UPDATE: Using Macrium Reflect Free to Clone Windows to a Bootable M.2 SSD

In this video, I use the most recent version of Macrium Reflect Free to clone Windows from a 1 TB hard drive to a 360 GB M.2 SSD, and keep it bootable. This is an update to a two-year old video (link below), in which I not only clone all six partitions, but I also complete the process of wiping the hard drive. I answer some frequently asked questions that arose from my previous video including showing the size of the rescue disk contents, and the procedure for going from a smaller hard drive to a larger SSD. I start with an out-of-the-box Dell Inspiron 5570 laptop in which I've already installed a brand new 360 GB M.2 SSD module.

Disclaimer: This video was created specifically with the Dell Inspiron 5570 in mind, so this procedure may not work for all computers. At a high level, you need to make sure that your PC or laptop has a way to change the boot sequence to the SSD drive. Since I'll be showing you how to completely erase the contents of the hard drive, MAKE SURE to take every precaution before cloning, including 1) backing up any critical data, 2) creating a rescue disk and 3) creating an image of the original 1 TB drive. I don't want you to be stuck without Windows in case something goes wrong.

PLEASE SEE THE PINNED COMMENT for more tips from viewers.

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► If you find that you are unable to boot from Windows Recovery Environment, the following may help. Thanks to Viral Soni:

I found that it was due to the location of the recovery partition WINRETOOLS had changed due to the reordering. To check if this is the problem run the command - "reagentc /info" at a command prompt as Admin. Running the original HDD you will likely see something like:

reagentc /info

Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) and system reset configuration
Information:
Windows RE status: Enabled
Windows RE location: \\?\GLOBALROOT\device\harddisk0\partition1\Recovery\WindowsRE
Boot Configuration Data (BCD) identifier: [identifier]

If you have the same problem as me, then you will see this when you run the same command on the SSD:

Windows RE status: Disabled

If so, then I believe that windows has disabled the recovery options because it couldn't find the recovery partition. The resolution is to point to the new windows RE location using below command:

reagentc /setreimage /path \\?\GLOBALROOT\device\harddisk0\partition1\Recovery\WindowsRE

where the path is the same as your working HDD, but partition1 is replaced with partition2, partition3 or as necessary, then attempt:

reagentc /enable

If all is well you will see REAGENTC.EXE: Operation Successful after each command.

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► A great tip from Wild Tangent

The trick with NVMe SSDs is getting Windows to realize the fact it has NVMe drivers by first booting up the machine on the original drive and initializing/formatting the blank NVMe, and THEN you shutdown and image it. If your system uses Intel Rapid Storage Technology (RST) or Intel RAID for the SATA drive, you MUST disable that first before imaging.

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►If you run into a problem with cloning an Alienware Aurora R7 which has RAID, here is a solution thanks to Roots Bey:

Drivers come automatically installed as RAID. VERY IMPORTANT: First you need to disable Intel Optane before removing it so you can install the M.2 drive.

What I did was your clone process in video. When I was done, I unplugged the HDD. Hit F2 to switch BIOS. Then switch SATA from RAID to AHCI. That's what wouldn't work because I cloned the HDD with RAID on.

I restarted a few times and was in awe. Your system switched from RAID to AHCI. Problem was when I plugged HDD back in and it wouldn't boot because it was not BOOT priority and wouldn't switch, even though my OS was my Samsung SSD.

The fix: Hit F12. Select Samsung 970 M.2 drive to boot from. It works as if HDD wasn't plugged in. KEY STEP is to follow the the end of your video by FORMATTING YOUR HDD. Restart and watch how fast your SSD boots.

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My Gear:

Thank you to all my subscribers and viewers!

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[accessrandom]

Much obliged 🎩 to all my viewers. Like. Share. Subscribe. Enjoy.

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► If you have only two partitions and are getting an error during the repair step, here is a solution, thanks to fullylaced23:

It’s worth noting that for some reason my drive only had two partitions it as opposed to the general 5-6. Furthermore when running the last step to repair the boot I got a “partition sector error” causing me to be unable to boot with either no OS being shown or a corrupted boot. I was able to fix this by setting the partitions to active in the drive which I only thought to do because of the error and this ended up fixing my problem. However I don’t know why this occurred or why the error happens in the repair step. Any way you can shine a light on this or make a pinned comment about this issue because there is a lot of forum posts but not actual solutions. As a matter of fact this might be the first time I’ve solved my own problem.

After further review it seems that people with only two partitions on their windows drive have trouble with Macrium and their Windows Boot Manager becomes disabled since it is on the partition that Macrium disables when doing the last step even though it is not the boot partition. It would explain why activating the partition fixed the problem since this partition must be set to active in order to load the boot files for people with two partition drives.

► Going above and beyond the procedure from Macrium (as seen in the description), here is a solution about Bitlocker from Al B:

BEWARE of Bitlocker Encryption. I followed all steps which worked perfectly except for ‘Fix Boot Problems’ in Macrium Rescue. This process did not work leaving me in a bind with no BCD (Boot Configuration Data File) so my laptop would not boot from the SSD nor the HDD which had been cleaned. Apparently when I booted from the new cloned SSD, data was encrypted by Bitlocker. Luckily, When I booted from the Macrium rescue media, I was able to go into CMD mode (bottom left corner of window) and manually decrypt my new C: drive using the ‘manage-bed’ command. You will need the Bitlocker password for the C: drive when using the manage-bed command. I keep mine in my MS account. It is much easier to do this via control panel after rebooting from the newly cloned drive, but BEFORE the one time reboot into Macrium recovery.

