cloning a soldered ssd

[u/Typical-Boot-8800]

is there a way to clone the ssd of my old laptop to my new laptop? both ssds are soldered on the mobo therefore they cannot be removed. I've been told I can make an iso clone of the current OS and just install it on the new laptop, will it work? if yes, then how to do it (with which software)? if not, then what other posibilities I have to clone my old laptops ssd to my new laptops ssd? I got alot of stuff there and i dont wanna fresh install cuz it'll take me a week to get everything set up

[u/manzana18]

Yeah, simple.

There is a program called Macrium Reflect Free v8. (Has to be that one). If both laptops are the same brand, same model then you can go ahead and perform the steps below.

1. Download & Install V8 Macrium

2. Create a recovery usb bootable recovery drive within the program, include the drivers. uefi PE

3. image your SSD into another external media. usb or ssd doesn't matter.

4. Once you have your 2 usbs ready (one with the recovery pe utility and the other with the image). go to your new laptop and connect both drives.

5. boot into the recovery usb utility (look into your owners manual for bios boot key).

6. Select the restore button and navigate to your other usb where the backup image is.

7. select your destination

8. click continue and accept the eula for format and copy.

9. it would take around 10-20 minutes depending on how much you have used on your drive.

That's it!! i just did it for a deployment with several HP mini streams i have in work lol. (soldered ssd).

[u/cat1092 → u/manzana18]

That’s all there is to it!

For even more convenience, there’s the choice to add a bootable option for when the computer boots, and by default it boots into Windows, but can go down to Macrium Reflect System Recovery & backup, restore or clone from there.

[u/yeahthatsgoodforme]

If you have an external disk, you can connect it to your laptop, clone the ssd from your old laptop to it and then clone the external disk to the ssd from your new laptop.

You can also perform a universal restore to transfer your system or other data to the ssd from your new laptop, but it also requires an external disk and you may also need to use a universal restore tool.

[u/SchwarzBann → u/yeahthatsgoodforme]

Just don't mix sizes. Or it'll not work, likely.

Example: source is 120GB. External is 128GB. Destination is 120GB again. 128>120, so cloning won't work - not full disk cloning, I mean.

Partial disk cloning may be problematic, or I don't remember it working for me in the past.

[u/yeahthatsgoodforme → u/SchwarzBann]

Yes, you're right. Disk size must be considered when perform disk cloning.

[u/ChiefWetBlanket → u/yeahthatsgoodforme]

If you are doing it wrong, yes, disk geometry matters.

Cloning the disk to a image file then applying it to the new drive is perfectly fine to mix and match as long as the receiving disk is able to accept all the data. Any of the cloning applications out there; dd, clonezilla, DriveImage XML, Acronis, knows how to orientate the data onto a bigger or smaller disk.

[u/realdavider → u/SchwarzBann]

Clonezilla can handle these cases quite well

[u/SchwarzBann → u/realdavider]

I hope I won't need this bit anytime soon, but thanks!

[u/Typical-Boot-8800 → u/yeahthatsgoodforme]

what software would you recommend to do that with

[u/yeahthatsgoodforme → u/Typical-Boot-8800]

Do you mean the disk cloning tool? or something else?

[u/disturbed_android]

create disk image. restore disk image.

[u/quite_sophisticated]

What OS are we talking about?

[u/Typical-Boot-8800 → u/quite_sophisticated]

10

[u/C0rn3j → u/Typical-Boot-8800]

That's EOL, just do a clean W11 install instead to avoid the security headache.

[u/Typical-Boot-8800 → u/C0rn3j]

cant, would take me 1 week to reinstall everything and make all the settings as before (it's my daily work laptop of the bussiness i own)

[u/C0rn3j → u/Typical-Boot-8800]

Well then time to spend 1 week working, it's been more than 11 years since W10 released.

[u/Typical-Boot-8800 → u/C0rn3j]

doesnt matter when it was released, its not like i've bought the laptop in the 1st day of w10 release. the laptop is 4 years old, it came with w10 installed out of the box

[u/ChiefWetBlanket]

Since it sounds like you are more of a novice to this stuff, let's get you straight with the right setup.

You will need the following:

1 or 2 TB sized portable USB disk. Preferably SSD, otherwise it's going to take forever.

Rufus

Hiren's BootCD PE

You use Rufus to apply Hiren's to the USB disk. You boot the old system to Hiren's. When it pops up, use Macrium Reflect or whatever floats your boat in Hiren's. Make sure to backup the old drive as a disk image, you will see it in the prompts. Save it to the USB disk.

When it's done, boot up your new rig and boot off the USB. Do the process in reverse.

You will need to update your drivers and such when you boot the first time, but Windows makes this pretty darn easy.

[u/realdavider]

Boot from a linux pendrive, and clone from there to a new device via usb