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Disk cloning

franck07580 Posted messages 18 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   -  
jfmimi Posted messages 13642 Registration date   Status Contributor Last intervention   -

Hello

So I have a hard drive that is full and I want to clone it onto another drive with higher capacity

Disk C full 220 GB, disk F new 500GB, and a disk directly connected to the motherboard 220 GB

I used Macrium and ran the function to copy the disk; it succeeded once powered off. I then unplugged disk C and left disk F

In File Explorer I can see my disconnected C disk but visible; my disk F has more than 150 GB free and the one on the motherboard

And when I try to install a game update it says insufficient disk space as if it continued to run with the capacity of disk C on this new disk

Did I miss something? I asked this question to the authors of the two Macrium operation videos but I haven't received any answers

Maybe you can help me? Thank you

6 answers

  1.
    Winux01 Posted messages 285 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   24
     

    Hello,

    Your report is too drafty to understand:

    What exactly are you doing with Macrium? Data copy? Cloning?

    If it is cloning there is nothing to do with the letter of the system partitions, your F: drive becomes C: when we change the system storage.

    (Storage is more appropriate than "disk of" which we practically no longer use, they are SSDs)

    Besides, you need to know how to distinguish storage from its partitions.

    When you say there is more space, it may just be the partition to extend if the cloning has not been executed to account for this.

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  2. franck
     

    Hello, thank you for your reply

    So I’ll try to explain myself better: my SSD drive, the C drive, base, only has 3 GB available, and actually I’ve seen videos where you can clone a drive, like in my case where space is short on one drive and you clone to a bigger one. With Macrium, people explain that you copy the entire hard drive to another one and then you can retrieve all the programs/software on the new drive.

    I wanted to switch to another drive, but when I connect only the second drive, which he named F, I notice that my C drive still appears in the Workstation panel even though it is completely unplugged from the tower.

    With the same amount of storage, that is 3 GB, and my F drive which is actually 500 GB, it tells me that it has more than 150 GB free on it

    Logically, shouldn’t I find the F drive with the 220 GB cloned on it and end up with 200-some GB free? Is cloning really a good method for my case, or would it be better to reinstall Windows 10 completely and then redo all drivers, printers, etc...

    Thank you

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    1. Winux01 Posted messages 285 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   24
       

      And using Disk Management?

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  3. Winux01 Posted messages 285 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   24
     

    <<my SSD disk C>>

    The correct terms to use are "SSD partition C:" or "Local Drive C:" or even "System Storage Partition C:"

    There is no disk in an SSD, we use "disk" out of habit from the old storage format, it's also the operating system that uses old terminology.

    <<with Macrium people explain that you copy the entire hard disk to another one and then you can thus find all software programs on the new disk.>>

    The problem is that you don't understand what a partition is; a system disk under Windows 10/11 uses a GUID partition table with a boot partition, a Windows partition with the letter C:, and then a recovery partition.

    Not everything is in a single block

    If you basically copy the system SSD to a second, larger one, you don't gain size because the partition is the same, unless you have planned to extend the C: partition manually or via Macrium if it offers it.

    You should not also name the second SSD F: because you must use it as Local Drive C: after switching from System Drive.

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    1. franck07580 Posted messages 18 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention  
       

      Can we keep a 220 GB SSD nowadays, considering updates take a phenomenal amount of space, or is it better to switch to 500 GB? What advice would you give me? Personally, I lean towards a 500 GB; I’ve seen them new for about 90 euros. 1 TB drives are expensive in my view, do I really need that much?

      I’m going to download the Windows 10 installation to a USB. I’ve recovered my installation key with a program; logically, can I reinstall it, or should I buy another one? Thanks to you

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      1. Winux01 Posted messages 285 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   24 > franck07580 Posted messages 18 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention  
         

        It depends on the usage and, depending on how we handle its data ourselves, I recommend using TreeSize Free to help locate certain unnecessary data.

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      2. franck > Winux01 Posted messages 285 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention  
         

        re

        huh, computer-sounding terms for me, from what I see the cloning isn’t great; there are partition manipulations to do that the guys on YouTube don’t specify in their videos, which is a shame. On the other hand, quick question: why does the C drive always appear when it is disconnected from the motherboard and only the F drive is connected? I asked a computer shop for the price to sell me a 500GB drive and do a direct clone. I think if I have to do it, it’s going to take me a while, and if I have to reinstall I don’t want to spend the day reinstalling all the drivers. Depending on the price I’ll have it done; otherwise I’ll have to look into the problem.

