Replacing C Drive?

[Simon]

My C drive has less than 6Gb of space, and I can't find anything else on it to delete.  If I get a new computer, it will obviously have Windows 10, so will require a lot of work to transfer everything from the old computer, which I simply don't have time for at the moment.

Could I, therefore, simply buy a larger hard drive for the existing machine, do an image backup of my current C drive, and restore that image to the new 'C' drive, without having to reinstall Windows and all of my programs?

I'm guessing it won't be that simple...    

[zappaDPJ]

It should be as simple as cloning the drive but I'm not sure if Windows has that facility. You might need a download.

[Simon]

I use Acronis TruImage for backups, so I assume that would create an exact clone?

[zappaDPJ]

I'm not familiar with that product so I couldn't say for sure but Google seems to think it can

[Simon]

OK, thanks. 

[Technical Ben]

After the clone, you can use disk tools to expand the drive to it's full size. I do shrink/grows all the time.

[Clive]

My Acronis stopped working when I upgraded to Windows 10 and refused to install on my new computer.   

[Simon]

After the clone, you can use disk tools to expand the drive to it's full size. I do shrink/grows all the time.

The drive is 80Gb and only has Windows and programs on it.  I've tried all sorts of clean up tactics, and have managed to recover a further 2Gb, so it now has 8.05Gb free, but I can't see that lasting for too long.

[Simon]

My Acronis stopped working when I upgraded to Windows 10 and refused to install on my new computer.   

The only trouble I have with Acronis is that for some reason it doesn't seem to automatically delete old backups, therefore, my backup drive keeps getting full, but it could be something to do with the settings.

[Technical Ben]

80gb? Is it an old SSD? HDD and SSDs are really cheap now. I've even got two second hand SSDs running. One was unboxed, but only a cuple of hours use (I guess a wrong purchase, then sent to cash and exchange instead of the original store... ), the other from ebay, that seems about 6 months/1 year old. Both work fine and are showing zero errors... though I'd not recommend ebay, more CEX (though they are expensive) or the local second hand hardware stores or Amazon "opened box/customer return" discounts... got a set of ram with 30% off this way too.

[Den]

I have just updated my computer by fitting a ssd drive (500gb) reinstalling Windows 10 but keeping my older 1tB drive as back up. When I'm certain everything is fine I will wipe my old drive and just use it as back up or overspill.

My computer now loads in seconds and is much faster overall. 

[Technical Ben]

Yep, most SSDs will not get your boot times to about 1 second easily.

[Simon]

This is an old machine.  It has SATA hard disk drives, and I doubt that the motherboard would support SSDs.  I know it's old, and one day I will have to replace it, but it does all I need it to do, and as I've said before, Windows 10 won't support some of my older software, which I still use, as the newer versions don't have the same functionality.

[Technical Ben]

What motherboard? You can check...

AFAIK it only requires a SATA port.

[Lance]

Most drive manufacturers have software you can download free to migrate on disk to another. I haven't done it for years but I recall it worked well last time I did. Just need to be able to plug both drives in at the same time.

[Simon]

Just to update this... I did it!   

I purchased a Crucial 120Gb SSD drive, which came with instructions on how to migrate an existing system to the new drive, using the Acronis clone tool.  As I already have Acronis on board for backups, I didn't need to install Crucial's version, so used the Clone tool as instructed to clone my existing C drive to the new SSD.  The clone job took about 18 minutes, which worried me, as I thought it was going to take much longer for an 80Gb drive, but I thought I'd go with it and see what happened, as all I needed to do then was physically swap the current hard drive for the new SSD.  Had it all gone to pot, I would have still had the original drive which I could have popped back in, plus I had a backup on a separate backup drive, so I had nothing to lose, really, as all of my data was on other drives, and the C drive only had Windows and programs on it.

So, with trepidation, after exchanging the drives, I fired up the machine, and within about 20 seconds, my desktop appeared as normal, and everything seems to be working as it should.  I'm struggling to believe it was all that simple, but now I have a much faster booting machine, with about 45Gb of space on my C drive, compared to about 4Gb which I had before.  So, all in all, I'm quite pleased with myself, and it was all done before lunch!   

[Clive]

Well done Simon - I think that beats any of my achievements in 2017.   

[Technical Ben]

New Crucial disk? That can be ok... As long as it's not a "V4", as I've got a dead one right here... they had a single bad batch... and yes I was stupid enough to buy a second hand one last month, before I realised (it's now in pieces as I used it to practice soldering... only thing it's good for is a fly swat!).

Glad the migration worked! I use cloning and imaging tools all the time to fix/backup and change things. They work a charm.

If moving from HD to SSD you should see a real speed boost! 

As a recommendation always keep 10-20% free space on your SSD. This will prevent it getting too full for it to run it's normal servicing (data renewal, moving data, releasing blocks etc). Some disks have "over provisioning", which hides a couple of spare gb space from you so it always has free space. However, not all do, and some of the crucial 120gb disks do not (see my experience above). Where as the Samsung drives (which is what I run now) do or give you the option to add it.

[Simon]

I don't know whether it's a V4 - it's this one:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073W3Q96S?ref=yo_pop_ma_swf

This was really intended as a cheapish stopgap, until Microsoft end support for Windows 7 in 2020.  At that point, my machine will be over 10 years old, so will need replacing anyway.  As it was, the old hard drive was virtually full to capacity, and operating the machine was like wading through treacle.  The SSD has not only improved boot time, but also made operating the rest of the system a lot faster.  Programs now open in a matter of seconds, when sometimes before, it could literally take a matter of minutes.

[Glenn]

Most of the space on the drive will no doubt be used by your profile. On the old drive delete it and see if it frees up space.

[Simon]

It's not in the machine any more, Glenn.

[Technical Ben]

There are a couple of things that can save a little space. As said I got a 120gb drive for my laptop. It had a 1tb disk before. But as it is mainly used for web only, I did not need the space.

If you have lots if photos or music you can always use a second drive inside or out the desktop.

[Simon]

Yes, I'd already done that.  The space was being consumed purely by Windows and programs.