should i clone my old hard drive to my new hard drive

Eyesthetics

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Oct 18, 2014
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so i have an 1tb seagate hard drive on which my windows 8.1, games and other apps are installed but this drive isn't mine its actually my sister's, she doesn't want me to use her drive so i just bought a new wd blue 1tb hard drive, but then i got confused as to whether or not i should clone the old hard drive using western digital's acronis software

before i installed windows 8 to the seagate drive it already has windows 7 and xp installed, i did clean install but there are still remaining files that i can't delete (i think they're stuck) due to permission problems (trustedinstaller) i've tried everything that i can to delete them but to no avail, so i just gave up and left them there

now since i wanna clone my old hard drive, i'm afraid those windows 7 junk files will get carried over to my new hard drive, no way i'm gonna let that happen

so what do ? i'm thinking of doing a clean install of windows 8 on my new hard drive then backup all my games and apps then restore it to my new hard drive so the junk files won't get transferred to the new hard drive as it'll waste my space

thanks !
 
Solution
If you clone the drive, the junk files will get carried over - otherwise it won't be a clone.

As far as backing up your games and applications goes, you'll have to investigate each one individually. Some you can transfer the whole folder, some you'll need to reinstall the software and then be able to copy over your settings/saves folders, others you'll have no choice but to reinstall and set them up from scratch.

Programs intertwine themselves with the OS to such differing extents and in such different ways that it's pretty much impossible to come up with one solution for backing up/transferring that doesn't involve cloning.

Windows Easy Transfer ought to let you copy across most of your Windows user settings to a new install, at least.
If you clone the drive, the junk files will get carried over - otherwise it won't be a clone.

As far as backing up your games and applications goes, you'll have to investigate each one individually. Some you can transfer the whole folder, some you'll need to reinstall the software and then be able to copy over your settings/saves folders, others you'll have no choice but to reinstall and set them up from scratch.

Programs intertwine themselves with the OS to such differing extents and in such different ways that it's pretty much impossible to come up with one solution for backing up/transferring that doesn't involve cloning.

Windows Easy Transfer ought to let you copy across most of your Windows user settings to a new install, at least.
 
Solution