) To learn more about DISM: msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/hardware/commercialize/manufacture/desktop/dism-image-management-command-line-options-s14 To learn how to capture an image with DISM: msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/hardware/commercialize/manufacture/desktop/capture-images-of-hard-disk-partitions-using-dism
Aaron Garza It's a command line utility, it has really easy syntax, is highly configurable, it lets you create an image or clone a partition or an entire drive, you don't get the performance or stability drawbacks of a GUI. And because it's command line it's really easy to replicate what you have done by just reusing the same command. It comes with every Linux distribution (I guess, there might be an unicorn that doesn't have it) so you can just use a Live CD/USB of Arch or something like that and get the job done quite quickly
Could You make a detailed video about cloning harddrives. I would like to clone a hard drive, but I'm too scared too mess it up, specifically the part where you replace the old drive. How do You do it? with drive letters and all, without making a registry mess.
I'm surprised you didn't mention the fact that taking an image of a drive is a good way to virtualize an existing system... That's a very common use case. Get an old system, take an image of the disk, then tweak the image a bit and you should be able to use it with VMWare or a similar virtualisation environment.
what software (or method) could I use to create an image of a windows with preinstalled apps and settings which I could then install on various computers via usb or even Pxe?
If you have a Mac you don't have to worry about any of this (downloading software and stuff) you just connect a drive and turn on time machine. You never have to worry about it because it does everything for you. I have my Mac backup every hour to a drive on my network and all I and to do was turn on time machine.
What if you used the Windows backup tool and created a "WindowsImageBackup" file on an external drive (it's about 26gb). What good does that do you if your installed OS gets corrupted/destroyed in some way?
I found with the free software you can make an image but to clone a drive you have to buy a paid or "Premium" version of the software which is usually around $50.
Luke i got to know what is the best free cloning program right now cause my old laptop has a 320gb HDD in it and i plan on slapping in a 1tb SSHD inside but of course want to clone the drive because you know for most companies out there they don't really include the media for installing the OS again (which it was originally Windows 7).
At one point i had to try and clone a dying drive to recover data.Did it sector by sector.Took 5 days, the drive died.But i managed to rebuild it's data quickly with the clone so yay for cloning.You get to try several methods iff you have a Hiren's DVD iso
If I want to boot from an ssd but currently only have two hhds both nearly full, can I only clone the operating system so my pc starts quicker because it is not big enough to hold all my data at once?
if i clone hard disk . can i run the programs and . aplication from that clone disk . externaly with the use of any compiuter or do i have to re downloand the content to a new compiuter?
So if I have a dead, beeping drive. I open and carefully un-jam it. What would be the Fastest but least stressful way to transfer files, theres around 1.2tb to backup. Is cloning faster than imaging? Or is there any new way?
I was looking for thing that i've seen: Windows running on two same hard drives(each hard drive have to be the same one) in case one fails you still have data on the other hard drive without manual backup.
Of course they forgot to say the most important thing: Everything BAD is cloned/copied as well, meaning that all the bad setups, corrupt files and the likes that might slow down or corrupt your system to begin with get copied as well, which is why it is better to copy the absolute necessary stuff over, and reinstall Windows fresh instead.
can you guys make a video on how to make a limited wifi network. like having a open network that you can only use for a limited time or a limited amount of data
Any chance you guy's could do a do a comparison of imaging software, there is so many out there now it is almost impossible to know what is best. So a test and review from you guys would be greatly helpful! Even if I am not sure if you guys would be the best to test backup software since you guys lost all of your data from your server..haha sorry I had to do it! :-)
Here is when it gets tricky. I have a msi gt73. 2*256gb nvme in raid 0, and a 2tb hdd. I want to upgrade to a 1tb nvme and keep one 256gb nvme. The 2tb hdd is dynamic disc :-/. Would it work if I make a windows full backup to the hdd, then swap one of the 2 nvme to the 1tb new nvme, change the bios settings to use ahci, load a windows install medium from a usb drive, and restore the full backup from that to the 1tb nvme?
I don't use cloning software. I have a mini external dock that allows you to slot 2 hard drives into it. You hit a button and it just clones one drive to another. I don't even need to have a pc attached to it.
