I'm aware that the program in this video got paywalled. Sorry about that. I'm working on a new video right as another free way to do this. I'll post the link here when it's released. Should be a few weeks. Edit: here's the new video. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/ib9gaJWcmsizdHU.html

It may be surprising to hear that old PCs are left to recycle (Ewaste) with the hard drives still in them which means their personal data is available for anyone to access. Never leave your personal data available

Nice explanation of both methods. I have used both and others many times over the decades.

Excellent video and a must-see! Thanks for sharing

Thanks for the educative content. I always enjoy and learn from each video uploaded.

The SSD-Alignment has something to do with internal storage. SSD use a page size of 4 / 8 KiB. If you copy from an HDD, that uses a "incompatible" LBS (Logical Block Size), it can happen, that data has to use 2 pages of the SSD instead of just one. This can reduce write performance of small data. (Just a quick overview why you should use the Alignment option when copying from HDD to SSD)

This is exactly how I clone drives, works well. The only problem with cloning is you clone all of the issues with Windows with it. Most people just have Chrome, Office, Adobe Reader, and their data. In this case a reload of Windows is cleaner and faster. Cloning might be good for complex systems with a 100 apps on it but would challenge that a reload would generally be faster

I love your videos and I work in the IT industry and your content has been very helpful. I definitely appreciate your honesty to your viewers... Like you said, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.

Good Video. I generally use an older free version of Mini Tool Partition wizard.9.0 or 10.0 before they took away the closing wizard from the free version. I also use the partiton wizard in Mini Tool as easier to do the partition mods in a windows environment. For disk cloning if neither the source or the target is your current windows drive it will do the clone in windows. If the source is the windows version your are currently booted on the software will bring up a box to reboot into a pre windows environment to do the clone. Have been using this combination for years. Mini Tool partion wizard free version 9.0 seems to work the best for me.

I use Macrium Reflect as it lets you manage partition sizes as you do the clone, so no need for a second program. It also properly handles MBR and GPT partition types when you are cloning on a separate system, unlike some programs like Acronis.

If you keep have to switch between operating systems [win 10 and win 11 in this case] a hot-swap internal disk caddy would be the way to go. One or two bays. That way, you don't need to mess around with BIOS setting for the new system disk, just put the system drive you want in the first [or only] slot and remove and put the other disk aside. BIOS will just look for a system drive, it does not car which one, so long as it has some sort of boot partition, it will boot. You might have to sign in-'register" a Linux or other OS [BSD, etc] drive, but once you have done that, it is all good. This is particularly true of a Ventoy or Rufus portable USB stick/drive. But some BIOSes are fussier than others. Rufus is greater, but Ventoy, is a bit more intelligent, and automatically adds isos to its boot menu, and you can have more than one iso on the stick. For the paranoid, you can burn an OS onto an SD memory card [preferably the fastest you can afford, and with enough space for the OS/install image], because most of these have a little hard [physical] switch which you can set to read/write or 'read only". The obvious advantage here is that no malware can infect the SD disk if it is set to "read only", so you can use "Hiren's boot CD" [or similar] and run an anti-virus program from it to clean a badly infected host system. Of course, you have to do regular updates on the portable OS, particularly for the anti-virus or anti-malware tools, but you do that with a known clean system. USB sticks used to have hard switches on them, but I have not seen any lately. I don't usually waste my time trying to solve malware problems on an infected system, but will run my tools in a change-rooted environment by booting from my CD card.

I've used the Sabrent for M.2 NVMe and it's excellent. For 2.5" SATA I've used Vantec NexStar enclosures. They're well made and come in a variety of models with different interface options for connection to a PC. I've used their bigger brothers for 3.5" desktop drives. Great for housing the drive just replaced for external data storage/transport reuse. The bandwidth of an external 1TB drive walking down a hallway is huge.

Works a treat, thanks 👍🏼

Thank You for this video. I was able to move my 256gb (or thereabouts) hdd to 2TB SSD last night. First option worked, did not need the Clonezilla option. System is very fast boot up now.

You can still use the USB to SSD adapter for spin disks with a powered USB hub. That way both drives can be connected to the hub if one of the drives is not the system drive that is being cloned, or the system drive is being cloned using another computer.

AOMEI, using it for serveral years, great tool!

