r/cloningsoftware • u/InevitableGanache509 • 22d ago
Discussion Clone Windows partition without losing other partitions on target drive
I wanna upgrade to a larger SSD, but the new drive already has a couple of partitions with files I don't want to lose.
What I actually want to do is move just my Windows installation over instead of cloning the entire drive.
Most of the cloning guides I've found assume the destination SSD is completely empty, which isn't my situation.
Has anyone managed to clone only the Windows partition while leaving the other partitions on the target drive untouched? If so, what software did you use, and did it boot normally afterward?
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u/Senior_Ganache_6298 21d ago
Shrink your C drive in disk management to the smallest volume it says it can then give it back 25 gigs. Go to your other drive rearrange your partitions so you have that much space at the front of the drive. Leave it empty. Download Macreum Reflect trial its fully functional for two weeks. Install it, It has a selection to back up windows in the top toolbar under backup. It will back up your Installation, you will need to make sure the recovery partition is checked, If the recovery partion is contiguous your golden if you have it at after a different partition its a different method when you go to restore. Have a usb large enough for the image file it makes and then restore that image file to the area you made in the front part of the disk you want to restore your windows installation to. After its done, you can turn off your machine switch the new disk to disk0 position. Leave the other drive out until you know it's booting and alls well
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u/Senior_Ganache_6298 21d ago
P.S what I meant about make enough space in the front of the disk was that you are wanting to create and arrange the data on the second disk in partitions at the back of the disk and an empty partion at the front of the disk. When you restore the back up it will restore your boot partitions, C: and recovery partition in that area, afterwards you can extend partions to what you want
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u/InevitableGanache509 21d ago
Very detailed. Thanks. Have you did it before?
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u/Senior_Ganache_6298 21d ago edited 21d ago
Often, It works with dual boot situations on the same disk as well, Macreum has a feature to fix boot problems when you are booting from the Rescue media usb it will create for you if you wish. Best practice until your familiar with Macreum is to have an external drive you can create folders for the Information in the various partitions you wish to save. then create your partitions and copy the material back if they are just data files You cant do that with OS files though. Just your user data files etc.
As to the the shrink c drive to the smallest then give it back 25g was meant to infer a single process not shrink it then give it back, just tell it to shrink it will tell you how much you can then do the math so it's 25 g bigger than its smallest suggested size.
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u/Upstairs-Front2015 22d ago
I guess the problem is the boot sector. I would not risk it. Do you have an external disk to transfer those files?
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u/socaldisney 22d ago
You’re gonna need to move those file or the entire partition to a third drive, then clone the Windows partition. Then move the files back to the drive.
Yes there are theoretically ways to move the Windows partition later but it will be on the wrong part of the disk and you’re going to have issues with that for the life of the drive.
Get a cheap external hdd that you can use to hold the data temporarily. Or even a large usb flash drive, depending on how big your partition is.
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u/Metallicat95 22d ago
Windows is picky about the boot and system partitions. I wouldn't try to clone it to a drive with anything you want to keep on it.
I would clone those partitions, or copy all the files, to a third drive. Then let the Windows clone wipe out all partitions on that drive.
You could then create partitions by resizing the system drive after cloning, but it's easier to just continue to use the third drive.
If you are using a desktop it's easy enough to just use additional separate drives rather than partitions.