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      3. Winux01 Posted messages 285 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   24 > franck
         

        They are partitions named by Windows in place, not disks.

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  4. franck07580 Posted messages 18 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention  
     

    hello

    okay for this so not everything is explained correctly in the videos, my solutions are therefore, as I understand it, either I format the new disk by installing Windows and reinstalling all the drivers etc... including my Microsoft account credentials, I don’t quite remember it; it connects automatically

    or I give it to a computer technician who sells me an SSD because the one I took is an HDD but I am too used to the startup speed, I thought I’d stay with it because I don’t have enough software, after that on mine I think Windows updates take up a lot of space I see it in the startup panel applications, I only have 2 driving games that take up 30GB of space

    in short partitions are to be planned when cloning

    thanks for the info

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    1. brucine Posted messages 25072 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   4 169
       

      Hello,

      As illustrated in <3>, cloning will reproduce the exact size of the old disk on the new one, for example 256 GB, leaving the unused space blank, still for example 256 GB, in another partition.

      To recover this space after the operation, you must, using the Windows Disk Management tool or a utility like Aomei Partition Assistant, merge that space with the cloned partition.

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      1. franck > brucine Posted messages 25072 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention  
         

        hello

        okay, if I understand correctly, this is why I had two drives appearing in My Computer, knowing that only one was connected; after that I don't manage it very well, I would need to see some videos on how to create partitions because I have never done that, thank you

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  6. flo88 Posted messages 28503 Registration date   Status Contributor Last intervention   Ambassador 5 175
     

    Hello

    DiskGenius Free allows cloning a disk while resizing partition sizes as desired.

    The base installation is in English; you need to switch to French afterwards by going through the "view" menu and selecting Language.

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    1. franck
       

      hello

      i’m watching the tutorial and on image 7 i had seen a video where the guy explained that you needed to create the free partition before the small partition shown in the photo so that you could have all the available space, but when i did it with an HDD at startup my target drive C was unplugged from the motherboard, at restart i still saw my C drive in the file explorer and my F drive, was that normal? is it because i didn’t create a partition? that’s mainly what i don’t understand

      thanks to you

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    2. brucine Posted messages 25072 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   4 169 > franck
       
      Hello, We don’t know which image you’re referring to; if it’s the one in <2> it was created on another computer where the cloned drive cannot be named C since it’s already in use, so it’s named F. If the free space created by the clone isn’t allocated to a partition, it’s normal that you don’t see it. What you label as image 7 is, I suppose, the one from Disk Genius offered in <7>; it is specific to that software. Either you redo the cloning with it, or you need to reclaim the free space, which indeed cannot be done in free programs except with two adjacent spaces. The Disk Management tool that shows this layout has basic functions. If I want to reclaim space from F, I shrink it by right-clicking to zero, then increase C by the adjacent value just freed. If the free space isn’t allocated (no drive letter), I don’t remember if it can be done in the same way or if you first need to create a new volume there. In the same approach with Aomei Partition Assistant Right-click on F, Merge, select the C partition with which I want to merge, OK then Apply:
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    3. franck > brucine Posted messages 25072 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention  
       

      okay for your response I understand why I see both

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    4. franck > franck
       

      In plain text, do I have to merge F into C so that there is only one disk showing up in the workstation? Thanks everyone for your patience

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    5. brucine Posted messages 25072 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   4 169 > franck
       

      No not F in C which is, if I understood correctly, your cloned disk connected to another PC that already has another disk, and anyway you cannot merge two physical disks.

      You insert the famous disk back into the PC it is intended for, and there you merge the 256 GB empty space with the cloned partition, which is also 256 GB.

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  7. franck
     
    On the image I posted, I looked like this when I connected my destination disk for cloning: disk C was my full base disk, disk F was the cloned disk from disk C, and on the Workstation I still saw disk C, but I suppose that was the cloned part, and disk F also appeared with 150 GB remaining.

    My question: can you clone one hard drive onto another, and in the end, when you connect the one with the larger volume and disconnect the one that was full, can you have only one disk showing up in This PC? Or is that impossible and I must start over with a new disk and reinstall Windows?
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