As an IT professional, cloning and disk imaging has saved SO MUCH TIME
It becomes easier to wrap your head around if you consider that hard drives (and SSDs) are really just storing complex databases. When you are interacting with the hard drive, you are modifying the database using prescribed rules defined by the partitioning scheme and FS type. When you create an image of the hard drive, you are just reading block data from the disk and storing it in a sparse file (which can have empty space removed from it) for later use by mounting the file or writing the file to a new disk.
He looks a loooot like the guy from Linus Tech Tips.
Joseph Obonyo It's almost like LTT owns this channel...
Nah there's no way.
I think they cloned him ;)
No they imaged him
Ever watched Checkpoint?
Ctrl-C Linus, Ctrl-V here
Bless Luke, Linus has made the main channel self absorbed and this is all he has left to present on. Prefer Luke in most cases, to see him get excited about building systems is brilliant and he breaks everything into more explainable content than Linus' messy not planned stuff
Surprised this video isn't sponsored by a disk imaging software company.
Don't forget you can go to Control Panel - Backup and Restore - Create a System Image in Pro versions of Windows 7 to 10.
automagically: when something is done automatically, without any knowledge about the inner workings of the process
Maybe you should make a video on 'how to upgrade your harddrive to an ssd'. I haven't found a lot of step by step guides. It is especially very confusing when it comes to the software/cloning part. Just an idea.
Rémi Rooms
I'm almost sure they have one.
I believe it was an upgrade from a HDD to SSD
however, the best thing to do is actually start over.
1st_Luis No, I saw that video as well but it was about the performance increase from HDD to ssd. And it also was for a laptop, not a desktop
Rémi Rooms
HDD to SSD or SSD to SSD is the same story
desktop to desktop or laptop to laptop, the exact same story
There's no point then.
ZIPMusic No,I just mean that I upgrade my pc so it will run faster. An old HDD + ssd, booting from the new ssd.
Rémi Rooms
considering that you said 'upgrade', then I guess you already have an HDD.
Install the new SSD (better unplug the old one)
Instal windows/Linux
Re install your old drive and use it for archive (Re format/partition if necessary)
Move your temp files to the HDD
Deactivate restoring points
Move swap to HDD (in Linux you can do this while installing)
And you're pretty much done
Partition alignment should be correct and trim should be activated.
Lots of free programs....doesn't mention even one.
ThisIsAPrettyLongUserNameWhyTheFuckWouldHeDoThatSoThatEveryoneWouldThumbsUpIt I wonder....
Lol!!!! he excited me for a second!!!.. Ohh well just gotta keep making sure that i buy SSD's which give a free OEM copy of Acronis
PING - Partimage Is Not Ghost.
Download it, burn to a CD (yes, it's THAT lightweight) and then boot from it to run the backup/restore in a simple Linux-based command prompt UI. Bada-bing, bada-boom.
Mentioning them in the video might be construed as giving preferential treatment to those mentioned over those the script writer/s and editor/s might not know about directly.
I use Clonezilla at work all the time to create images of drives. I make a bootable USB of it and then just run through the prompts.
And like the person above me said, you can get Acronis free with some drives. I think my Kingston HyperX drive came with a copy.
With clonezilla you can copy via LAN !!!, thats awesome, but clonezilla no not know how to copy from bigger disk to smaller :(
Great visuals to go with the script. Makes it easy listening
I have to mention that, even if past videos have been in general informative or entertaining, these are the types of videos I not only like the most, but also the ones I find more useful. These types of videos are also more on point with the info, unlike say the electronic components video. That one was pretty unnecessary or just kind of useless to the average pc user, and the info was very simplified. Almost to the point that it seemed misleading or that the host didn't know what he was talking about.
The intel i3/5/7 video, hyperthreading, gpu scaling, ram drives, full disk encryption, cpu cache, drive partitions, file systems and nvme videos are all examples of very useful videos for us pc users or maybe useful information to have since there's a good chance you may one day need to use it (also as a pc user; for example full disk encryption).
