How to Upgrade and Clone Your Bootable Windows Laptop Hard Drive to a 2.5" SSD
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- Опубликовано: 9 июн 2024
- In this video, I show you how to upgrade a 2.5" hard drive in an old Windows 7 based Asus K53E laptop with a 2.5" SSD. The procedure involves connecting the SSD to the laptop with an external USB enclosure, cloning the HDD to the SDD, and then physically swapping the two drives. I'll use Macrium Reflect's free cloning software to perform the clone. In addition, I'll show CrystalMark benchmarks before and after the replacement to show you the performance improvements that I experienced.
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I love the sound effects of your screwdriver LOL, a really useful & helpful video, I hope to do my laptop later when I get my SSD, thank you for sharing.
Thanks for all your comments. I figured no one wants to see me manually turn a screw for three minutes so I decided to speed it up a bit :)
Thank you brother. It helped me a lot. I needed this kind of complex/all-in-one tutorial.
Thank you my friend. I'm glad it helped.
Merry Christmas AR.... and thanks for the info...
You're welcome, and Merry Christmas to you too!
Thank you so much. I’m planning on doing this when my new SSD and Sata cable arrives. Your tutorial is simple and very easy to follow along to. I will update my results when my items arrive and finishing this process.
Thank you. Let me know if you run into any problems...
@@accessrandom I was successful in cloning my drive with Macrium Free version. The only problem I had is the 1st email I got didn’t have the download link. I had to go back and put my email again. When going back to the Macrium website it suddenly started downloading it for some reason without clicking a link.
We love your tutorials.
Thank you!
Thanks to this tutorial I was able to to clone my antique HDD to a larger SSD. Took almost an hour, but on exchange and reboot ...wow! Even on this antique laptop, I noticed such an improvement in response (not surprising - the HDD was red-line full!). What I didn't expect, but which also makes total sense, is the complete lack of heat. Some days the keyboard would be very hot, fan running crazy fast but sometimes uncomfortably hot to the touch. That poor HDD!
I'm so impressed with how quickly and smoothly everything went, thank you so much!
You seem to be in-the-know, so you're my go-to-guy for this question: I have a nearly full 1Tb ext HDD that I'd like to clone to a new 4T ext HDD...everything, all in one go, as was done for the OS/C: drive....Is this possible for FREE? (And without using the cloud?) File explorer seems sooooooo slow and unreliable for some of the larger files (or long file names). They're both non boot drives so Macrium free wasn't an option, sadly, as the C: drive was soooo easy to clone.
I agree with everyone else too: You have such a soothing voice :)
You're welcome, and thank you for the kind words 🙏 Yes, SSDs tend to run cooler than HDDs because there are no moving parts and consume less power. You can still use Macrium Reflect Free to clone from one external non-bootable drive to another - you would just copy the partitions over to the new drive. You will probably want to manually expand the partition after you drag it down to the second drive. I have another video that shows you how (ruclips.net/video/CHCENfs87F4/видео.html) - the video is about cloning to an M.2 SSD, but you can disregard that part. You will want to focus only on the general topic of cloning to a larger hard drive.
Thank you!
Dude this is the shit thanks soo Much for posting exactly what I was looking for
Thank you so much, worked very well. :)
You're welcome - glad you found it useful.
Fantastic tutorial. You rock. Any plans to update these to show the process for Macrum Reflect version 8 or is it basically the same?
Thank you. I'll need to update my cloning videos to use Macrium Reflect 8, but it will basically be the same procedure.
Wasn’t aware that macrium reflect automatically resized partions when cloning large capacity hdd to smaller capacity ssd all other videos. On this say not.Good clear commentary voice over
Thank you. Yes, Macrium Reflect will "shrink-to-fit" to a smaller SSD by truncating any empty space. However, it doesn't "expand-to-fit" when you go the other way around (moving to a larger SSD) - this would require some manual expansion of the partition.
@@accessrandom yes you are right the only thing it will not do is make space for extra partions to carry across which you have to do manually that's where I was getting it wrong. Ss I said a good clear video .
I'm planning to follow this for our office laptop. It won't cause any issue with old HDD( data loss) right?
My managers laptop is too slow due to HDD issue. He was using 1TB HDD (WD) and I will clone it to 1TB SSD (WD).
Superb tutorial👌CrystalDiskMark is free to download. Please send Link if possible
Hello, Do I need a full hard Drive Upgrade Kit or a Sata to USB 3.0 Adapter Cable is sufficient?
A SATA to USB cable (one without an enclosure) will work just fine.
