I'm running into space issues because my C drive is nearly full, so I bought a new M.2 SSD to replace it. Unfortunately, my motherboard only has one M.2 slot, which means I need to clone my existing C drive onto the new SSD without having both drives installed at the same time.
I've been trying to clone my C drive to an external drive, but I haven't been able to boot from that external drive even when it's the only one connected. It keeps getting stuck in a repair loop. I even wiped an internal drive and tried cloning to that, but it resulted in the same boot issues.
I've also considered imaging the drive, but I'm not entirely clear on how that works and if it might be a better solution. I did manage to get a fresh Windows install running on the new SSD, which seems to work fine, but I'd rather keep all my data and settings without the hassle of a fresh install.
Any suggestions on how to achieve this without having to buy additional equipment?
1 Answer
You actually don't need to buy any extra cables if you're looking to clone your drive. You can clone your old drive to a disk image on your existing external drive using software like RescueZilla or even Macrium Reflect. Once you have your system image, swap out the old drive for the new SSD and restore that image. Just make sure your external drive has enough space!
Would I need to boot from that USB to do the imaging? I've been using Macrium so far but got stuck trying to boot from the clones.