Aomei Backupper is a fantastic tool. I'have used it for over 10 years. I havn't used the clone funktion, but the backup and recovery function. I have my disc partitioned in 3 partitions. Windows my files and recovery. I make backup files to recovery partition. My c drive is not so big so the image will not be big. I can recover my system that way. But there i a funktion in the program so that you can put the image to another lokation. That could be a new SSD drive. In the box you can set the image that goes to the SSD to be used to the SSD. So I think that the allignment that can be chooed is to set the settings correct so that the drive not will be defracted. You can go from a disk that is a HDD to a SSD and there defrag should not work.

Hey great video, i try to clone my ssd to a new one but when i tried to follow the steps in hbcd no source disk was available to be selected. Thank you for any advice on what you think the problem may be

Nyc Information Sir G

I subscribes because of the good information, the clear presentation and the beard, mostly for the beard.

Adapters will work for sata and nvme ones. Never had them work for 3.5 HDD but 2.5 HDD are not common (only have 1 external in that form factor). Not sure if I should clone or fresh install across systems.

I also use (Macrium Reflect) for backup/restore/cloning and it just works from Windows 10/11

I been using G4L since the early days. Works fine with ssd.

Do you do any consultations? I setup my PC back in 2017 (approx). I'm at the point now where I need to make upgrades and I'd like to do them myself - I've just forgotten most of what I studied for the build.

New to this and going to be installing a larger ssd in my laptop but I have a question. Will removing the old ssd corrupt or erase it as it did when I upgraded my ps4 hard drive?

thanks can we do this without any additional software?

You can also get something like a Wavlink Dual Bay Docking Station that lets you clone in a standalone device. It is not super fast but you just plug in your SSD drives and press a button.

Aoemi is a great backup tool. I purchased a license so I can have it do automated backups of my system and have used it to restore my laptop more than once (because I tend to swap OSs from Windows to Linux and back again semi-regularly. My only problem is that when I restored my desktop from a smaller to larger drive, and resized the main partition, I ended up with the windows recovery partition showing as an active drive instead of hidden. I have a fix in the wings, but haven't tried it yet. I'm a little nervous about messing with it.

Having a problem with preping a flash drive for use with my Dell 5759 to restore a cloned copy of my Win10 OS. Seems that the newer (Win10) version of Hirens does not produce a bootable flash drive using Rufus, but the older version of Hirens does boot, though the product warns that it's not ACPI compatible. Any thoughts? Thanks

love the shirt😂

I used the AOMIE back upper and disk clone mode yesterday. Upgrading an Intel nuc from a 500 gb SATA drive to a 2tb nvme drive. Spent 4 hours or so when it finished I changed boot to the nvme drive and disconnected the SATA drive and got a blue boot error screen. Do I need to pay for the OS clone option to achieve what I am doing here? Also if I do pay does that stay activated on the Hiren bootable USB?

Nice video, thanks very much. I have a work laptop running Windows 10 enterprise with a very small SSD that I would love to replace. However the pre-built system has bitlocker enabled and I can't get the bitlocker key, would this procedure work under this condition?

6:43 Good idea! Go ahead and skip ahead. 🤔 I'm gunna wanna go head and do that myself. 🙂

hello again,i forget something,can you take the disc out of a deffective hard drive and replace it in a new one of the same brand,,,,mine are from 2009 to 2018,which are different brands,i have to check them.I have them ina storage box,thanks,dan,,

I like easeus disk copy for my cloning. It simply boots off a usb. Just select the 2 disks and hit go.

I love your desk. Did you make it or is it available for purchase?

Could you do a basic ckmputer video like what is a partition, disk, drive.. ect. I am trying to save my dads computer and feel a bit overwhelmed by terminology and options of recovery

hello cyber,I really like you video ,great info,,I have a tech question I cant seem to get a answer on,,my original hard drive, from my compact pressairo from 2008 stopped working the 2nd one i bought developed the same problem,,it spins very fast and the middle of the circuit board gets very warm to hot,the 3rd one i bought works for ,say 1m,i can see my files ,photos,songs,then it stopes,is the problem the circuit board or inside the arm could be stuck or the metal contacts on the arm broken or chipped off,i dont hear any broken parts when I shake it,anyway any help on this would be great,thanks,dan diorio,,,

Did my boys pc last week,used Macrium Reflect upgraded his 512 m.2to 1 gig.very easy to do

My hard drive running Windows 10 is failing and needs cloned. I created the Hiren's disk, all set on that. If I am cloning from a 3.5" non ssd to another 3.5" non ssd hd that has never been formatted, do I need to complete any steps before cloning?