Has Macrium been updated since making this video? Any differences? Also, do I need to make a rescue disk here? I want to replace my old laptop HDD with a new SSD.
Yes, it has been updated to a newer version - if you'd like to see it in action for a different use case, I have a recent video here: ruclips.net/video/CHCENfs87F4/видео.html . I didn't need to create a rescue disk when replacing the HDD with the SSD (as shown in this video), but I would recommend creating one anyway if possible - it has some very useful tools.
Is there a way to do this(aka cloning from an hdd to ssd) from a USB stick instead of booting from either the ssd or the hdd
You may want to look at one of my other videos where I do something similar: ruclips.net/video/cVRVgrOl1M8/видео.html. However, it's not strictly a clone, it's a restore from a recovery partition.
Really like the way you explained everything. I have a question though, I think partitions are giving me issues to clone my drive, not related to space, but with permissions. These partitions are empty, so I was thinking of just installing the partition that has Windows on it. Would my computer boot up fine without the rest of these partitions?
Correction, on disk management these partitions appear empty, but in Macrium they do appear with some data in them.
@@danielalfredo1175 Thank you. Do the partitions show up at all in Disk Management (but just empty)? Sometimes, partitions without letters assigned to them won't be visible in Disk Management. If in doubt, I would include all the partitions in the cloning wizard (compared to the main OS partition, they should be relatively tiny).
@@accessrandom They do appear in disk management, but the "% available" for all of the partitions is 100%, except for the one that has the OS on it. I did try to include the partitions at first but in the middle of the cloning process, it prompted me an error, something about not having pemission. One partition did get cloned, I just don't know what is up with the other two. Anyway, thanks for responding to my comment :)
@@danielalfredo1175 I see. I looked this up on google and it appears that some anti-virus programs may cause errors like that. You can try re-cloning with the anti-virus temporarily disabled. Alternatively, you could clone by booting from the rescue disk (which bypasses Windows and any anti-virus program completely).
@@accessrandom ooh that makes sense, thanks man! really really appreciate you helping me on this one! imma try it out :)
Should my internal ssd be allocated? Or is it fine if I do this when it's just an empty ssd
It's fine to leave it as an empty, unallocated SSD. Macrium will take care of the partition type.
As they say in the popup, giving them your email is optional. You can skip the it by leaving the email field empty and hitting continue anyways.
Thanks for the clarification!
Thanks very much for the video. I am confused about something, hope you can help me understand. Based on another video of yours, where you cloned a boot hdd to new ssd, you created what I believe you called a “rescue disk”. This other video advised to do something with that even after switching the boot order in bios. In this video, you did not create rescue disk. Is this because in your other video, you kept the old disk connected for use, but in this video you physically swapped the disks? So the old boot disk is no longer connected here. I am doing this procedure except to upgrade my m.2 disk on my desktop pc. I have a single m.2 slot so I will be using this adapter and swapping after the clone. So, to clarify, I will not need to do the rescue disk step because my old boot disk will be removed? I hope this made sense.
That's a good question. Yes, you are correct - when you use the same interface (in this video, the same SATA connector) to replace one drive with another, then you don't need the rescue disk because there's no change in interface. In my other videos, there is a change in interface so the rescue disk is required.
@@accessrandom ok fantastic, thank you for the help! I believe I understand now
@@accessrandom I actually have one more question. I am swapping ssd's in the same m.2 port on my motherboard, however the old one is SATA and the new one is NVME. I believe m.2 is just the form factor, so it sounds like they are still different interfaces. In my case, I would need the rescue media to fix the boot config data?
@@sirfranciscanadianbacon1468 Actually, I'm not sure if you'll need it with a change in SATA to NVMe. You may want to create one just in case. I'll need to defer to other viewers if they've tried this before - anyone?
@@accessrandom ok thanks anyway. I did create one just in case.
So I order a ssd that’s 250 gb but I have been using my hard drive for a long time. I’ve used 1tb, and if I do the math 1tb can’t fit on 250gb. Is it possible to move only windows and keep the other files on the hard drive or am I screwed and have to buy a bigger ssd?
The used space on your 1TB HDD would need to be less than the capacity of the SSD (so if you had, say 200 GB used, 800 GB free, you could clone it to the 250 GB SSD). If the laptop manufacturer provided a restore disk or partition, you could restore the factory image onto the SSD, or alternatively you could reinstall Windows. Otherwise, I'm afraid you would need a larger SSD.
what if i only drag the c drive to the new ssd ..... because i want the full ssd as c drive.....??
tell me please...😥
will there be a problem..or not tell me... please 😭😭
If you have additional storage partitions (like a D: and/or E: drives) on the same disk, you can certainly drag just the C partition. But I would copy the system partitions also since they are relatively small.
