Easiest way to clone or transfer to a new computer

spapakons · Saturday at 3:52 AM

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.

I did exactly the same. Dual boot XP and Vista while familiarise with Vista and slowly transition. Then upgrade Vista to 7. Dual boot 7 and 8.0 Then upgrade 8.0 to 8.1 Upgrade 8.1 to 10. Dual boot 10 and 11.

spapakons · Saturday at 4:06 AM

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.

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 Technology 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, or switch from IRST to plain good AHCI.

PS: I found these instructions to inject drivers: Inject drivers in Windows installation after motherboard change

Scannerman · Saturday at 5:01 AM

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.

I appreciate the recap. I went through about three quarters of the thread and almost deferred to not commenting. Intel has made IRST a real pain as of late in the name of propriety (strike 1). Then they dropped Optane and flipped the line over to SK Hynix (Solidigm) (strike 2) and left users in a lurch with TBMT regardless of whether their CPUs were "Windows Ready" or not. So much more could be said of Intel CPUs, such as their recent 13th and 14th gen lines, but I spare the reader in the knowledge that AMD is not without issues either.

Soft raid is fun to play with but it has been my experience that if data is of a more valuable and sensitive nature I'm better off using hard raid, or an HBA option. Win 11 will work with Optane drivers but I have no idea how well older operating systems will work on the latest hardware using older drivers. My newest system board is AMD and around 7 years old.

My understanding is that the OP is referring to a laptop. In that regard I would opt for a clean installation and I would avoid using IRST altogether. I'm from that time when mammoths roamed the earth and laptops were used as a mobile convenience while desk tops served as the central storage stations. The idea of IRST on a laptop just makes me shake my head. But hey, that's just me.

spapakons · Saturday at 5:21 AM

Funny fact: The first "portable" computers were a huge suitcase almost the size of modern tower and weighted more than a modern tower.

jimbo45 · Saturday at 6:27 AM

spapakons said:
Funny fact: The first "portable" computers were a huge suitcase almost the size of modern tower and weighted more than a modern tower.

Remember the Toshiba "Luggable" which was a monochrome computer with an orange screen !!!

It did run both OS/2 and Windows though.
Cheers
jimbo

cereberus · Saturday at 6:45 AM

jimbo45 said:
Remember the Toshiba "Luggable" which was a monochrome computer with an orange screen !!!

It did run both OS/2 and Windows though.
Cheers
jimbo

I once had the original compaq portable (size of a suitcase). It weighed a ton.
I think this was the 1st commercial portable.

I was at Toronto airport and at top of a very high escalator. Imagine my horror when I dropped it and it tumbled all the way to the bottom.

However, aprt from a couple of scratches, it survived.

In the video selling these, the guy in video lifted one over his head and dropped it to show how robust they were.

You needed a sledgehammer to break one of these.

Scannerman · Saturday at 7:17 AM

spapakons said:
Funny fact: The first "portable" computers were a huge suitcase almost the size of modern tower and weighted more than a modern tower.

I'm a Jones' Boomer (gen 2) so the dinos were already dead by the time I got into PCs. My first desktop PC with Windows was a Sony VAIO.

Before that I used a Tandy and a Commodore 64. The Sony hasn't made it to the museum yet but it probably won't be long before it does.

Steve's Computer Collection

The museum of old, rare, vintage, antique computers

oldcomputers.net

gunrunnerjohn · Saturday at 10:20 AM

cereberus said:
I once had the original compaq portable (size of a suitcase). It weighed a ton.
I think this was the 1st commercial portable.

The Compaq portable was my first "laptop". I remember that it cost half the price of a new car at the time! No, I never used it in my lap. It did take a lot of airplane trips with me.

spapakons · Saturday at 10:43 AM

These luggage computers would never fit in the hand bag frame in order to take them with you in the airplane. You would have to risk putting them in the luggage area. They also require AC power, they had no battery, so they were not truly portable.

gunrunnerjohn · Saturday at 10:59 AM

spapakons said:
These luggage computers would never fit in the hand bag frame in order to take them with you in the airplane. You would have to risk putting them in the luggage area. They also require AC power, they had no battery, so they were not truly portable.

Yep, and I'm sure that's why Compaq made them close to bulletproof. Over the roughly four years I traveled with it, it went on several dozen trips to the midwest and West Coast and survived them all.

SIW2 · Saturday at 11:12 AM

If the issue is missing vmd drivers 11/12/13/14 gen intel cpu:

Disable vmd in bios if possible.