► A protip from Conquesticle:

An easier way to access BIOS from the desktop is by pressing shift and clicking restart simultaneously. Then troubleshoot > advanced options > uefi firmware settings.

[FuKaBaLoOn]

Everyone. DO NOT SKIP THE LAST STEP. Just saved hours of time for me. I had skipped it and after a few days my pc stopped booting correctly. I proceeded to pull this video back up on my phone, and follow the final instructions with the rescue disk since I still had made it during the video, and bam, problem solved. THANK YOU access random! One of the best tutorials I’ve ever seen.

[satinswan]

"Leftover CDs from the 90s" - I've watched this video at least three times while setting up my SSD and that line cracks me up every time. Ain't it the truth?! Also have a ton of the slim jewel cases left over.

[stephenhall]

This is superb. The balance between simple, orderly instructions and just enough 'techie' explanation to give context is unsurpassed.

[NewVideoseeker]

This is how all tutorials should be, very concise and detailed at the same time, and also a nice pace. Now, in my case for some reason I couldn't do the procedure within Windows, it always gave me an error message, but then I remember that Rescue Disc you asked us to create, I boot from it and did all the steps and it went OK, so for those who have the same problem as I had, you can use the rescue disc and hopefully it'll all be fine.

[checkouthat]

This is hands down the best video for a daunting task such as migrating data like this. This walked me through the whole process for the first time and everything went smoother than I expected. Although I would recommend access random to either take down the older video, or really, really point out you need the recovery disk. I almost didn't make the recovery disk cause on the other video it doesn't seem to be as important and things seem to work out until you see this one.

[aaroneang]

This was my first time ever installing an M.2 into an existing system and you made it so simple and easy to follow. No problems on my end at all and I got it done within a few hours due to how large my files were. Thank you so much!

[DayMoniakkEdits]

Just switched from a 120gb ssd to a 480gb nvme, thank you, you're a life saver !
(I must say there is a few things that changed in the meantime, for example you don't have to mess up with partitions size, they added a button "clone partition" for that. You just select the option to shrink/expand automatically the partitions and it's done)

[SGProto]

Best presentation ever on migrating OS to SSD! Appreciate all the animations & highlights to make the points immediately obvious - thanks also for all the small details to make the installation perfect (like exact resizing and ordering of the partitions)

[MrMairu]

To be honest, I don't even know why I just watched this video, because it's something I do fairly regularly for family and friends, often using Macrium. However, that being said, this is hands down one of the best walk-throughs I've ever watched. Very concise and well produced.

[bbjkekw]

I am writting this comment because i wanna thank you from all my heart for this tutorials. I had an Acer Aspire f5-771g and i ordered a new M.2 nvME card. My expectations were pretty low, since updating hardware is not my best task. I followed exactly your steps and here I am booting in less than 10 secs compared to the 1 min with the HDD drive. Thank you.

[RonnieJamesDeodorant]

Extremely helpful view. This taught me how to clear my drives too through the command prompt, which I wasn't expecting.

Your pacing is phenomenal and you're very detailed. I've been binging SSD cloning videos and this is a 10/10 that helped me last night. Other videos were 7/10 at best. Nice editing, King.

[blaksham]

I just spent three hours (due to my slow computer's HDD which I'm replacing using the steps laid out in this video) upgrading my HDD to SSD. These steps, explanations, context, and graphics/video are arguably amongst the most helpful I've come across. THANK YOU for this video. The upgrade seems to hold. I am hoping this lasts (and yes I made and have my Macrium recovery disk files on USB).

[andytaylor]

Fantastic! Best Macrium tutorial I've found, to put a smaller ssd into a laptop. This video made it easy, every step is perfectly described. Don't hesitate, this video makes it easy. Highly recommended!

[stevenc]

Thank you Sir, an absolute must for this process, you saved me hours of rummaging through useless web pages and videos. Restored a couple of older laptops to useful machines I can donate to students in need. Without a doubt the best guide out there.

[cliffordmorrison]

This is a brilliant video - so clear and detailed for every step.
The amazing thing is that in reality the software worked exactly as shown.
I had spent several days and at least 30 attempts to clone my hard drive to a smaller SSD using two different software packages and each attempt had failed miserably.
I had begun to think that my usb 2 connection to the new SSD was not fast enough.
Then everything worked with Macrium 7 Free - exactly as shown in the video.
Thanks very very much.

[rubenrios]

This was probably one of the better videos out there in clearly explaining this task. There are several videos that explain only half the process while leaving out the important parts. Thanks for the video

[ladyvoltage]

I don't know if you are a teacher outside your YouTube channel but you are terrific at explaining the process and the concepts clearly and concisely. Thank you for this video, truly helped me. The only thing that was a very slight hiccup was the rebooting process. I know you explained at the start that this was for a specific brand of PC but you might want to reiterate that when rebooting to use the recovery disk that the screen and process might look very different when finding and selecting the recovery device. But again, such an awesome video and you rock!

[motoflight]

This literally saved me, I had been trying to migrate my OS for hours before I found this video

[sethusuresh]

This is one of the best videos that talks about the entire process involved in cloning
an OS. I followed all the steps and was able to successfully migrate my os from hdd to ssd. Although, out of my ignorance I made a mistake by skipping the step to create the macrium recovery disk. Due to this after wiping clean the hdd post completion of migration my system wouldn’t boot up. So I request everyone to follow all the steps properly and never skip any 😅. Thanks to lot to this channel for making such wonderful videos. keep making such useful videos.