cloning HDD to new SSD

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bhome83

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Bought a new Samsung SSD and want to clone my OS from my HDD to the SSD. Just curious because I put the SSD in my desktop, and it doesn't show up in my computer. In disk management it shows up as 'online' and 'unallocated' When I right click I have the option of clicking on 'new simple volume' but am wondering do I FIRST clone my OS to the SSD (I'm using Samsung's data migration) and then do something in disk management to make the SSD show up? Or when I reboot and boot from the SSD will it show up?

thanks for help!
 
Solution
Solandri

That's the thing. You can't really format a disk. You format a partition. And if the HDD still has 3 partitions on it because it used to be a boot disk, you first have to delete all those partitions. Something you can't do while the HDD is still your boot drive.

So

    ■Clone the HDD to the SSD...
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Nuckles_56

Nuckles_56

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Seeing as you are using the samsung magician software, let it do the job of cloning your old hard drive onto your new one, then once it has done that, go and set the SSD as the boot disk and you should be good to go and do what ever you want with the old hard disk
 
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bhome83

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I was going to use the old hard disk as data storage. How do I do a clean format of the drive to clear off all the files and wipe it clean?

 
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bhome83

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So after some google search some people say you need to go into disk management, and delete the partitions because an OS HDD has 3 partitions so it isn't enough just to delete the files because it will see the drive as 3 partitions still.

How do I tell windows to format the disk? Do I just right click the disk and press 'quick format'? Some people make it sound like you need to do a step before this though in disk management..

 
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Solandri

Solandri

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That's the thing. You can't really format a disk. You format a partition. And if the HDD still has 3 partitions on it because it used to be a boot disk, you first have to delete all those partitions. Something you can't do while the HDD is still your boot drive.

So

    ■Clone the HDD to the SSD.
    ■Change your BIOS to make sure the computer boots off the SSD (this can get tricky - you might have to disconnect the HDD to make sure the computer is in fact booting off the SSD. Then create a new file on the desktop named "This is the SSD." Then reconnect the HDD, boot again, and hopefully you'll see the "This is the SSD" file on the desktop.)
    ■Boot off the SSD.
    ■Go into disk management, and delete all the partitions on the HDD.
    ■Create a new single partition which spans the entire HDD.
    ■Format that partition.

Note: The usual recommendation when getting a new SSD is to do a clean install of Windows onto it. This is to make sure Windows is configured correctly for a SSD. If you just clone it, it'll still be configured for a HDD. However, the "OS optimization" function in Samsung's Magician software will change those settings for you. So it's OK to clone the HDD to SSD in this case.
 
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bhome83

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to delete all the partitions on the hard drive i just right click and press 'delete volume' for each each partition, correct? only 1 of the partitions on the drive though allows me to do that though. The other partitions have 'delete volume' greyed out so I cant click it.

 
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