Easiest way to clone or transfer to a new computer

Scannerman said:

I have broached this subject many times and I am somewhat reluctant to reply to it as my approach isn't exactly standard or even popular. I clone and I clone often. I like my options. Whenever a a new Windows OS arrives on the scene I keep my old OS and simply opt for dual or multi-boot. This means that I have the best of both worlds. Over time I transition those apps and programs that I am fond of to the new OS. I keep clones of every OS I use. SSDs today are relatively inexpensive so it won't break my budget to do this. A person can spend an equal amount of hours trying to coax an older operating system to work on newer hardware so why not opt for the best of both worlds by having a fresh installation of the latest OS handy? This will allow the user to tweak away on the old operating system at their leisure while having a current OS to boot to when it is needed and they don't have time to fiddle.

Backups fail. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be made. Clones, when made properly, will almost always boot up. Fresh installations are not without issues. Where does that leave me? Well, I must look at my options. Make clones, keep a fresh installation handy, make a generous number of restore points, and backup my data once a week. This is a system that works for me. I also have a large designated storage that I call my archives that I copy my desktop to once a week. I simply over write the duplicate files. I'm not saying that everyone should do what I do but perhaps it will give others some ideas about how they want to back up their data. My archives are in RAID 1 so that even if a drive physically fails I still have one working copy.

Different users have different needs and again, user preference prevails. IMO simply relying on a backup to preserve your data is a recipe for failure. Cloning provides a viable alternative in the event of a failed backup. Even if the clone is old in most cases personal files can be easily extracted from the drive with the failed OS and copied to the clone when your PC has more than one operating system.

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SIW2 said:

Depending on how you did the clone it might something as simple as changing the bcd entries and/or the os letter alias. Not all cloning programs will adjust appropriately.

clone\copy\migrate\whatever you want to call it can be done in numerous ways

In ye olden days when dinosaurs strode clone used to mean an exact copy. Which meant the source disk had to be detached before attempting to boot from the cloned disk. Otherwise, windows will change the sig of the second disk to be brought online with obvious consequences. More recently the "cloning" program will correct the "clone" so that isn't a problem. Some programs are not very good at it. Always use the best tool for the job.

Drive letters are to make it easier for you. Windows is really looking not for c:\something .exe. It is looking for longseriesofnumbers\something.exe

longseriesofnumbers is the disk and partition id. If the disk or partition changes there are consequences unless you make the necessary adjustments.

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spapakons said:

For the fellows that didn't read all the posts, the clone is fine, but the new disk is NVMe and Windows are missing the Intel Rapid Storage drivers (IRST) to properly detect it, hence the BSOD "Inaccessible Boot Device". Clean installation did work but the whole point is to avoid it if possible. So for the clone to work he needs a way to inject the IRST drivers in the clone.

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