Solved Cloning a bigger SSD to a smaller SSD freezes at 90%

[Ukdodger]

Tried several times to clone an SSD to a smaller SSD and it always freezes between 75-90% using Macruim Reflect. It didnt attempt to clone until I resized the smaller SSD from 500GB to 400GB then dragged the petitions down. It ends up looking like the pic. If I try to boot from the cloned SSD a message 'Bootmgr missing'. Tried repairing it with the W7 installation disk but nothing I do gets past that 'Bootmgr missing' message. Any ideas. Thanks

 

[Snick]

Hi Ukdodger,

Have you tried to image/backup the larger drive, then restore to smaller drive. I believe the Clone process copies the entire drive, including free space. Believe, not sure until I do a little research.
I'm pretty sure AOMEI Backupper Standard (free) does that.
Read the below dissertation on imaging and restoring. From 1TB to 250GB SSD.

I use AOMEI Backupper Standard (free)
I image the first drive, then reimage to the new smaller drive.
If this image is small enough, default only records/images the actual used portion of the first drive.
I haven't used Macrium other than a short demo. I assume it works similar however.

I'll do a little sleuthing on the net and see what I find. I'll also download Macrium and peruse the GUI.
In the meantime, I'm sure another Forum member will read your post and chime in too.

Snick

 

[Snick]

From Google search

Click and drag the partitions from the disk you want to clone. Ensure they are in the same order on the external destination drive as they are on the original drive. You may now need to change partition sizes so that they fit a smaller or larger hard drive.

Appears that you need to convert unallocated space on you smaller drive to allocated and merge it with D: drive too.

Cloning to a smaller SSD - Macrium Support Forum
EaseUS Partition Master - Convert Unallocated Space to Free Space | Fix 'not enough ...

Snick

 

[Snick]

Here's a snippet of my HP Desktop drives from EaseUS Partition Master Free.

 

[SIW2]

Is F partition marked active? It should be. Switch the active flag from E to F.

If you still have issues after that, then something else is also messed up, and you would be advised to try a different cloning tool and clone again.

 

[Snick]

 

[dg1261]

You've got a couple things messed up there. One is the wrong active partition, as SIW2 noticed. The other is the location of your System Reserved partition. That's what partition 1 ("101 MB Unallocated") is for.

(Yeah, I know you just tried to copy the same layout from Disk 0 to Disk 1, but Disk 0 got messed up somewhere in the past. It may be working now, but that D: partition is what used to be at the front. Since you're making a new clone, this is an opportunity to put things right again.)

It appears you're running Macrium from within Windows. To fix things, you'll need to boot from Macrium's external boot media (bootable CD or USB stick). So if you haven't done so yet, use Macrium to create its "Rescue" media before continuing. Once that's done, you can proceed.

First, delete partition F (Disk 1 partition 3). Then clone partition D only (Disk 0 partition 3) to Disk 1 partition 1 ("101 MB Unallocated"). These steps can be done from Macrium within Windows if you prefer. I'll assume the OS partition got properly cloned, so it shouldn't need to be recloned.

You should now have two partitions on Disk 1: a "System Reserved" followed by the 400 GB Windows partition, plus some leftover unallocated space.

Now shut down and physically remove the old HDD and move the new HDD into its place. You can also leave the two HDDs in place and just move the old HDD's cables to the new HDD, leaving the old HDD unconnected.

Finally, boot from the Macrium Rescue media, and follow Steps 11-15 in my tutorial here. (That page was made for a different project, but we can pick it up from Step 11.)

(FYI, the "Fix Windows Boot Problems" option is not available from the Windows-based Macrium, so that's why you need to boot from the Macrium Rescue media instead.)

With only one HDD connected, Macrium should find only one Windows installation in Step 12. In Step 13, you should see both the System Reserved and Windows partitions. Select the System Reserved partition. Keep all defaults in Step 14, and finish. Remove the Rescue media and reboot from the hard drive.

(FWIW, Steps 13-14 take care of setting the correct partition active, so you shouldn't need to do that separately.)

 

[SIW2]

All the steps DG lists wouldn't be needed if the clone had been done properly.

Is F partition marked active? It should be. Switch the active flag from E to F.

If you still have issues after that, then something else is also messed up, and you would be advised to try a different cloning tool and clone again.

 

[Snick]

SIW2

Educational questions:

What is the purpose of changing the active partition to system reserved in OP's screen shot, E -> F as you stated?

Would imaging the larger drive then restoring to smaller drive, provided the image will fit on smaller drive, with the same computer work? I did that successfully with 1TB HDD to 250GB SSD with AOMEI.

If you don't believe so, in your opinion, why?

Snick

 

[dg1261]

All the steps DG lists wouldn't be needed if the clone had been done properly.

Okay, I guess I was being presumptuous thinking the OP might want to fix the messed up partition layout while he was at it -- especially since the whole job would take less than 5 minutes. Pardon me.

So he should start over and do the cloning "properly" (whatever that means), even though it will almost certainly take much longer, and definitely will NOT fix the messed up partition layout.

To each his own, I guess.

 

[SIW2]

SIW2

Educational questions:

What is the purpose of changing the active partition to system reserved in OP's screen shot, E -> F as you stated?

Snick

That is where bootmgr should be judging from the source disk. There could be other issues...
From the first post:

it always freezes between 75-90%

It sounds like it isn't just the wrong partition marked active, but it could be other stuff wasn't copied correctly.

Hence:

Switch the active flag from E to F.

If you still have issues after that, then something else is also messed up, and you would be advised to try a different cloning tool and clone again.

Would imaging the larger drive then restoring to smaller drive, provided the image will fit on smaller drive, with the same computer work? I did that successfully with 1TB HDD to 250GB SSD with AOMEI.

That is another way of doing it in more steps.

 

[Ukdodger]

Thanks for all the replies. I dont know as much about this as you blokes do so I'm going to take my time working through what you've all said then I'll come back with any questions. Thanks again.

 

[Ukdodger]

Thanks D, Snick & SIW2. I'm not quite sure of what I did but it worked after working through your suggestions. It might have been marking the partition active and using AOMEI Backupper Standard I dunno. But it works and saved me buying another 1TB SSD. Cheers guys mucho gracias!

 

[Mr Coghead]

Hello there,
i didn't think it was possble to clone a Partition to a smaller or larger one as the geometry will be different,
i thought it had to be the same size & THEN shrink or expand the partition.
maybe my infomation is out of date.

 

[Ukdodger]

Hello there,
i didn't think it was possble to clone a Partition to a smaller or larger one as the geometry will be different,
i thought it had to be the same size & THEN shrink or expand the partition.
maybe my infomation is out of date.

That's what I thought but this thread shows otherwise. I cant be certain but this might have done the trick. Try it

AOMEI Backupper Standard

 

[SIW2]