Will this work..
Do a complete backup, but restore to a different disk AND be able to boot from that disk? I want to move my OS drive from a hard drive to a ssd drive without buying software to do this.
If you have a system image made with Macrium, or other imaging software for example, it should work.
I use Macrium & Clonezilla for backup and cloning.
I've heard of clonezilla but never used it. Will it also copy the MBR? From what I researched, I can go to a smaller hard drive provided the original drive is disconnected. I'll try clonezilla and see what happens. Thanks.
I have restored to 2 new HDDs using Windows imaging alone. Windows imaging always copies and replaces the MBR plus the system reserved (~100MB) partition, if you have one.
You can do the same with Macrium but you must explicitly restore a separate image of the system reserved partition if you have one. You must also explicitly accept the option to replace the MBR to the new HDD. Macrium will have made a copy from the original disk.
Most free imaging require reimaging to a partition at least as large as the partition you imaged. The simplest solution is to preshrink your original partition to less than the size of the SSD prior to imaging.
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