I want to install Macrium software but error due to low space in drive c:.. Please help!
How much free space do you have on c:?
Can you please help me? My HDD starts with a small ESP FAT32 (LBA) partition. The BIOS boot system is UEFI. I learned this by Macrium Reflect and System Information. The HDD contains also an NTFS primary partition. And a second small NTFS primary partition which shows red. Macrium tells me that UEFI will not start on an NTFS formatted disc. It allows me to copy both NTFS partitions to the SSD. What do I do to make the SSD bootable? I hope you will help me. I bought a 860EVO SSD from Amazon, I got confidence from these very good instructions and more here on RUclips, but you are a favorite.
Thank you. If you are having problems with cloning using the default settings, you may want to try a forensic disk copy (which you can access by clicking the Advanced Options at the 4:33 mark). This will copy every single cluster on the drive. If your SSD is larger than your original drive, you would still need to obtain some partition management software to resize the partitions, but it would allow you to boot to the SSD (as long as you could boot from your HDD originally).
@@accessrandom Thank you so much for your advice, I thought of that too and will try that as my best option. So because my SSD is smaller I understand I will have no resizing issues. I will give you an update how it went.
@@josmeeusen1136 If your destination SSD is smaller than the source HDD, then I'm afraid you'd need to use Intelligent Sector Copy.
I started the forensic disk copy twice with no avail. Macrium Reflect would not copy to the target both times and gave additional that I would have to shrink a partition after the copy and that wouldn't work. Weird reasoning. Second time I shrunk the C: partition first in preparing the copy, but it doesn't seem to look at that. Maybe it expects same size disks or at least a bigger target. My HDD is 1TB the SSD is 500GB.
At last I prepared like I did for the forensic copy and just let it all copy like that with the whole HDD checked. (Maybe I didn't the other times.) This went well and ended after 6,5 hours. I'm happy it's working. I still need some clamps or a caddy to hold the SSD in place. But I don't travel with this. Your presentation and help here got me this far. Thank you so much for your time and effort.
It was all more tricky than I expected. The System Information is a big help I would everybody advise to use that before cloning to an other drive.
Won't you have to change the boot disk to the ssd then turn off the computer on windows 10 before you take out the old hard drive and put the ssd in?
As long as you are replacing a disk on the same SATA interface, you will not need to alter the boot disk settings in the BIOS.
what happens if you dont want to clone the original HDD, and you want a fresh start with your new SSD? can you just install it and make a new windows instalation? can it work like that?
Sure, you can always start with a fresh install of Windows. If your laptop was originally installed with Windows 8.1 or 10, the product key should be embedded in the BIOS and Windows should automatically pick it up while installing. If it's an older computer, there's a utility from Nirsoft that can read the product key from your current Windows while it's running.
@@accessrandom tx mate
Hello again, I'll be upgrading to a new CPU and motherboard. From Intel platform to ryzen platform. How would I reuse my only old HDD? I'll have a new bootable USB. I don't have much important documents. Any suggestions? Thanks!
I'm a little confused. Is this a desktop or a laptop? And will you be booting to a new SSD through the USB port?
@@accessrandom a desktop. I'll be changing up my motherboard and CPU. And I'll be reusing my old hdd.
@@accessrandom I'll be getting an internal ssd to be my new boot drive.
Thanks for the additional info. After you clone the HDD to your new SSD and set it as the bootable drive, you can continue to use your HDD as a secondary storage device. What you'll want to do is delete all the partitions on your HDD (I have a video here that shows you how to do that: ruclips.net/video/sfS143DikPE/видео.html). Before wiping the hard drive, make sure you can boot to the SSD reliably, and backing up your data is always a good idea also.
@@accessrandom thanks for the quick reply! I'm changing to a whole different motherboard. Wouldn't that cause problems to the new motherboard if I j just move everything into the ssd?
Just worried whether windows will detect it or not. If it starts showing ACTIVATE WINDOWS.
As long as the storage medium is the only thing that you're changing, Windows will not need to re-activate. Now if you're changing, storage, memory, graphics card, etc. at the same time, there may be enough of a hardware change to trigger re-activation.
How to boot from ssd without removing hdd? (dual storage)
You may want to visit one of my other videos where I explain how to do that: ruclips.net/video/CHCENfs87F4/видео.html