Free Cloning software

Does anybody know of a free cloning software to transfer a operating system from a old SSD to a new one?

nightowl17 said:

Does anybody know of a free cloning software to transfer a operating system from a old SSD to a new one?

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Go with open source software



I have heard good things about Clonezilla

I would recommend making system image (Macrium free or similar), and then restoring it to the new SSD.

Much safer IMO

I also prefer to restore an image rather than clone. I just did it using Marium when I purchased a larger SSD. A lot of people do clone though, so it's a matter of personal preference.
This is a good app that can clone.
Disk Genius Free

It depends on OS.
Windows 10/11, in my practice, any clone tools in market work. not much difference.
Windows 7, my present way is to disk-to-disk copy/clone. I have tried many partition copy/clone tools. so far no luck.

Use Macrium Reflect Free
Download Macrium Reflect FREE Edition - MajorGeeks

I always do these transfers by imaging rather than cloning all the OS system & data partitions from the old drive to a USB drive then restoring those to the new SSD drive.

nightowl17 said:

Does anybody know of a free cloning software to transfer a operating system from a old SSD to a new one?

Click to expand...

I'd use the stand alone version of GPARTED -- download iso (free) and create bootable usb stick via rufus etc.

Boot it up and just copy partitions (including the efi one if that is on the source drive) and paste to target drive. You can on the paste resize the target partition(s) too. No need to format / initialise disks. The only previso is if copying from a larger source to a smaller target drive the data must fit.

@siliconbeaver -- GPARTED works for any OS -- I've cloned / copied Linux systems as well as Windows - cloning a Linux system isn't so easy as with Windows since the UUID's of the partitions are the same as the source which means boot is random -- but GPARTED allows you to change the partition UUID's so by doing that and editing fstab (for mounted partitions at Linux boot) you've cloned your system.

I've found also altering the UUIDs on Windows good too if you get HDD conflict because the partition UUID's are the same -- be careful though because under certain circumstances altering the UUID in Windows might cause loss of activation -- never happened to me yet but I sometimes see warnings about changing Windows partition UUIDS.

cheers
jimbo

antspants said:

I have heard good things about Clonezilla

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I am using that program already for many, many years.
It's a bit complicated to use as all commands are in text on your screen.
And it's fully stand-alone, not usable in Windows, but after a system restart, starting from DVD or USB-stick.
But I am very much used to it and have put back images of my systemdrive several times, always with postive result.
Using it since my old Norton Ghost (that I long ago purchased) was not usable anymore, maybe somewhere around the introduction of Windows XP.

I certainly do beleave there are better or easier to use (free) programs, but as I'm used to this and as the images stored are made with this program, I'll stay using it.

@jimbo45
Thanks,
I was using Gparted for disk partition (some weird disks, like UBD, Ventoy, , , on their hidden partition). didn't know gparted works for partition copy.

For MR (Macrium Reflect), my experience is, it is unreliable (on Windows 7 image). often needed to re-work twice, if its first copy/clone NOT bootable. That's frustrated. it often costs much time to debug (F8, Safe Mode, , ,). Indeed a re-work could fix.

Windows 10/11. its image recovery ability is strong. hence most users don't experience the problem. Its image can be universal. to install anywhere requests a Windows OS.

I am using Rescuezilla, which is a graphic version of Clonezilla. It is able to clone a disk containing Windows and Linux. It is very simple to use.

Diskgenius free version is the most reliable I have come across. Use os migration and add any extra desired partitions.

video

siliconbeaver said:

@jimbo45
Thanks,
I was using Gparted for disk partition (some weird disks, like UBD, Ventoy, , , on their hidden partition). didn't know gparted works for partition copy.

For MR (Macrium Reflect), my experience is, it is unreliable (on Windows 7 image). often needed to re-work twice, if its first copy/clone NOT bootable. That's frustrated. it often costs much time to debug (F8, Safe Mode, , ,). Indeed a re-work could fix.

Windows 10/11. its image recovery ability is strong. hence most users don't experience the problem. Its image can be universal. to install anywhere requests a Windows OS.

Click to expand...

Hi,
I've never had any issues on 7 with the MR winpe media
It's a bit slower but it's accurate I used it a lot still do on 11 exclusively
But yeah I started using the winpe instead because some made in the os failed to verify after creation so I dumped that way.

I was going to look into disk genus and see if it's winpe was any faster.