Can you make a video on task manger being randomly freezes I'm frustrated with the problem

As it seems like you’re replying to comments, I need some tech support. I have Windows 10 on my C:/ drive which is 100gb SSD. Then, I have apps and games on my 1tb D:/ drive which is HDD. Basically, I want to speed up apps and games by using the new 2tb SSD i got and replacing the 1tb hdd D:/ drive. But I don’t want to lose my file paths or re install anything. What should I do?

I've used Acronis true image for the last 13 years to clone drives. I always give my customers their hard drives and they ask what to do with it. I tell em to go target practice with it or take a hammer to it.

hello sir, nice video.. Will this operation work if the source disk is a classic ssd hdd and the target disk is an nvme ssd?

I'd probably make an image file of both the Win10 and Win11 SSD's and keep them on one drive, once written, they clone faster and you don't have to worry about resizing partitions afterwards.

Thanks for the advice. But I have a warning about usb m.2 adapters, I saw that some do not have enough power to drive an M.2 ssd disk via USB. I would like to know if there are ssd 2.5 cases for inserting an M.2 ssd. I have bought an external device for two disks, which includes the cloning function even without a computer. And I would like to know how to clone an M.2 to an M.2 disk if we don't have enough connectors on the motherboard and what adapter options exist.

Is easeus clone option not good? just installed it and saw that there is also a clone option there.

my boot drive (c) is only a 250gb m2 drive with no room! And i also have a 1TB m2 drive with tons of room! I have a 1TB m2 coming in today, which i like to replace my 250GB m2 drive. My question can i clone the current 250GB m2 drive to the other 1TB m2 on board and once that is done than replace the 250GB m2 with the new 1TBm2 and then clone internaly from one M2 to the other M2?? That with buying that M2 usb tool ???

How much would you charge me to clone windows xp from a gateway solo 2000 laptop to new ssd?

CyberCpu, I have heard that if you clone a drive and put it in another computer the Windows OS will show not activated(yes/no?). But how is that any different than cloning your drive, then upgrading your motherboard/processor or your motherboard craps out and you need to replace it. Does than mean you have to pay for a new license for windows?, that can't be correct.

hi is it possible to it opposite? take an externaldrive and clone it into the boot system take external drive lets say D: and clone it over the boot drive C:?

Is this possible on machines that have a oem key how does that work im on win7

Can clone UEFI bootup harddisk please? Becasue I still use Symantec Ghost to clone harddisk.

My new Samsung SSD and the software won’t work with my older Dell laptop any suggestions

does this transfer everything? like steam games with their save data and I won't have to install again?

I just downloaded the latest Hiram's and booted it to my Acer 515-57 500 Gb NVME. AOMEI does not recognize NVME disks and Hiram's does not recognize wireless mice. Wired mice are ok, though. Had to use Lazesoft clone which appears to have worked ok.

Hi great! Can you do a video cloning a Mac hard drive! Please

Serious question is it possible to just take out both of my SSD drives and then reinstall windows via an external USB and then put the SSD back into my computer

In your casae and since you're using 2.5" drives, Why don't you get a drive drawer for your test rig ? This way you can boot from any 2.5" OS drive you want and won't need to clone in order to change OS.

About using Rufus, in your other video (Ultimate Recovery Environment for Windows PCs at 8.00), you recommend using MBR instead of GPT. In this video at 12:00, you recommend to use GPT instead of MBR. Which is better?

Can't you just have those 2 ssd's plugged in using a drive toaster and boot off of them? Rufus can create a "windows to go" installation option. perfect for your needs also, why not just use Macrium reflect? Has automatic resizing, backup, restore, imaging, validation and boot repair builtin

if you don't select Q1, why copy will it do?

So to install a M2 SSD I want to use a USB adapter, clone my system to it, then install it to the provided slot to boot off of it?

hi need little help here, i want to recover back my hard drive which seems cant be detected on my computer after cloning device ssd. can you help me up ?

what about option "-rvd" in the list?

Best shirt ever

Do I need to clone the new ssd?

Will this affect my Minecraft hardcore world

Minitool partition wizard clones discs very easily for free. You just need a connector for the 2nd drive uo usb.

my experience with 3rd party hard drive cloning has always been hit or miss, more hit than miss. Linux dd commands have always had 100% success rates so far :)

but in my lenovo laptop,.. whatever i try to do to improove,... the laptop denies due to company software,...

Can you run clonezilla with ventoy, Or it can only be run by rufus?