Or add drivers . For people who dont want to mess around with commands, dism++ or winntsetup are handy gui method for adding drivers from another os or winpe.

Scannerman · Saturday at 2:22 PM

My workstation will second as a 'laptop' but 80lbs in my lap is a little uncomfortable.

Scott · Saturday at 3:02 PM

1974darrenh said:
Anyway, I used PC MOVER and it's done a fantastic job. My new laptop is now up and running and I don't have to worry about BIOS issues etc. All my files are there and I didn't have to install any programs.

Nice! Could you please mark this thread as resolved.

oldschool · Saturday at 6:43 PM

Flipmode said:
Yes, too true. I feel so many users don't understand it is incredibly beneficial starting fresh every 2-3 years.

A clean installation was the solution I came to as I started reading this thread. As someone with low-level technical skills, and one who has successfully cloned different drives on the same machine, I immediately saw that cloning or somehow getting from one dissimilar machine to another would be opening a can of worms for someone like myself. I'm old school and would have simply bitten the bullet and clean installed according to my skill level.

Having said that, this thread wasn't a total waste for me.

spapakons · Sunday at 4:43 AM

Speaking of dissimilar hardware, the clone would have boot successfully if the laptop had an ordinary SATA or M.2 disk set to AHCI. The BSOD is because of totally different storage controller requiring IRST drivers Windows cannot find. The solution is to make the driver available to Windows either by copying the files in a folder such as Windows\System32 and Windows\INF or using a tool to install them offline (without Windows running).

gunrunnerjohn · Sunday at 11:25 AM

I've moved Windows to dissimilar hardware using Acronis Universal Restore. I didn't have the issue of non-standard disk drivers, that would probably complicate things. You can add drivers before the restore, but I've never had to do that.

spapakons · Sunday at 12:08 PM

I tried to install IRST on my PC out of curiosity, but the installer displays a warning "no suitable hardware found" and quits. If it would install without checking, the OP could install the driver before cloning. Now he needs to find a way to inject the driver after cloning.

PS: I thought of a rather crazy workaround. He can convert Windows in the old laptop to Windows-to-Go (modifying a specific Registry key), so it can boot from USB. Unfortunately I don't know what it is, but it's not hard to find out. Just Google. Then connect the disk to a USB to SATA adapter or USB to 2.5" SATA enclosure on the new laptop. Upon boot press F9 to see the boot menu. Select to boot from the OLD disk. There should not be any BSOD since Windows should have the storage controller drivers built-in. Then you install IRST which should not quit because the hardware is present! Now clone the old disk to the NVMe and boot it. Success! Finally convert Windows back from Windows-to-Go to standard version and you are OK. If you leave it Windows-to-Go you won't be able to upgrade to 25H2.

PS2:
To enable Windows To Go startup options using the registry, you'll need to modify the PortableOperatingSystem registry value. This setting determines whether the computer will attempt to boot from a Windows To Go workspace when a USB drive containing one is connected and the computer is started.

Here's how to do it:

1. Open Registry Editor:

Press the Windows key + R, type regedit, and press Enter.

2. Navigate to the relevant registry key:

Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control.

3. Modify the PortableOperatingSystem value:

Locate the PortableOperatingSystem value in the right pane.
If the value is set to 1, Windows To Go startup is enabled. If it's 0, it's disabled.
If the value doesn't exist, right-click in the right pane, select "New" > "DWORD (32-bit) Value", name it PortableOperatingSystem, and set its value to 1.

4. Save Changes:

Close Registry Editor.

5. Restart the computer:

For the changes to take effect, restart your computer.

To disable Windows-to-Go set the value to 0 or delete the key.

Flipmode · Wednesday at 1:30 PM

Glad you got it solved mate! May I suggest you try one of the other s/w solutions I suggested? Or look at their screenshots?
I have not tried using Veeam Agent for restoring to a new partition and seeing if it inserts an entry into the boot BCD, or whether it hijacks the restored partition and marks it as active..?

Honestly, these suites are idiot-proof. However, the comments and advice in this topic is overly complicated and unnecessary. The fact you've had to start fresh just proves this! OP needed a user-friendly solution as they indicated their limited knowledge.
Anyway... I'm middle-age and empathise.

oldschool said:
A clean installation was the solution I came to as I started reading this thread. As someone with low-level technical skills, and one who has successfully cloned different drives on the same machine, I immediately saw that cloning or somehow getting from one dissimilar machine to another would be opening a can of worms for someone like myself. I'm old school and would have simply bitten the bullet and clean installed according to my skill level.

