After several failed attempts to clone my old HDD of 1TB to a 250GB SSD, I found your brilliant video. It worked first time! Thank you very much.

This is a great video but like others I had problems booting from the created media no matter what changes I made in the BIOS on my Lenovo all-in-one, which desperately needed an SSD upgrade. The Acronis software made the problem more excruciating because every click is another 20 second wait! Or more! I almost gave up because most cloners aren't really free or won't work for USB media. I stumbled across Diskgenius which is really free for MANY features including hot migration - no boot media at all. They don't even collect your email! The flow is Tools > System Migration > Automatic > Hot Migration. That's it! It captured all the crazy hidden and recovery partitions too. Swapped the drives and rebooted. Who hoo! New computer.

Your video is a great tutorial on cloning from a larger hard drive to a smaller SSD. I had used the Acronis software previously to clone a drive to an SSD of the same size. Cloning from a larger to smaller drive, however, threw me for a loop. Your video answered all my questions. I used the free Acronis software, supplied by Crucial, so it only works where one of the drives is a Crucial drive. Thank you for sharing your expertise on this potentially confusing subject.

Thanks James, great info, followed your video and cloned 500GB HDD to 480GB SSD easily.

Great video. The problem I ran into was that the computer did not "see" the recovery boot stick when I shift+Restarted the system. What I did wrong was that I had connected the hard drive before I restarted, once I disconnected (read ripped out) the SSD Hard drive and restarted the system again the menu saw the boot stick and I continued with your tutorial which worked flawlessly. I tried cloning from Windows, it did clone the hard drive but it errored out when I tried to boot from it, your method works. Thanks again.

thanks a lot Brue Computing. I was so confused to use the manual mode...THANKS ALOT

Thank you!!! This video, along with a couple others, helped me tremendously. I had never done this before and I successfully accomplished installing new ram and ssd!

This video helped a lot to clone HDD to Crucial SSD. Faced issue while selecting source disk i.e “unable to lock the disk. Boot your computer from linux based bootable media, then try again. I had to go through Acronis forums to fix that. Thanks

Brilliant thanks, I'll be doing mine tonight

Installed acronis bootable winre on DVD+R. Placed new ssd drive into laptop, connected old hhd with USB cable. Reboot computer press escape wait a few minutes and follow the steps. finally worked for me.

Hello James! Thanks for wonderful explanation, Question:please tell is this possible to make a clone from CompactFlash to USB/CompactFlash with Acronis True Image, It simply from manual option(clone disk) or option menu is best option. Thanks for your response!

Can u do a tutorial on how to just clone the windows os using this software

Very nice tutorial. I have a question for you. What must I do after I press OK in the minute 9:39 of your video. How I going to the desktop of my laptop if I'm still in that window of Acronic. That was the only part of the videi I did't understand.

Hi, great video, thanks! Question: It is required to create and boot from the Acronis USB media? Why not just run Acronis in Windows, clone, power off, and switch the hard drives physically?

To anyone having issues with cloning to crucial 2.5... get macrium instead. I just spent 7 hours trying to get this program (developed for crucial?) to clone the hdd in my older desktop. Non stop error spamming. Recovery media wouldn't launch from cd or usb, drive would not boot. One hour after getting macrium, drive up and running without issue.

Thanks. This is really helpful.

I recognise that voice! At least I know this info will be reliable.

My current drive 4TB is about to die, and I have to make a complete disk clone that includes the OS and all the software such as Office 2019 Pro Plus, Adobe Photoshop, etc. Are there any extra steps for my case or just doing the typical steps from Acronis True Image Disk Cloning process? Also, can I do the disk clone that includes the system and all software from the USB port for the new drive instead of the SATA port? After the completion of the disk clone, do all I need is to swap my new drive clone disk with the current almost dying drive?

Thank you! Very useful video.