I lost ALL my data on my Windows 10 "upgraded" from Win7, no recover, corrupted boot and non-bootable BRICK after doing a clone. I tried your MBR recovery method and it did nothing...I still have a brick.

Why not have separate drives in the computer you don’t have to use nvme drives especially for video demonstrations and just use the boot manager to pick between a windows 10 install and a windows 11 one or you could do separate partitions on the 1 drive

My Dude, that shirt. My wife and I are dying.....

I had to assist my father in cloning his computers HD to an SSD, and while everything worked without a hitch, we were a bit mortified to learn the DAW he uses for music production did NOT like that the HD was upgraded and de-registered his license, forcing him to use a second PC usage slot (without releasing the first one). So lesson learned: Microsoft is quite ok with this, and allows this to happen seamlessly, so do games, Adobe products et all. But music software? That's a whole different ball park. Apparently a few track the boot drive as a means of identifying "your" computer.

What about a drive that uses bitlocker?

I need help!! I'm not able to get access to my computer because the monitor is solid blue and i can't see anything, and the computer pops up with this message: c"\windows\system32\MMDevapi.dill is either not designed to run on Windows or it contains an error. Try installing the program again using the original installation. The problem is I can't type anything to see any programs etc. Can anyone help???

This is a dumb question, but how do i boot into hirens boot cd? 3:29

Hi. My name is Rita, Im from Denmark. I have a extern harddisk that stop`d work 😭 What can I do. Hope you can help. I have a new to replase the opld, but I hope my photos and data can be saved. Big hugs Rita.❤

this tutorial is missing so many important steps

Thanks for fixing the title. Shows that you're paying attention to the comments.

Nice . (just a recommendation ventoy instead of rufus and rescuezilla instead of clonezilla)

What if the destination disk is larger.. will it still wrk. I tried but comes up can’t clone because logical sectors don’t match.

The usb adapters will power a laptop 2.5 inch hdd spinning disk

I wasted days trying to clone a win11 drive in any usable way, I finally went to the new drive's site and used their free migration software, it took no time at all and everything worked perfectly first try. didn't feel great.😕

Question when I clone the hard drive will it also copy the operating system and all it's settings

is all the software in this video free?

The program is not for free, just tried it although it was a good explanation, sadly it is quite expensive so I can’t do it that way.

Kinda off topic but I have a question for you or anyone here. My mother has an external hard drive that she saved 10 years worth of data onto, from cooking recipes, documents, family photos, family tree research etc, and one day her pc stop recognizing it. After having tried many troubleshooting tips and even using something called, Disk Drill, (after a two day scan came back with, bad sectors results) it seems the drive might be toast. Any tips to recover the data on her external hard drive or is it just a bummer we need to accept.

Will this work on a main drive, with your OS and everything, or is this just for drives storing data? I have a Windows 7 computer that only has one 1tb drive in it, and it's an old spinny boy that's dying. I just want to plonk it over exactly as is onto a new 1tb spinny boy.

I stopped cloning drives. Backfired on me too many times. I have a 500gb USB SSD and a 3TB USB spinner and what I do is image the source drive to one of these with either Macrium Reflect or AOMEI Backupper. From there, I boot the Macrium/AOMEI Recovery ISO from a flash drive and restore the image to the destination drive. Takes a bit longer but I usually don't have to resize partitions afterwards. Imaging and restoring an SSD to an SSD takes 4 mins (nvme) or 8 minutes (sata). I try to avoid imaging spinners - I'm not in my 20s anymore! Too old for that shit ... 😆

If you are cloning to a Samsung SSD from any other make of drive they have a free software migration tool, dont forget to order a 3.5" to 2.5" adaptor when you order your USB cloning lead/adaptor.

1. Is it ok to clone a drive containing the OS while the system is running? 2. What about licensed software (windows, adobe and office etc.) is that still going to work with the cloned drive?

It didn’t ask me if I want to copy boot files? Is this going to be a problem?

You can drag and drop in Rufus as well, how I do it

The clone I made following this video is not bootable. I will have to try again using other methods.

Is there any reason you can't use a USB enclosure rather than the adapter?

can you make a update tiny11 builder?

If I'm trying to change my internal 3tb hdd internal g drive to an external 4tb ssd drive by copying that 3tb drive and putting the data on the 4tb will the location stay the same even though the drive won't be in the same location when I start my computer up again and the g drive slot will be empty but still all on that external.... is it different for a data disc not a disc for os