Yes exactly. They're step-by-step wizards. Acronis UR is great. But I no longer recommend them due to their $$$ licencing. But, using their Boot CD is Free!

Yes, Paragon, Veeam, Macrium, Terabyte, etc all allow drivers to be added. Even cheaper/budget crappy software like Easeus!

gunrunnerjohn said:
I've moved Windows to dissimilar hardware using Acronis Universal Restore. I didn't have the issue of non-standard disk drivers, that would probably complicate things. You can add drivers before the restore, but I've never had to do that.

Yes, I mentioned this approach with P2V and V2P. Very simple tools. But my advice was ignored. Paragon, Veeam, Macrium, Terabyte, etc all cater for this.
Great "USB Imaging Tool" you can check out. Freeware.

spapakons said:
Then connect the disk to a USB to SATA adapter or USB to 2.5" SATA enclosure on the new laptop. Upon boot press F9 to see the boot menu. Select to boot from the OLD disk. There should not be any BSOD since Windows should have the storage controller drivers built-in. Then you install IRST which should not quit because the hardware is present! Now clone the old disk to the NVMe and boot it. Success! Finally convert Windows back from Windows-to-Go to standard version and you are OK. If you leave it Windows-to-Go you won't be able to upgrade to 25H2.

I am surprised no one has suggested using Ventoy to build a USB boot disk with the drivers they require? Ventoy supports GPT partitions. Has anyone tried Ventoy with Macrium boot?

spapakons · Wednesday at 2:01 PM

Ventoy simply allows you to boot two or more ISOs from the same USB. I don't see how it would help the OP. The clone could boot, but then Windows tried to install drivers for the new hardware and could not find the storage controller drivers (Intel Rapid Storage Technology aka IRST) and hence the BSOD. The solution is to inject the driver, see suggestions in earlier posts.

Flipmode · Wednesday at 3:22 PM

spapakons said:
Funny fact: The first "portable" computers were a huge suitcase almost the size of modern tower and weighted more than a modern tower.

OMG... memories! My dad brought home a Compaq "Luggable" w/ black and orange screen. Keyboard unclipped from the front and the screen had a Z-like hinge to raise up.
I used to play Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry (land of the lounge lizards), Jill of the Jungle... so many others....

I remember my favourite game after that was Airbourne on a mac dad brought home, where you were in a bunker shooting helicopters, men parachuting, a mortar to get men on the ground, and the occasional quiet moment an aircraft would come flying in and bomb you!

jimbo45 said:
Remember the Toshiba "Luggable" which was a monochrome computer with an orange screen !!!

It did run both OS/2 and Windows though.
Cheers
jimbo

Glad to see you're from my era! I just said the same above. Had the biiig heavy keyboard that unclipped at the front, and the screen that popped up. Floppy on the side. Wow, what a classic. Would be worth a fortune if I held on to all that stuff from the 80's! 086 from memory? The next computer was an IBM 286 with green and white screen....

cereberus said:
I once had the original compaq portable (size of a suitcase). It weighed a ton.
I think this was the 1st commercial portable.

I was at Toronto airport and at top of a very high escalator. Imagine my horror when I dropped it and it tumbled all the way to the bottom.

However, aprt from a couple of scratches, it survived.

In the video selling these, the guy in video lifted one over his head and dropped it to show how robust they were.

You needed a sledgehammer to break one of these.

Size of 4 suitcases! We had to save regularly - get up to a new area of Leisure Suit Larry and then F7 or something to save. Same with Space Quest and Kings Quest (I think that was later)...
So glad to see others experienced these classic 20MB "luggables"

spapakons said:
Ventoy simply allows you to boot two or more ISOs from the same USB. I don't see how it would help the OP.

It would allow the user with limited knowledge and experience to: a) import the drivers into the ISO (see 3x freeware apps I linked to before, Dev of one is even in this topic!!), b) shift the ISO onto the USB drive, then c) boot from it, and d) load drivers on the USB while attempting to restore, if the restore software did not support the storage controller stuck in VMD mode. Full-proof!
I think you need to play with Ventoy more, and see the power it offers you when combined with WIM Tools (or BOOTICE (UI and CMD line) or DISM GUI if you need a Windows UI). Give it a go mate!

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