I see guides but I'm still not confident. How do I clone my primary drive?

[noname2020x]

Hey frens,

I just got a speedier and larger SSD and want to replace my current one. I get the basic idea of cloning and replacing, but before I begin, I want to make 100% sure I'm doing things correctly.

Drive 1 (current drive) is in Gen 4 slot.
Drive 2 (new, better drive) is in Gen 3 slot.

From what I can tell, I use Macrium Reflect to clone drive 1 onto drive 2. Then I turn off my computer, and switch the drives so the new drive is in the gen 4 slot. Then I select it as the primary boot drive and delete the partition on drive 2.

Is that about right? Windows won't get angry with me?

Thanks!

 

[Woomack]

You are right. This is the easy way.

One tip. If you clone it to a larger drive, then you can switch the last 2 partitions. Typically, the Windows installer creates a small partition after C:. It causes problems if you wish to resize the main (C: ) partition. During cloning with Macrium Reflect, you can drag and drop partitions in a different order and resize the OS partition to the maximum free space.

 

[noname2020x]

Thanks, Woomack!

Forgive my confusion, but I'm not sure I follow what you mean when you say I can switch the last two partitions. Do you mean that when the drive is cloned, Windows partitions the extra space?

 

[Flamethrower1972]

Sounds good to me. I have wanted to try that program.

 

[Woomack]

Thanks, Woomack!

Forgive my confusion, but I'm not sure I follow what you mean when you say I can switch the last two partitions. Do you mean that when the drive is cloned, Windows partitions the extra space?

A typical Windows installation has four partitions (sometimes 5 on branded computers). The main/C: partition is in the third place. Macrium Reflect lets you put it in the fourth place and resize it to the maximum available space. It's as simple as drag and drop from the cloned drive to the destination drive (you will see it on the full drive space bar).

 

[Flamethrower1972]

A typical Windows installation has four partitions (sometimes 5 on branded computers). The main/C: partition is in the third place. Macrium Reflect lets you put it in the fourth place and resize it to the maximum available space. It's as simple as drag and drop from the cloned drive to the destination drive (you will see it on the full drive space bar).

That seems very easy.

 

[noname2020x]

Thanks so much!