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Changing to SSD



 
 
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  #16  
Old May 26th 17, 06:32 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Alek
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Posts: 619
Default Changing to SSD

Alek wrote on 5/25/2017 2:06 PM:
I would like to add an SSD and make it C:

Can I just image the C: partition on my HD to it and then install it?

Do I have to change the HD drive letter or will Windows do that for me?

Thanks.


Disk Management lists these partitions on Disk 0:

500 MB Healthy (EFI System Partition)
40 MB Healthy (OEM Partition)
750 MB Health (Recovery)
OS (C 292.64GB NTFS Healthy (Boot, Page File, Crash Dumps, Recovery
Partition)
455 MB Healthy (Recovery)
DATA_PART (H 629.92 NTFS Healthy (Primary Partition)
7.12 GB NTFS Healthy (Primary Partition)

If I were to clone this drive, what partitons should I include?

Thanks.
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  #17  
Old May 26th 17, 07:44 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Paul[_32_]
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Posts: 11,873
Default Changing to SSD

Alek wrote:
Alek wrote on 5/25/2017 2:06 PM:
I would like to add an SSD and make it C:

Can I just image the C: partition on my HD to it and then install it?

Do I have to change the HD drive letter or will Windows do that for me?

Thanks.


Disk Management lists these partitions on Disk 0:

500 MB Healthy (EFI System Partition)
40 MB Healthy (OEM Partition)
750 MB Health (Recovery)
OS (C 292.64GB NTFS Healthy (Boot, Page File, Crash Dumps, Recovery
Partition)
455 MB Healthy (Recovery)
DATA_PART (H 629.92 NTFS Healthy (Primary Partition)
7.12 GB NTFS Healthy (Primary Partition)

If I were to clone this drive, what partitons should I include?

Thanks.


This smells vaguely of GPT, but the numbers don't
look right.

One other thing I don't see, is the factory OEM partition
used for restoration of the factory OS partition. Normally
in the 12-15GB range.

*******

If I was shooting from the hip, I'd move the 455MB partition
below C: , like this.

500 MB Healthy (EFI System Partition)
40 MB Healthy (OEM Partition)
750 MB Healthy (Recovery)
455 MB Healthy (Recovery) ---------------------------------------------+
OS (C 292.64GB NTFS Healthy (Boot, Page File, Crash Dumps, Recovery |
Partition) |
------------------------------------------------------------------------+
DATA_PART (H 629.92 NTFS Healthy (Primary Partition)
7.12 GB NTFS Healthy (Primary Partition)

That, of course, will be a PITA. If the disk is GPT, you're
going to need a GPT-aware Partition Manager.

After that, I would clone this much, reducing the size of C:
on-the-fly when cloning to a smaller SSD.

500 MB Healthy (EFI System Partition)
40 MB Healthy (OEM Partition)
750 MB Healthy (Recovery)
455 MB Healthy (Recovery)
OS (C 292.64GB NTFS Healthy (Boot, Page, Crash, Recovery) --- "make me smaller
using Macrium clone"

There really should not be the 750 and 455MB partitions.
One should be enough. Maybe one of those belongs to
some other OS on some other disk ? Is it an Orphan ?
What does bcdedit tell you ?

If you want to do it right, it can be hopelessly
complicated.

That's why I prefer a picture, in case I get lucky and
spot some piece of key info.

For example, GPT might be printed on the left there somewhere,
so I could confirm it's a GPT partition. The random looking
"7.12" partition, is likely an unallocated space - GPT handles
all the unallocated stuff as if they were partitions, which
is a bit un-nerving.

Because your C: lists an internal recovery partition of its own,
it probably is wired for a 300MB winre.wim stored right on C: .
And maybe it doesn't need either the 750MB or the 455MB ones.

So really it boils down to a question of:

1) I wanna make "as clean a config as possible". Well, you can.
Just rip the nuts off it during the clone. If it survives,
think how clean it will be. Only clone the C: partition and
the suspicious stuff like the EFI one.

2) "I don't wanna take chances. Tell me to copy anything which is
remotely important." When I suggest moving the 455MB partition
down below C: like that, that's for (2).

As an example of (1)

500 MB Healthy (EFI System Partition) \___ keep these, clone them
40 MB Healthy (OEM Partition) /
750 MB Healthy (Recovery) --- don't have to copy this
OS (C 292.64GB NTFS Healthy (Boot, Page, Crash, Recovery) --- "make me smaller
using Macrium clone"

But something bothers me about those numbers. I don't know
how it got in a mess like that. The 40MB is OK. The 500MB is goofy
(I would have expected 128MB). There's no factory partition
(maybe it was a clean reinstall at some point?). That's why, for some
of the smaller partitions, and if it actually is a GPT disk,
it's just as easy to clone them and leave well enough alone.

*******

On balance, for your first cloning try, I'd be doing this.

500 MB Healthy (EFI System Partition)
40 MB Healthy (OEM Partition)
750 MB Healthy (Recovery)
OS (C 292.64GB NTFS Healthy (Boot, Page, Crash, Recovery) --- "make me smaller
using Macrium clone"
It's bound to boot. You can try

bcdedit
reagentc /info

later from an administrator command prompt, for more info,
after the new SSD is booted and the smoke settles.

