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System disk partition SSHD cannot be reduced or cloned

Emphyrio -  
quentin2121 Posted messages 9063 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   -
Hello everyone,

I have in my PC a 1TB SSHD (apparently 931GB) with Windows 10 installed on a main partition of 930GB. This partition was almost full but I freed up space and there is now only about 210GB of Data on it. I’m trying to move Windows to a brand-new 250GB M.2 NVMe SSD that I added (both drives are GPT). To do this I was thinking of cloning this partition (softwares that clone only the OS files apparently have this option but are pay-only as an option).

I first tried cloning with Macrium Reflect Free, which allows resizing by cloning only the data, but I got an error message 0. Since then I’ve been trying to shrink the partition to under 250GB but in Windows Disk Management it tells me it can only shrink 1.7GB. I tried to do it with Aomei Partition Assistant in boot mode but it failed at 47% with an error saying there are too many fragments or not enough space. The same with IM-Magic Partition Resizer. Windows defragmentation tells me the disk is 0% fragmented and in the defrag event log there is no message about a file that cannot be moved. I did try temporarily disabling paging, as well as hibernation (powercfg /h off in admin), recovery has been off for a long time, but after reboot Disk Management still shows only 1.7GB available for volume shrinkage (I didn’t retry the Aomei resizer since it takes quite a while before it crashes and given what Disk Management shows I expected the same result). I also checked the sectors with AVG TuneUp and apparently there are no bad sectors.

Any idea about the possible cause and/or potential solution?
Thanks in advance!!

3 answers

  1.
    quentin2121 Posted messages 9063 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   Ambassadeur 1 312
     

    Hello,

    With "Macrium Reflect," we can clone only the C: system and restore it to your new NVMe SSD! Is it properly installed on a SATA PCIe port?

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  2. madmyke Posted messages 52304 Registration date   Status Moderator Last intervention   12 485
     

    Hello

    Not sure about the claim but it could be that to perform the operation, 210 theoretical (often a bit more) out of 240, there is too little free space in total. Do not forget that 250 GB is unformatted size and to install or even clone you need formatting. Except that a 250 formatted drive has about 230 GB of usable free space.

    That could explain the slowdown. The ideal would therefore be to start over with a clean install, thus with a minimum on it, then perform the additional installations on the other drive.

    Because even if the clone passes, it is almost already saturated before starting again.

    best regards

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  3. Emphyrio
     

    @Quentin: Thanks! But I didn't see a way to clone only the OS on Macrium; I only saw that option in paid versions of Acronis and Aoemi backupper? Macrium has an OS backup option (I don't know if it would work to create an OS backup and then restore it to the SSD?) but it seems to create an image of the entire partition containing the OS (I'll manage in the future to keep the OS in a separate partition :P).
    The SSD is indeed on the NVMe port of my motherboard (Asus Prime BM-250K) and is functional, I can copy apps onto it without issues (I already copied Path of Exile onto it to test, then removed before cloning).

    @madmyke: Thanks for that lead! I currently don't have an external storage option and I can't delete anything from the remaining 208 GB (I was planning to clean the SSD after cloning to keep only what I want on the SSD). I'll try to get a USB storage key if that's the only solution (I saw 500 GB available for only €10 now) but I would also like to understand why I can't shrink the main partition, despite its 720 GB free, to create other partitions on this SSHD drive.
    If I could create an additional partition I could put a lot of stuff I don't want to clone and shrink much more the partition to clone.
    I was advised in another thread to try BleachBit to clean the free space of the partition, I'll try that (since the disk was nearly full and I deleted a lot of files, there may still be traces that hinder volume reduction?).

    Otherwise is it possible to install Windows 10 a second time on the same computer but on the SSD, without deleting the old one first since I have no backup solution, and then modify the boot in the BIOS? (I tried installing it on a USB drive 8 GB but the Windows 10 installer told me it couldn't install Windows on this disk because it's a "GPT disk" - my motherboard handles both UEFI and legacy as well - it’s set to auto for PCIE disks in the BIOS and it would give the same result if I set UEFI instead).

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    1. SATS_fr Posted messages 4849 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   785
       

      Hello.

      Copy from the PONX news server computer forum:

      Good evening everyone

      I’ve shared these keys in various posts that aren’t always easy to find. I’m gathering here the license keys offered by AOMEI for Backupper Pro.

      Current version 7.1.2 to download here (and nowhere else)!
      https://www.deskmodder.de/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/ab-pro-712-deskmodder-de.zip
      The license key is in the zip, plainly:
      AMAB-WQZ4C-JUE7Y-2MPTC

      This key must be installed before May 26, 2023.
      It activates Backupper to Pro for one year after installing the key.
      You can update Backupper with new versions, but after one year, Backupper no longer receives updates.

      This manipulation is perfectly legal. It should help you achieve your ends.

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      1. barnabe0057 Posted messages 14329 Registration date   Status Contributor Last intervention   4 930 > SATS_fr Posted messages 4849 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention  
         

        Too bad the key no longer works.

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      2. SATS_fr Posted messages 4849 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   785 > barnabe0057 Posted messages 14329 Registration date   Status Contributor Last intervention  
         

        I downloaded it on February 6, sorry.

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    2. quentin2121 Posted messages 9063 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   1 312
       

      With Macrium, you can create an image of the system and installed programs on C, you put it on a high-capacity USB key, you must remember to uncheck the D drive or the partition where the documents are, because during the restoration of this image, Macrium starts with D (Documents in File Explorer) and therefore to start Windows, it's ruined! So, you create your system image, you restore it to your new SSD from the USB key, then you turn off the PC, mount the SSD in place of the old one and boot from it!

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