#Cloning laptop hard drive to ssd how to
#Cloning laptop hard drive to ssd install
#Cloning laptop hard drive to ssd portable
#Cloning laptop hard drive to ssd software
#Cloning laptop hard drive to ssd free

Long story short, I tried different apps but Clonezilla is the only one that kinda works for me (used options -e2 -j2 -q1 -iefi to attempt to make an identical copy). Preferably with sector-by-sector copy turned on. I used different disk cloning/imaging apps (True Image, Macrium Reflect, AOMEI Backupper, Paragon Backup & Recovery, Clonezilla) to clone the old SSD to the new one. I also use disk-cloning/disk-to-disk to clone the entire SSD. I can boot from this old SSD before and after cloning and everything works just fine.

The old SSD is attached to a M.2 to SATA adapter and in turn attached to another SATA to USB 3.0 adapter. The new SSD is attached to the only M.2 NVME socket. Don't worry, the computer will take a very short time to boot up now.I'm trying to migrate from a small M2 NVME SSD to a larger and faster one. You'll want to restart the computer a few times so the operating system can get used to the new SSD. For a desktop, you actually can still use the old hard drive as a secondary drive if there's a place for it inside the computer's chassis. Or you can also use it with the USB-to-SATA adapter as an on-going backup drive. Now, once the SSD has been installed, keep the hard drive in a safe place as a permanent backup. In my experience, if you have a screw or two left over, you've done something wrong. Make sure you use all the screws when installing the SSD. Once the old hard drive has been pulled out, you'll want to reverse the process with the SSD. Since SSDs have no moving parts and a desktop computer is generally stationary, there's virtually no harm in leaving an SSD loose inside the chassis. However, if your SSD doesn't, you can get away with leaving the SSD hanging inside the computer.

Note that for desktops, some SSDs come with a 3.5-inch hard-drive bay adapter to make them fit in the computer easily.

#Cloning laptop hard drive to ssd how to

You should consult the user manual or the internet on how to remove your computer's hard drive. It's generally easier with desktops, where hard drives (3.5-inch versions) are easily spotted once the cover of the chassis is opened. Sometimes hard drives are placed under the battery. Most laptops make it easy for you to do this by putting the hard-drive bay by the edge of the computer and making it so you can pull it out after undoing some screws on its bottom. This last step involves removing the existing hard drive. After that, sit back and wait for the cloning process to complete.Ĭertain laptops make it very easy to replace their internal drive. Click on Next and follow with the rest of the wizard to initiate the cloning process. This is the partition that holds the operating system.ĥ. In this case, you can uncheck the partitions on the right of the main partition, which always contain (C:) in its name. then pick the SSD, which is connected to the computer via an USB port.Įxtra note: Here you can verify to make sure both drives share the same drive format type (GPT or MBR.) Also, if the existing hard drive has many small partitions and you use an SSD that's of smaller capacity, you might run into an error saying not all partitions can fit on the SSD. In Clone window, click on Select a disk to clone to. Under the graphic of the existing computer, click on Clone this disk. Once the installation is done, double click on the Reflect icon on the Desktop of the computer.ģ.

#Cloning laptop hard drive to ssd install

Download and install Macrium Refelct Free.Ģ. Macrium Reflect allows for cloning a drive without having to include all of the source drive's partitions. Note that for a desktop, as an option, you can skip this adapter and install the SSD as a secondary internal drive for the cloning process, which works much faster than connecting via USB.

#Cloning laptop hard drive to ssd portable

If you have a Seagate GoFlex external hard drive (a portable or desktop version), you can use the adapter part of the drive for the job. These adapters can be found online for around $15 or so. The third thing you need is a USB-to-SATA adapter. It also supports all types of hard drive formats.

#Cloning laptop hard drive to ssd software

This software allows you to clone the existing drive to a new one without even restarting the computer.

#Cloning laptop hard drive to ssd free

There are many of them on the market and most of them work well (some SSDs come with this software installed) but my favorite for the job is the free version of Macrium Reflect. The second thing you need is cloning software. It never hurts to get a large SSD of the same or even larger capacity as the existing hard drive, though, if you can afford it. That means, for example, if your computer's main hard drive's capacity is 1TB but you have just used up about 200GB, then you just need an SSD that's 240GB. One important thing to keep in mind: make sure you get an SSD with a higher capacity than the total amount of data you currently have on the hard drive you're replacing.