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HDD Cloning

suraswami

suraswami

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Apr 5, 2005
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Software Windows 10 Pro 64 bit
I bought a new 2TB WD Black drive, want to clone my existing 1TB WD Black drive to this new drive.

I will be using Acronis TrueImage (2011, old version).

OS: Windows 7 Ultimate (yeah I need to upgrade the OS, but will do with a new Ryzen build during thanks giving)

Question: Should I use Clone HDD option or do a full disk backup and restore the backup to the new disk? If I do a clone will it carry over all the windows crap and deleted files? I read that if I do sector by sector copy it copies everything. Just wanted to get some inputs.

This drive is not my OS drive, this one has my games, videos and other documents.

Or keep it simple, just do copy files and change the drive letter to original drive letter so that Steam doesn't freak out?

Thanks

:toast:
 
I use the software either WD or Seagate have for download (which is a version of Acronis). Then I clone the entire disk.

That's for boot drives. If it's a data drive, I'd just copy everything.

I've noticed Steam is pretty good at adjusting to the library being on other drives.
 
I wouldn't touch Acronis with a barge pole, it's slow, it's crap and I've even had it fail entirely when trying to clone drives.
On the other hand, I'd highly recommend https://www.miray.de/products/sat.hdclone.html
Sadly the free version is quite limited, but if you're not in a hurry, it'll do the trick.

I would suggest using cloning software with verification, as copying huge amounts of data manually can fail badly as well, especially if there are a lot of smaller files.
 
TheLostSwede said:
I wouldn't touch Acronis with a barge pole, it's slow, it's crap and I've even had it fail entirely when trying to clone drives.
On the other hand, I'd highly recommend https://www.miray.de/products/sat.hdclone.html
Sadly the free version is quite limited, but if you're not in a hurry, it'll do the trick.

I would suggest using cloning software with verification, as copying huge amounts of data manually can fail badly as well, especially if there are a lot of smaller files.
Click to expand...

Each to their own. Ive used Acronis for YEARS and the also the free version that came as part of WD and so far only one failure. honestly lost count of the amount of times ive used that app
 
Last edited:
Have or haven't?
I've had zero failures with HDClone, regardless of OS.
 
I am going to buy a 480GB SSD and move the Steam games off the 1TB to the new SSD. Once that is done, going to just copy over the rest to the new HDD. Re-format old one and re-purpose it.

Thanks all.
 
Macrium Reflect has a great free version. Acronis sucks.
 
Cloned 120GB Games SSD to 480GB SSD, cloned 1TB HDD to 2TB HDD, moved Steam games from the 1TB HDD to the new 480GB SSD. Thanks to Acronis.

All is well. Thanks all.

Question: When cloning a drive, I am sure it would have carried over Windows Garbage. How can I clean it?

In few months I will be doing a new build with Ryzen and W10, until then if this thing holds up I am fine.
 
For the Windows junk, I created my own decontaminator file, a simple batch that cleans every location where every version of windows deposits junk.
 
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