I just hope that you are able to push more videos of this type. VEry good work nonetheless ;)
Would have been interesting to see you use (test) a couple of these free Drive Imaging/Cloning and show pros/cons.
For example: Would it work if you clone/image a clean installed and registered Windows OS to a different Drive then put it onto another motherboard, or would you have to reactivate the key? (And other wierd stuff)...
NCIX Tech Tips has a video for that.
2:36 "cratastrophic" Oh Luke, we love you.
WE WANT TO CLONE DENNIS!!!!
why not luke
Why not Both!
one luke is already too much
Why would we listen to a CPU socket? 🤔
Awesome Meister One Luke isn't enough for a gangbang
System cloning is the best thing that happened to me since sliced bread.
Perhaps its a good idea to mention, that while cloning drives is a form of backing up, it should not be your only method! If you clone a drive with a virus, the virus gets cloned aswell!
GREAT vid. It was super helpful on a topic I wasn't 100% sure on.
You forgot to mention shadow volume copy, which makes one of your points about not being able to clone live system invalid. It's extensively used by backup software (such as Veeam) to backup files or even incremental system drive backup. It's also used to back up live guest OS on hypervisors or take snapshots of them, etc etc.
It's not sector by sector. Cloning copies the boot sectors and the partition layout and then just copies the files.
It's basically a file copy program with some additional tweaks
I have used Acronis for years. Those disk images have saved my bacon so many times... With 1TB external drives under $60, and USB 3.0 being common, images can take less than 15 minutes. Worth it.
informative video+Honest commercial = WIN!
How about a video tutorial using different software for cloning and doing stem images. That would be interesting.
Can you do this Imaging or Cloning with two different size HDDs? Do they have to be the same type or can you use a HDD and SSD?
You should make a video about the backup routines done @ Linus Media Group! we have seen the hardware, and the servers, but what software, how is your backups setup on individual computers? is it window server and client based? is it image based? do you even have full system backups? etc..
or maybe do a video where you test and try different backup solutions both free and paid, preferably only solutions that have been around for a long time that are tried and tested
What's the video at 3:33?
Image is the bit-by-bit copy of a physical drive also know as bit-stream copy. It is mostly used in digital forensics for data acquisition.
Good man!
Concise but comprehensive enough to be useful as a starter.
Great style.
I was going to ask whether image making software could disregard free space, given that I have just re-installed W7 and the ususal programs for the 9999th time, which I am sick of doing, and I do not have another drive as big as the one I want to create an image of.
Thanks.
Liked/Subscribed.
any issues with the same license of windows and other software running on multiple devices if you clone to multiple devices?
I've bought Acronis True Image 2013 and 2016 because I like it so much.
Great video! Could you do one on public/private key pairs and handshakes, and/or one that gets a little in-depth on hashing algorithms? Thanks!
At the shop we use Clonezilla via PartedMagic boot disc almost exclusively. If the drive's condition is too bad we'll use the Linux dd command.
They didn't seem to mention when you load a system image from a backup drive, you get all your files but also identical partitions, so if you want to upgrade to a larger size you have to jump through a few more hoops
So if I am going to use an offline cloning dock. And I’m cloning 1tb to 1tb, will my data and partitions all be okay? Or will I have to use a computer to adjust partitions?
"special imaging software" aka plain old linux with the dd command
egene thebest yup. But LMG hasn't noticed yet, that there are operating systems other than windows...
olpqay Yet they use linux for a lot of stuff
or ddrescue if you fucked up your drive somehow
dd, rsync, and tar pretty much handle all my disk management needs.
I would like to clone my drive without all of its free space onto a USB, and have it be bootable on this computer. Is this possible, if not, why not, and what would be the closest I could come to this? I was referenced before to G4L.
There are actually cloning programs that act kinda like a disk image. With many free cloning software you can only clone to a disk that is either the same size or larger. The problem with the more advanced ones that can clone to a smaller drive is you have to pay for them.
wow,,,,,finally i was able to reach this channel's video after 2 mins it was uploaded
Thanks Luke I literally needed to do something like this since I bought my nvme ssd this week
Thanks, you guys rock! Tutorial on how to from HDD to smaller SSD and HDD upgrade on LTT maybe?