Great Video thank you! Forwarding to a client :)

you save my day man..thanks man💪✌️

Hi, the couple of commentators haven't mentioned the USB boot stick you mention. If copying a C:\ 500gb SSD drive with Windows on it, to a 1tb SSD drive held externally in a USB 3.0 SSD holder, can this be done through Acronis clone without the USB stick please? If not, please let me know why? Thanks for detailed commentary, regards, JB

Thanks a lot , very useful

Helped me tons thanks

does the USB need to format before installing the media builder?

IMPORTANT NOTE for those with older PCs/Laptops. This method is useless if your PC/Laptop does NOT have a UEFI based BIOS. You do not get the option to boot from your Flash drive when using the "Shift" key whilst selecting "Restart", and even if you boot using the flash drive (by entering BIOS and making the appropriate changes), you get an error that "Bootmgr" is missing.

Hi! Any suggestions for why it works until right at the very end where I’m getting “cloned disk operation failed?” I’ve tried running it numerous times and everything is fine until this point. Any pointers would be greatly appreciated!

I have had excellent experiences with Macrium Reflect (both in windows 10 as in Windows Vista - yes, Vista).

Nice Tutorial. I'm planning to replace my old SSD with a larger capacity SSD, does acronis work in any brand SSD?

OMG I had so many issues trying to do this. My laptop did not have the Boot menu because because it has some protections on the BIOS and then, when I finally figure out how to enable Legacy so I could boot from the USB, my drive was encrypted with Bitlocker...I'm disabling to see if I can finally upgrade my drive.

Hi James. I can't choose the destination disk. It seems grey. I have done the same thing with 4 other computers with same model. What can be the problem?

Nice tutorial. Thank you! I was wondering if I could change boot option in BIOS so as to boot from cloned disk while it is still in the SABRENT USB/HDD enclosure. I thought I heard on the Acronis video that it is not safe to boot with two bootable disks attached because one may become unbootable.... I haven't yet cloned any disk but I want to practice with an equal sized HDD drive before I decide whether or not to buy a SSD drive to clone to and install in my old laptop. SO far I have added 4GB RAM to the laptop but am not noticing an immense speed or performance change. Hoping that after a good disk optimization procedure and a new SSD drive it will work much better than it does now. Thanks again for a good lesson and demonstration...

Thanks for video, my system has only 1 SSD and a single partition which has windows installed on it and I want to upgrade it to large SSD, In order to do that I have take existing SSD out and put the new one in motherboard, how do I accomplish cloning the existing one to new one. So in simple words how to make a clone of SSD which has windows in it for same system.

If I want to add an SSD to my laptop and put only Windows on there to use my HDD for everything else, what partition would I have to clone?

Awesome. thank you!

Hello James: I will be cloning an HDD to a smaller SDD on my laptop. I notice that acronis recommends I install the SSD internally first. If I do otherwise and clone it externally, the SSD once the clone is completed, will not be a bootable drive. This has me confused. Can you enlighten me?

Thanks for your useful video, after doing these steps can I have an option to choose to boot either from the external drive or the internal one?

pretty complicated software to use, but thanks for the vid.

I have my main hd is 2 tr with 2 partitions 100 gb for windows and the rest to store data, on my new ssd I made also 2 partitions 130 gb and 860 gb, I was doing this procedure because I only want to clone operating system but the flash drive did not boot, instead it corrupt my main windows, what could happen

Why do you set the space before than after? Is it not better after?

Hi I tried to do this putting my ssd hard drive on sata then I made the bootable flash drive then shift restart and it says os damaged, after 2 reboot it got fixed, so this bootable program damaged my windows and I coul not reach the acronis menu, what could happen

I'm using Lexar SSD and usb media builder always ask linux base during destinatiin disk, should use linux media to clone my win 10?

If this works, I’ll be the happiest man alive.

Thank you!

Tks very helpful

I have a lenovo v530s desktop and i mount a WD SN750 black nvme ssd on motherboard m.2 ssd slot. Now how i transfer my windows10 OS on nvme ssd using this software i.e boot directly from my nvme SSD and my HDD only store media files i am trying alot but system always pick SATA HDD as boot manager. Please help me sir.

