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Thread ID: 124994 2012-05-31 23:45:00 Hard Drive Duplication DeSade (984) Press F1
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1278768 2012-05-31 23:45:00 I will have need soon to copy my entire C:/ from one SSD to another.

Ideally what I want to do is pull out the old one, copy the info to the new one which is then installed into the machine and takes over as C:/ seamlessly with no reinstallations necessary.

Can anyone tell me how I can achieve this?
DeSade (984)
1278769 2012-05-31 23:50:00 You need disk cloning software, Hdd manufacturers generally have it available on their website and very often it's just Acronis with a few features missing.
You just need to connect both drives to the PC somehow, run the cloning software to copy the contents, disconnect the old drive and make sure the BIOS is set to boot from the new one, done.

It's pretty easy and doesn't take long, just don't delete the old drive until you're happy with the new one because occasionally the cloning software does something unexpected.
dugimodo (138)
1278770 2012-06-01 00:55:00 How big is your existing drive and how big is the drive you want to copy onto. I have a SATA cloning station that you just put both drives in, press a button and it does the rest. :) Can take a while depending on size of drives though. Iantech (16386)
1278771 2012-06-01 00:59:00 Old one is about 80GB the new one will be about 250GB, both SSD and both SATA.
Replacing it cause its getting harder and harder to keep the c:/ within the 80GB and I want more headroom for some programmes I want to start fast with the benefit of the SSD.
DeSade (984)
1278772 2012-06-01 02:54:00 Use a cloning program as others suggested. There are many. Just make sure you get something recent enough that it supports your hardware and filesystem. Agent_24 (57)
1278773 2012-06-01 02:56:00 I would not like to mess this up, its probably the single most important aspect of my next build.
Can you please link me to appropriate software?
DeSade (984)
1278774 2012-06-01 03:02:00 It would be hard to mess up.

If the copy didn't work you'd just format and start again.

en.wikipedia.org is a popular one.

I used to use Ghost 2003 - but haven't cloned anything for a long time. IIRC Ghost 2003 screws up Windows 7 installations.
Agent_24 (57)
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