Can you make a video talking about Sectors vs Blocks; Tracks vs Cylinders; etc explaining what each one is and the differences between all of them? Another one could be about MBR vs GPT and those partition tables? Or Gibibytes vs Gigabytes Tebibytes vs Terabytes, etc.
2:13
3:10 skip extra space in imaging
I'm a tech support and I used Ghost32 since I started my career in IT. It is the best and very easy to use in my opinion.
I was actually thinking about how to clone a boot drive a couple days ago, awesome
But Luke you did not show us the ways of the force or include links to said freeware...
completely unrelated to this video but what about an episode on khz, especially 44khz vs 48khz and it's effect on syncing audio?
for the first time I'll never watch a drive imaging
I've saw JayzTwoCents video about how to clone a hard drive to solid state drive
not all clone software uses sector by sector. arconis for example only copys what it needs and then reconstructs the file system as needed
can you do one on watercoolers and watercooling installation?
So... to put it in simple terms, cloning is a faster version of imaging except that your USB can only contain one clone while if you use images, you can store multiple clones?
2:55 "automagically" I see what you did there
+Techquickie I really like your videos, they are always very informative. But I don't like the fact that you never mention Linux as a very versatile option for pretty much everything you could want to do. For cloning and backup there are dd and fsarchiver as very powerful tools.
I would like to see more Linux related content, because it gets more and more popular, even for gamers because Steam provides a big library for Linux.
What's the best free cloning software?
dd
Trey Trevino Clonezilla?
If you have Windows 8 or above then you can use DISM, this is built into Windows and has some fun features such as offline servicing (You can install applications to an image without needing the reference PC)
To learn more about DISM: msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/hardware/commercialize/manufacture/desktop/dism-image-management-command-line-options-s14
To learn how to capture an image with DISM: msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/hardware/commercialize/manufacture/desktop/capture-images-of-hard-disk-partitions-using-dism
carzacc What's dd again?
Aaron Garza It's a command line utility, it has really easy syntax, is highly configurable, it lets you create an image or clone a partition or an entire drive, you don't get the performance or stability drawbacks of a GUI.
And because it's command line it's really easy to replicate what you have done by just reusing the same command.
It comes with every Linux distribution (I guess, there might be an unicorn that doesn't have it) so you can just use a Live CD/USB of Arch or something like that and get the job done quite quickly
Hey LMG I was just wondering why you don't link web pages of programs you recommend when you do videos like this one?
Could You make a detailed video about cloning harddrives. I would like to clone a hard drive, but I'm too scared too mess it up, specifically the part where you replace the old drive. How do You do it? with drive letters and all, without making a registry mess.
The moment i see Linus all credibility goes out of the window
Would be nice if you'd cover RIS/WDS systems next as part two of this episode.
What i wanna know is, can the cloning software eliminate malware and viruses? Now that would be dope!
Thankyou so much ☺️🙏
Where can we get one of those awesome shirts?
Great job!
Man, I could listen to your voice forever lol
can't seem to find any of these free programs, helps plz
Discuss Anti-Static shielding bags for consumer electronics ;]
Uses Macrium for cloning, backup images etc; Kingston offer a free serial # for Acronis with their drives ;)
the ad fucking scared me jesus linus step it down a notch
I'm surprised you didn't mention the fact that taking an image of a drive is a good way to virtualize an existing system... That's a very common use case. Get an old system, take an image of the disk, then tweak the image a bit and you should be able to use it with VMWare or a similar virtualisation environment.
I just created a disk image and just copy pasted it into another external hard drive, I'll let you know if it'll boot or not
will it boot up and look exactly the same way it did if i clone one HD to another?
It will even smell the same!
what software (or method) could I use to create an image of a windows with preinstalled apps and settings which I could then install on various computers via usb or even Pxe?
If you have a Mac you don't have to worry about any of this (downloading software and stuff) you just connect a drive and turn on time machine. You never have to worry about it because it does everything for you. I have my Mac backup every hour to a drive on my network and all I and to do was turn on time machine.
