Even the best SSDs are so cheap these days that it’s very tempting to upgrade your gear. However, migrating from one drive to another can be a hassle. It has the OS, apps, all settings and data. Starting over from a clean install of Windows (or Linux) would take forever, and you’d spend weeks trying to figure out what you forgot to add. Answer: clone the SSD.
Drive cloning is a quick and easy way to move an installation from an older, slower drive to a faster, larger drive. There are many ways to achieve this, Clonezilla being the best of them all. This live Linux distribution boots from USB or CD/DVD and uses a wizard-based system to migrate between drives, create installation images, and even spread the OS to multiple machines over network connections. Make deployment easy. Clonezilla only works for cloning Windows OS or Linux distributions.
Connect the new drive to your PC for cloning
If you want to move the contents of your PC’s boot drive to a new, faster or larger replacement drive, you need a way to connect both drives to your computer at the same time. If you have room on your desktop, you can plug your new drive into an M.2 or SATA port and install it in your case.
However, if you have a laptop, or if your computer doesn’t have space for both drives at once, you’ll need an enclosure that allows you to plug your new drive into a USB port. If the new drive is his 2.5″ SATA drive, SATA to USB 3.0 Enclosure (opens in new tab). For M.2 NVMe or SATA drives, M.2 – USB Enclosure (opens in new tab).
If you’re using an enclosure, you’ll need to open your PC after cloning is complete and replace the old drive with the new drive. If you plan to sell or give away your old drive, see our tutorial on how to securely erase an SSD or hard drive.
Cloning Windows (or another OS)
Migrate a Windows 10 installation from a 64GB eMMC drive to a 256GB NVMe drive for the screenshots and instructions below. However, the process we follow can also be applied to other scenarios, such as migrating an installation from an old drive to an SSD, or cloning the drive as a backup.
Creating a Clonezilla Boot USB
Creating a Clonezilla boot USB is a great first step in your tech toolbox. Clonezilla has tools for backing up and migrating entire systems. A 4GB USB flash drive is required for this part of the project.
1. go to Clonezilla download page Click to select the current stable release. At the time of writing this was a Debian based release.
2. Choose your CPU architecture When Set the file type to ISO and[ダウンロード]Click. The USB drive must have a ZIP file type. CD/DVD users must select an ISO before downloading.
3. Download and install Rufus for your operating system.
4. Insert the USB drive into your machine When Open Rufus.
5. Make sure the USB drive is selected and[選択]Click to use the Clonezilla ISO image.
6.[開始]Click to start writing Clonezilla to your USB drive.
4. Burn the image in ISO mode,[OK]Click to start the process.
Launch Clonezilla
With a test machine running Windows 10 from the built-in 64GB eMMC drive and a blank NVMe drive inserted into the machine, I was ready to migrate my installation.
1. Boot from the Clonezilla USB drive. The keys to enter the BIOS are slightly different for each machine, but here is the list.
2. Select Clonezilla live from the menu and press Enter.
3. Select the desired language and press Enter.
4. Press Enter to confirm your selection.
5. Press Enter to start the Clonezilla wizard process.
6. Select device-device to clone one drive to another and press Enter. Another option is device-image which clones the drive to a backup image. Remote source and destination for remote cloning tasks. You can use the server to clone devices to remote servers or distribute a single clone image to multiple devices at once.
7.[エキスパート]and press Enter.
8. Select the disk_to_local_disk cloning option and press Enter.
9. Select the source (the drive you want to clone) and press Enter.
10. Select the target to clone the source to and press Enter. In this example, it is a 256GB NVMe drive.
11. Scroll down to T1, press Space to select it, and press Enter to continue. This option successfully copies the Windows bootloader to the target drive.
12. Accept the default option to skip file system checks and press Enter. You can also scan your filesystem for problems if you like, but this slows down the process.
13. Accept the default option to use the existing partition table and press Enter.
14.[選択]and press Enter. Once Clonezilla is complete, you will be prompted to reboot or shutdown your machine.
15. Press Enter to start the process. Clonezilla provides a terminal command that encapsulates all the options you choose. If you want to run the process via terminal you can use this command.
16. Press Y and Enter to start the process. Make sure everything is correct before proceeding. There is no turning back.
17. Wait for the cloning process to complete. Depending on the size and speed of your drive, this may take some time.
18. Press Enter to finish the process.
19.[電源オフ]and press Enter.
Extend partition after cloning
Now that the migration is complete, we need to make sure the OS boots and extend the partition to use all the space on the drive. I used Windows 10, but the steps are the same for Windows 11.
1. Replace with a new drive Unless you keep both drives on the same computer.
2. Turn on your computer and set the new drive as the boot drive via BIOS. This varies from machine to machine. See your motherboard manual.
3. Boot. In our case it is Windows.
4. Open your file manager and[この PC]Click. To maximize the capacity of your NVMe drive, you need to extend the partition.
Five. Download and Install MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition
6. Open MiniTool and click Recovery Partition.. This partition is not needed and you will not be able to use the full capacity of the drive. This partition may not be in the same location. If there is no partition between Windows installation and unallocated space, you can skip to the next step.
7. Right click on the partition and select[削除]Choose.
8.[適用]Click to remove the recovery partition.
9. Click on your Windows partition.
10. Right click on the partition and select[拡張]Choose.
11. Select the unallocated space and use the slider to select the space you want.[OK]Click. I decided to use the maximum capacity of the drive.
12.[適用]Click to extend partition.
13. Go back to This PC in File Manager and verify that the drive has more space.