Can I make a live usb drive and then use it to clone other computers?

Hi I have a question Acronis True Image when I tried to back up my files I get a message ' File Paths over 260 Characters ' using Acronis backup will this be able to handle that problem I tried fixing in the windows directory but not working.

What i dont understand is i have used true images for years yet some let you clone from a 1tb for example to a 120gb ssd (as long as under 120gb has been used) but some are just a pain in the arse and just wont clone to a smaller drive? it seems hit or miss when it happens. Always when i am in a hurry ! any ideas on this?

Hey man, when I restart my pc while holding shift, it does not give me the option to use a device. Any way I could fix that?

when i install the windows on my new pc i could see the ssd but i could not select it so i installed windows on a 2tb hdd. how can i fix that and install windows on my ssd?

I've tried this, but after selecting the source drive, Acronis tells me to boot from a linux-based bootable media... Is the procedure similar then?

Thanks James - managed to reboot but have a warning at copying stage that says "operating systems will not boot from the destination disk in BIOS" Can i boot up from the USB stick again and then work in the BIOS to make the new drive the boot drive? Cheers!

The use a device isn't showing up for me?

How do you select individual partitions in manual mode?

The source volume is still grayed out. Any suggestions?

I am trying to clone from larger 500GB HDD to a 240GB SSD, both are western digital product. I try using Acronis True Imager from western digital , but not success. Please help.

My Laptop : Lenovo ideapad 130 15lkb hi, I bought ssd(Crucial MX500) and installed it directly into the laptop before cloning it. i used the usb to boot & everything is fine. But i want to clone the ssd from my older hdd. Can i clone by connecting the hdd to usb and leaving the ssd inside the laptop as it is. Please help me i am stuck. My elaborate explaination is . All my older files (software applications are in my old hdd drive) i bought a new ssd (didnot clone it) and installed it directly into the laptop. I used the usb to bootup into windows. Now i want to hava ll my older software back as it is. I have my older hdd . Can i clone by connecting the older hdd to usb and my ssd being in the laptop itself? Please help

The manual choice is a little bit confusing, specially when you are shrinking the partitions, but I will try.👍

at 2:41 How did you launch Acronis True Image after booting the system

Completed Lenovo from 1Tb to Crucial BX500 but now can't do it for Inspiron 15 3542. Windows 10 single Language. I made the boot usb - connected to it with shift/restart and the Dell shows some code and then sits with revolving dots and windows logo. I worked in the BIOS - set to UEFI and also disabled "Secure Boot Control" Any other suggestions would be gratefully accepted!

Hi, Thank you for the incredibly helpful video. However after following your steps and attempting to boot from my cloned SSD, windows displays an error saying that the boot drive is inaccessible. Any help would be greatly appreciated. More information: I currently run windows on a seagate 1Tb hard drive and am cloning it onto a 500 gb Crucial m.2 NVME drive (and there is more than enough space).

Used macrium reflect free edition and it worked first time

It was very helpful,. Thanks brother

Hi. Can I use the software to clone from my computer directly to an SDD, instead of saving to a thumbdrive tben transferring to an SDD?

I just chose manual and proportional and it worked that way

Hi, Thanks for your video. Please help me with a tutorial on how to physically install a ssd into a 14' Asus vivobook laptop. Thank you.

Is there a way to boot without removing the source drive? I dont feel like opening my laptop again :c

After all done, finish cloning , my new hdd cannot boot as a system, why it happen?

After you cloned the drive, you didn't say if you restarted or shutdown your computer and removed the drive, OR continued on the desktop. Can you please make this clearer on your path please?

any difference between clone and restore? can i restore to NEW SSD with backup image?

It says remove the old drive when rebooting. I would like to use it as storage, with all the things still on it. Can I leave the drive in as it is?