What if you used the Windows backup tool and created a "WindowsImageBackup" file on an external drive (it's about 26gb). What good does that do you if your installed OS gets corrupted/destroyed in some way?
Your wiggle 1:13 😁😁Love it!
I found with the free software you can make an image but to clone a drive you have to buy a paid or "Premium" version of the software which is usually around $50.
How do any of us know we aren't clones?
The Narrator how do we know if we're not just some brain in a vat of goo?
DNA testing.
One of us, one of us...
Scientist never cloned a human
because we're not retarded
Luke i got to know what is the best free cloning program right now cause my old laptop has a 320gb HDD in it and i plan on slapping in a 1tb SSHD inside but of course want to clone the drive because you know for most companies out there they don't really include the media for installing the OS again (which it was originally Windows 7).
At one point i had to try and clone a dying drive to recover data.Did it sector by sector.Took 5 days, the drive died.But i managed to rebuild it's data quickly with the clone so yay for cloning.You get to try several methods iff you have a Hiren's DVD iso
Very helpful!!
If sistem files are read protected, will create a image help copy ?
Are program configurations in Windows stored in the registry?
WEre are the links to the free cloning software, I'm holding off on Audible! till they show up
please share your fav imaging and cloning software and few free ones :)
He’s pretty good at explaining compared to other guys on here
Can you run the cloned drive on a separate PC with different hardware.
If I want to boot from an ssd but currently only have two hhds both nearly full, can I only clone the operating system so my pc starts quicker because it is not big enough to hold all my data at once?
1:15 Nice dance Luke
if i clone hard disk . can i run the programs and . aplication from that clone disk . externaly with the use of any compiuter or do i have to re downloand the content to a new compiuter?
Good one, thanks!
Please make a next Techquickie video about HDBaseT, there is not much noob friendly info out there.
loved the image of the mad scientist at the end of the video, lol..
So if I have a dead, beeping drive. I open and carefully un-jam it. What would be the Fastest but least stressful way to transfer files, theres around 1.2tb to backup. Is cloning faster than imaging? Or is there any new way?
What are those list of FREE Disk Imaging / Cloning Software?
I was looking for thing that i've seen: Windows running on two same hard drives(each hard drive have to be the same one) in case one fails you still have data on the other hard drive without manual backup.
Can I replace a hard drive with an imaged hard drive. Will the computer work as previously.
Of course they forgot to say the most important thing: Everything BAD is cloned/copied as well, meaning that all the bad setups, corrupt files and the likes that might slow down or corrupt your system to begin with get copied as well, which is why it is better to copy the absolute necessary stuff over, and reinstall Windows fresh instead.
can you guys make a video on how to make a limited wifi network. like having a open network that you can only use for a limited time or a limited amount of data
I don't think that that topic is relevant to a large enough audience to justify its own video. You'll just have to do some research yourself.
Any chance you guy's could do a do a comparison of imaging software, there is so many out there now it is almost impossible to know what is best. So a test and review from you guys would be greatly helpful! Even if I am not sure if you guys would be the best to test backup software since you guys lost all of your data from your server..haha sorry I had to do it! :-)
I think a techquikie about what DRM music is!!
macrium reflect - it's the free software I use to image and clone drives
Here is when it gets tricky. I have a msi gt73. 2*256gb nvme in raid 0, and a 2tb hdd. I want to upgrade to a 1tb nvme and keep one 256gb nvme. The 2tb hdd is dynamic disc :-/. Would it work if I make a windows full backup to the hdd, then swap one of the 2 nvme to the 1tb new nvme, change the bios settings to use ahci, load a windows install medium from a usb drive, and restore the full backup from that to the 1tb nvme?
I don't use cloning software. I have a mini external dock that allows you to slot 2 hard drives into it. You hit a button and it just clones one drive to another. I don't even need to have a pc attached to it.
I guess you could create a duplicate pair of your RAID 0 drives if you wanted. Although I haven't tried.
www.mediasonic.ca/product.php?id=1429903219
I use Carbon Copy Cloner, a Mac only programme, for my copying and cloning needs.
what about the pros and cons of imaging?
does anyone know which program of disc imaging software I can use that is free?