In the film strip here, where it says "Click the block",
you can see the interface for resizing. Should work on
restores or clones. Where it says "In this case I moved the
center divider to the right", that's an example of the fully
featured Macrium resize. Your alignment will already be
1MB and not need to be adjusted. On your C: , you'll
be resizing that. The info is about half way down the
filmstrip or so.

https://s9.postimg.org/6mko7k7m5/Macrium_Restore_CD.gif

Paul
  #18  
Old May 26th 17, 08:32 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Alek
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Posts: 619
Default Changing to SSD

Picture https://goo.gl/photos/jJYRS28yCMJbPUeK8
  #19  
Old May 27th 17, 01:23 AM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Paul[_32_]
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Posts: 11,873
Default Changing to SSD

Alek wrote:
Picture https://goo.gl/photos/jJYRS28yCMJbPUeK8


Thanks for that.

Interesting that the 7.12GB partition appears to be "real",
but with very little content.

The ones with NTFS would be 0x07.

The ones with no file system listed could be 0x27,
which is "Hidden NTFS". One of the purposes of hiding them,
is so they don't get drive letters assigned,
and end up with System Volume Information content
due to restore points. What used to happen, is
occasionally a user would end up "filling" one of
those little partitions, because of what the OS
was writing in SVI on the partition.

Your C: contains 100GB of files.

*******

You could clone over the first four, using the
Macrium resize dialog to adjust the size of C: .

Leave enough room on the end of the SSD, for any
other partitions you plan to fit.

You could do a backup of the 455MB and 7.12GB
partitions, and once the SSD with the four partitions
is booted, do a restore of those partitions (without
overwriting the MBR or modifying the GPT). And slap
them onto the new end of C: .

------------ clone over -------------- backup/restor -

500MB | 40MB | 750MB | C: A bit bigger | 455MB | 7.12GB |
EFI | OEM | Rec | than 100GB | Rec | Empty???|

If I was there, I'd really have to tear that apart,
and find out what the hell is going on with the rec
partitions, and why was the 7.12GB made NTFS and then
nothing in it ?

In any case, I think if you start by cloning the first four,
and doing a separate backup operation (not to the SSD0 of the
end two, you can boot the SSD by itself with just the four
on the right. And then decide what you want to do.

The reason for taking just four during cloning, is
so C: is the "right-most" partition during the clone,
and you can adjust the size to fit. A 120GB SSD would
be the smallest SSD that would work for that set of content.
A 256GB or so drive, would give you a bit more room. It's
easy to get a 100GB of stuff on C: , if you add software
development tools or the like. That stuff adds up quickly.

If you just have content, like movies on C: , you could transfer
that somewhere before the clone, to give even more room
for size adjustment. But with the current fill, with C:
dialed all the way down, it's barely going to fit on a 120GB.
So while the math says it'll fit on a 120GB, I'd want the next
size up for this to be worth doing. You know that you like
to put a bit of stuff on C: and so no point would be served
leaving just 2GB of free space on C: or something.

*******

Another item of interest is "Tiny". Another complete mystery.
It appears to have content. What could possibly fit in such
a thing. I associate things like the 40MB OEM with recovering
the machine and doing factor restore. That Tiny looks too small
to do anything important. How many partitions do these
people need ? Wouldn't it be nice if this was documented,
instead of needing a copy of HxD to crawl through all of those
and figure them out ?

I used the available identifiers from your picture in a search,
and no examples are popping up with theories as to contents.

You can't hurt anything by cloning. Just remember to
remove the original drive, on the first boot of C: on the clone.
You can plug the original drive in at any time after the
first boot of the cloned C: .

I presume Macrium can handle a Secure Boot setup, if that's what
they decided to do. Again, once the original is back, there's no
reason for it to get broken by cloning it. So you should be
able to experiment as you see fit.

Paul
  #20  
Old June 14th 17, 03:15 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Char Jackson
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Posts: 10,449
Default Changing to SSD

On Thu, 25 May 2017 21:24:07 -0700, Justin Tyme
wrote:

More thoughts:
If by chance your C drive is actually 'smaller' than your
(unformatted) SSD then you may end up with some unformatted space


Change "unformatted" to "unallocated".

after you clone. For example you clone 128GBs to a 256GB drive, you
may have 1/2 the drive unformatted after the cloning. You can easily
fix this with Easeus Partition Master (Free) which lets you resize the
partition without harming any data. In EPM you just drag the
partition to fill the unformatted space and click the 'Apply' arrow at
the top of the EPM window.

The other option would be to format the SSD before you clone then any
extra space is already formatted.


You'd still end up with unallocated space, exactly as above, with the
solution being exactly as described above. The exception would be a
cloning tool that can be configured to expand the last partition to fill
all available space. Technically, that's no longer a clone, but it's
good enough and usually desirable.

I use and recommend MiniTool Partition Wizard Free, but any decent
partition tool should be fine.

  #21  
Old June 14th 17, 03:22 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Char Jackson
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Posts: 10,449
Default Changing to SSD

On Fri, 26 May 2017 13:32:56 -0400, Alek wrote:

Alek wrote on 5/25/2017 2:06 PM:
I would like to add an SSD and make it C:

Can I just image the C: partition on my HD to it and then install it?

Do I have to change the HD drive letter or will Windows do that for me?

Thanks.


Disk Management lists these partitions on Disk 0:

500 MB Healthy (EFI System Partition)
40 MB Healthy (OEM Partition)
750 MB Health (Recovery)
OS (C 292.64GB NTFS Healthy (Boot, Page File, Crash Dumps, Recovery
Partition)
455 MB Healthy (Recovery)
DATA_PART (H 629.92 NTFS Healthy (Primary Partition)
7.12 GB NTFS Healthy (Primary Partition)

If I were to clone this drive, what partitons should I include?


A clone wouldn't be a clone if it didn't include all of the partitions.
Therefore, if you tell your cloning tool that you want to clone drive X
to drive Y, all of the partitions will be included. You're not able to
(de)select individual partitions, which is normally a good thing.

 




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