Hello, Just bought pcie nvme (250gb) to upgrade my lenovo laptop and I am getting an error when cloning. The error says : "Cannot complete cloning. The selected partition(s) on the source drive cannot be resized to fit a smaller drive because the source drive uses an unsupported or broken file system". Can you help me? Thank you in advance.

I keep getting unable to lock the disk boot your computer from a Linux based bookable media then try again.

hello james, i have one TB Hard Drive in my desktop system but not fully occupied, i want to make it clone in 500 GB SSD is it possible.

Hello sir, recently i buy a 500gb ssd. My old 120gb ssd mbr partition type. I want to clone it to new 500gb ssd and make 2 more partition to new ssd but after cloning windows doent allow me to partition my new ssd. What is the problem.

I cant choose the serial-ata. it is there but i cant click on it.

Cloning does not working for me. The first steps takes hours and hours I had to end the process and tried it again. Unfortunately same result.

I have a message "windows failed to start...recent hardware... change may be the cause" "The boot configuration data is missing or contains errors" any help will gratefully be accepted!

Hello good day.. i have a question. i have an HP EliteDesk mini computer, & i want to clone the SSD drive that is in it to a bigger completely unused (full memory) NVme M.2 SSD. i Have an older version of Acronis True Image (2017), & i want to know would that handle the job, or should i update it to 2020. Also at the end of this video where you explained the resizing situation. My NEW NVme M.2 SSD is 1TB & i want to use ALL of the memory on the computer (the older SSD was only 256 GB or something in that range). if i choose "Proportional" in the Clone Disk Wizard, will it give me all the usable memory space in the 1TB NVme drive, or do i need to do something extra?

Will it work in Linux too?

very huge time take kindly tell me which time take to complete task this process

Does this work on desktop?

Can someone help me? When I choose source disk, message pop up shows that it cannot locked my c drive. I don't know what to do

Free version don’t support SSD cloning anymore. I tried and it showed me to purchase full options.

👍👍👍👍 thanks

well it doesn't work for me .. Acronis says the disk is lock and to use Linux... their software is getting progressively worse... I was a long time user of the earlier versions.. but it takes a ridiculously long time to make backups which are bigger than the source data !!! whats up with that!

Pls help can't clone my 1tb hdd to a 256gb ssd because I dont license to thats apps, pls help me 😭

Why not just use clone disk from the tools menu?

Hmmm I think Macrium Reflect seems to be more user friendly, especially the partition adjusting screen.

dari hadrisk ke image file bisa bang?

ok so why wasn't the clone option that was right next to the rescue section used? This is what I hate about vids like this , they don't explain why they did what they did.

Cloning from Hard Drive to a smaller SSD with Acronis True Image

After 3 complete days of banging my head to get my new NVME crucial 500GB P2 SSD work on my Asus ROH FX laptop... This method worked for me.... I first tried to clone directly from my 1TB HDD to 500GB SSD using Acronis... After 3 attempts it was successful, but after changing boot order to SSD... Faced Black screen error in my Windows 10... Then tried your way of making use of rescue media, with simple option... But face "Lock error with drive.. use Linux PE".... Tried Linux PE rescue media type ... It still didn't work as Linux PE was not able to find my M2 NVMe SSD... Hence had to again go with Simple PE rescue... And faced "Lock drive"... Shut down the system pressing Shift key at the same time.... again faced "Unable to Lock error"...At that moment I clicked "ok" in that error, went to selecting "source disk" again and again... And in third try it finally locked... And finally the job was completed... Finally a relief !! Many thanks @Brue Computing

*Why is it that when I am cloning a 200 GB to a 1TB, the one TB shrinks to 200GB ??*

Boot from other devices is not showing.

do we really need to remove HDD after cloning to boot from SDD? if we dont remove it i will not be able to boot from SDD ha?

Very difficult to operate it

Acronis waited to tell me until ths last second when you click "proceed" that I have the trial version and will need to start over and pay them $30.

Can I do this using a Dock?