If you have bought a new SSD, you naturally want to use it as soon as possible. But you still want to transfer your old data. To be able to switch to your SSD relatively quickly, you can clone your existing installation to your SSD.
MiniTool Partition Wizard
We have previously discussed cloning an existing installation. Until now, we used paid software for that because we had not yet found a good free alternative. We have now found that free alternative in the form of MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition. Install the program.
Clone disk directly
MiniTool Partition Manager is only suitable for direct copies where your SSD is connected to your system. Before you start the program, you first connect your SSD to your PC or laptop. Do this via a USB adapter or use a free SATA connection with a PC. Start MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition and click the button MiniTool Partition Wizard. You will see the drives connected to your system at the top of the main window.
Select disks
Click in the left column Copy Disk Wizard and click on Next. Select the drive you want to clone. If you only have one disk in your system this is easy, it is the disk with the partitions on it. If you have multiple hard drives, check which one you need and click on Next. You will then come to an almost identical screen as the previous step, but now you have to indicate the target disk. That is of course the empty SSD. click on Next.
Customize
The step that you now see on the screen is a very important one, because if you do not click the right options, you can end up with an SSD that is not properly aligned. Select below Copy Options the first option: Fit partitions to entire disk. The partitions are now neatly scaled to the size of your SSD. Also make sure that the option Force to align partitions to 1 MB is checked. Then click Next. You will now get a warning telling you to set the cloned disk as a boot disk. click on Finish.
Confirm order
You will now return to the main window of MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition. It now seems as if the program did nothing. However, you will see that MiniTool does remember the commands you just gave. At the bottom of the left column you see below Operations Pending should be the clone command just given. If so, click on the button Apply at the top of the screen. Then click Yes to start the procedure.
Restart
MiniTool Partition Wizard will now start copying the partition layout and data to your empty SSD. Typically, the program will return an error after the first partition because the program cannot copy partitions that are actively in use. MiniTool gives you two options: close programs and try again or restart the PC. Click on Restart Now. The PC will reboot and complete the command from a utility. When MiniTool is ready, turn off your PC or laptop and install the SSD or change the SATA cable as you see in the step-by-step plans for a PC or laptop.
Clone a disk with Acronis True Image
The budget top SSD of the moment, the Crucial MX100, just like a number of other SSDs, comes with Acronis True Image.
You must first download the software and register via the manufacturer of the SSD.
In the case of Crucial, you’ll find a flyer in the box with a download link where you can download the installer.
We will discuss the basic functionality below, all other options such as cloning per partition can be found in the manual.
Obtain license key
You must enter a license key of 64 characters after installation, Crucial only supplies a short key and this may also apply to other manufacturers.
So click on I have only short key. You will now be redirected to a website where you can enter your details and the short license key. You will then receive a confirmation email with a link, if you click on it you will receive the license key for Acronis.
Copy the key and paste it into the input field and click Activate. You can now start True Image.
Clone disk directly
To clone your drive directly to an empty SSD, connect the SSD via USB or SATA and click the tab Tools and Utilities on Clone disk, choose Automatic and click Next.
Select your Windows drive and click Next. In the next step, select your empty SSD and click Next. Then click Proceed after which Acronis will clone your disk.
Acronis will restart your PC after which it will complete the job.
More interesting, however, is that Acronis can also clone with an external hard drive as an intermediate step.
Alignment OK?
For performance and longevity, it is important that an SSD is aligned so that the file system clusters align precisely with the physical sectors of the SSD.
Both MiniTool Partiton Wizard and Acronis True Image take alignment into account when cloning.
If you already have an SSD or hard drive, or if you don’t trust cloning, you can check whether your drive is properly aligned.
Open the command prompt (Windows key + R and type cmd.exe). Type the command wmic partition get Name, StartingOffset. You will now see a list of your hard drives and their partitions. Divide the number you see below StartingOffset by 4096.
If this returns a whole number, the partition is neatly aligned. In fact, every first partition on a disk should start aligned exactly 1048576 bytes. Do you have a disk that is not properly aligned to 1048576 bytes? Then it is possible to fix the alignment with MiniTool Partion Wizard Home Edition. In the top right corner, select the disk whose partitions are not properly aligned.
On our PC we found out in the command prompt that it is disk 1. Because Windows starts counting from 0, in MiniTool Partion Manager this is disk 2. We select this disk and click on Align Partition. Press Apply to begin. The PC will be rebooted for this action.
By the way, allow enough time for the alignment, it will take anywhere from a few hours to a whole night. Obviously you take care of one first backup of the data.
In our PC the disks 0 (an SSD) and 2 (a hard disk) are neatly aligned, if you calculate it, disk 1 (a hard disk) is not aligned.
Bootable USB stick
To use Acronis True Image with an external hard drive as an intermediate step, you will need to create a bootable USB stick which you will need to restore the created image to an installed SSD.
Make sure you have an empty USB stick of at least 512 MB and put it in a USB port. Click on the tab Backup and recovery and choose Create bootable media. click on Next and tick Acronis True Imageand click Next.
Then click again Next, select your USB stick and click Next / Proceed.
Create backup
Make sure you have an external hard drive that has more free space than the size of the drive you want to image and connect it to your system.
In Acronis, click the tab Backup and recovery and click Disk and partition backup. In the window that opens, first click on Switch to disk mode. Then check that your boot drive is checked and that Acronis has selected a folder on your external hard drive.
If the settings are correct, click Back up now.
Change disk
When Acronis is ready, turn off your computer. Install your SSD in the place of your hard drive.
In the case of a desktop, mount the SSD on the SATA connection of your old hard drive. You can connect the hard disk to another SATA connection if necessary. Then boot the PC or laptop using the USB stick you created earlier.
You may need to change the boot order in your BIOS to do this.
Check backup
At the first screen, press Enter and Acronis will load. Once the interface has loaded, connect the external hard drive. Then click Recovery.
If you don’t see the backup, click on Browse for backups, navigate to the image and click OK. Right click on the image and select Validate archive. Then click Proceed.
When the image is found to be correct, you can proceed. If the archive is corrupt, you will have to swap the SSD and the hard drive again to create a new image.
Copy image
Right click on the archive and choose Recover. Choose Recover whole disks and partitions and click Next. Select the entire disk by checking the check mark next to Disk 1 and make sure all partitions are checked. After you press Next Click, Acronis will search for the SSD.
In the window that you now see on the screen, select the SSD as the target. Leave the option Recover disk signature unchecked. Then click Next.
True Image shows a summary of the actions entered, click Proceed to perform cloning.
Wrap up and start up
Acronis will now copy the image to your SSD. This will take some time. While Acronis is running, check the option Shut down the computer when the operation is completed On. When Acronis is ready, your PC will now shut down automatically.
If the image copy was successful and your system is turned off, remove the external hard drive and USB stick. Then turn on your PC or laptop again. Windows should now boot from your SSD and your system will be a lot faster than before!
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