Solved HDD cloning time

[tinmar49]

I have a new ssd to put my W7 on. The ssd is 240gb and the hdd is 250gb. I was hoping to clone Windows and everything else on the hdd (less than 100gb) using one of the free disk management programs. I started one and the estimated time got longer and longer until I aborted the clone. My power management is set to shut down after 5 hours at the moment so I thought it would be a waste of time continuing. How long does it normally take with a low end system?

 

[pbcopter]

Using Acronis True Image 2014, it takes me less than 30 minutes with my system.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I have a new ssd to put my W7 on. The ssd is 240gb and the hdd is 250gb. I was hoping to clone Windows and everything else on the hdd (less than 100gb) using one of the free disk management programs. I started one and the estimated time got longer and longer until I aborted the clone. My power management is set to shut down after 5 hours at the moment so I thought it would be a waste of time continuing. How long does it normally take with a low end system?

You could always transfer by image rather than by clone.

Might take 15 minutes to make the image and a half hour to restore it to the SSD.

Guessing maybe twice that long if you have a low end system.

What program did you use?

 

[whs]

1. Use free Macrium- that has never failed yet

2. Make an image of all the partitions - cloning is iffy and does not work half of the time

3. You have to image to another internal or external disk (not the SSD). Depending on the speed of the disks that can take a full hour. But the good news is that you can continue working on the PC whilst Macrium writes the image.

4. The restore will equally take abot 1 hour. For that you need to boot with the Macrium WinPE CD. Rather than producing it yourself (which may take 2 hours) download the .iso from my OneDrive and burn it to CD. That takes only a few minutes and is the latest version.

5. Then boot the PC with the CD you produced from the .iso and follow the instructions in this tutorial.

6. Change the BIOS boot order to boot from the SSD and you are all set. Enjoy your new SSD.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

1. Use free Macrium- that has never failed yet

2. Make an image of all the partitions - cloning is iffy and does not work half of the time...

"Curiouser and curiouser," said Jeannie. The only times I've had a clone fail was due to a messed up HDD format (easily fixed by reformatting the messed up HDD) and power delivery issues (a single USB port was unable to provide enough power to consistently run a 7200 rpm 2.5" HDD in an external enclosure (also easily fixed by using a USB cable with two connectors on one end that pulls power from two USB ports). Otherwise, I've had no trouble cloning with Macrium Reflect.

 

[whs]

LF, you must be more skilled than me. I had my share of problems with clones - never had any problems with images though. When I want to clone, I use the Paragon Migration Tool. But I only recommend that to the OPs when things are desperate because it costs money.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

LF, you must be more skilled than me. I had my share of problems with clones - never had any problems with images though. When I want to clone, I use the Paragon Migration Tool. But I only recommend that to the OPs when things are desperate because it costs money.

Me, more skilled than you? :roflmao: Dumb luck on my part would be more accurate. Heck, you've forgotten more about computers than I'll ever know! Ironically, you are the one I learned about Macrium Reflect from.

Even more ironic, I've had nothing but bad luck trying to use Paragon Migration Tool.

 

[whs]

I guess you win a few and you lose a few. And you are right - looking back to my 53 years with computers I really forgot a lot. But that 'old' stuff would not be useful any more these days. Who has word machines these days or even variable word machines or computers where the RAM is a drum.

 

[Layback Bear]

53 years ago in computing they were using rocks to make holes in punch cards.

Wolfgang that is a very long time in computing. I can only imagine all the things you have dealt with in computing all those years.
By the way thank you for hanging in their and sharing your knowledge with us.

 

[whs]

That is very kind Jack. I like to be around the forums. It is fun and keeps my neurons active. Unfortunately it does not do much for my bones, LOL.

 

[spike999]

I use XXCLONE (free). It doesn't care about drive size as long as there's enough room for the data. Makes a bootable copy in less than an hour for around 100GBs. When my system goes south I just swap SATA cables, update from last time I swapped them, and then send new copy to the old, replaced drive. It's pretty much painless.

 

[gregrocker]

Never heard of it. I'd use Macrium as suggested. You can try to clone with it first and then if that becomes a problem, save a backup image instead to recover using the boot disk. It's good to have the disk for rescue anyway.

 

[tinmar49]

I am hoping to use a free program as it is a once only thing. Cloning seems to be a bit iffy as I have just tried Mini Tool Drive Copy, Drive Clone and Macrium Reflect and all have failed. I have turned off all power saving and cool and quiet. WEI is 6.2 7.2 4.6 6.3 5.9 , a slow graphics card should not affect things. SATA3 throughout. At the moment, I am running Easus Todo backup free 7.5, still running after 1 1/2 hours with no end in sight.

 

[whs]

Use imaging. That always works.

 

[AddRAM]

Did you shrink C so it would fit on the SSD ?

Did you try windows native imaging ?

 

[whs]

Brian is right. For cloning, the partition sizes matter. They have to be equal or smaller to the SSD size. For imaging, the partition size does not matter - at least not with Macrium.

 

[tinmar49]

Yes. I shrunk C so that it was just smaller than the ssd. I have let Todo continue, it is 3hours 22 minutes so far and the estimated time to go has slowly increased to 2 hours 26 minutes so far. If this fails, I will try the imaging route.

 

[whs]

Something is strange. It should not take that long - unless you do that on a bicycle.

 

[tinmar49]

Could my windows background, which is set to change every ten seconds be the problem?

 

[ThrashZone]

Clean install is more straight forward and less frustrating