"Simple" move O/S from one SSD to another with Easeus Todo Backup

GracieAllen · Dec 16, 2023

Yup, seems like it should be trivial, but, as usual, it's turning into a PITA.

Windows 11 Pro, ordinary laptop.

Put the new SSD in the system that I want to put the O/S on. Initialized it. Didn't put any partitions on it.

Used the 2023 version of Todo Backup free to make a system backup onto a spare drive.

Pressed Browse to Restore - just like the instructions say.

Selected the system backup from the drive where it's sitting - just like the instructions say.

Instructions say "Choose the recovery location". I have NO OPTIONS for "choosing" anything other than the original drive I'm trying to get it OFF of. New drive is there, initialized, but the only thing Todo Backup shows is the EXISTING system drive which is where I DON'T want the new installation.

Ghot · Dec 16, 2023

GracieAllen said:
Windows 11 Pro, ordinary laptop.

Here's the PDF user guide for EaseUS Todo Backup...

https://www.easeus.com/support/download/docs/pdf/Todo_Backup_V11.5_Home_online_help_2018081601.pdf

Page 49 has the instructions for System Clone.

GracieAllen · Dec 16, 2023

I don't think there's a System Clone in the "free" version.

It's supposed to be able to restore a system backup to a new location. Thus the "Browse to Recover". And since the system is bootable, I shouldn't need the Emergency disk. At least not in the instructions I've found in online Easeus information.

starchase · Dec 16, 2023

The instructions from the post above say, in basic terms, select the drive you want to clone and then select the drive where the clone is to go. There's nothing about making a system image, and then use that image to clone to the new drive. At least that's the way I'm reading your post. Right?
Are you using the free version or paid?
Edit. You're right, no clone w/ free, but as you made a system image you should be able to copy that image to a new drive. That's the way I've always done it, never with cloning. Something is amiss w/ EASUS.
John

Ghot · Dec 16, 2023

GracieAllen said:
I don't think there's a System Clone in the "free" version.

You're right.
If the new SSD is the same size or bigger than the current one... do a "Disk Backup", and restore it to the new SSD.

Although you should be able to do that with a System backup as well.

The advantage to a Disk backup is that once you have everything on the new SSD... you can format the old SSD, and move the storage type stuff, back over to the old SSD in an orderly fashion.

Wynona · Dec 16, 2023

Ghot said:
You're right.
If the new SSD is the same size or bigger than the current one... do a "Disk Backup", and restore it to the new SSD.

Although you should be able to do that with a System backup as well.

The advantage to a Disk backup is that once you have everything on the new SSD... you can format the old SSD, and move the storage type stuff, back over to the old SSD in an orderly fashion.

I think she's working with two systems, Ghot. At least that's the way I read her OP.

Scott · Dec 16, 2023

GracieAllen said:
New drive is there, initialized

You may need to go a step further, create simple volume/format the drive.

monkeylove · Dec 17, 2023

Please see if the free versions of Hasleo and Macrium can clone the system.

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jimbo45 · Dec 17, 2023

I'm going to stick my neck out here - but assuming you have a new disk same capacity or bigger the easiest way bar none (IMO) is to boot ANY live linux distro and simply type : dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb bs=2048M status=progress.

Then the whole disk is copied in its entirety -- you don't need to create partitions, file systems or anything.

If the target disk has a bigger capacity than the source disk you can also re-arrange the partition(s) via gparted or any partition manager too. You can also change the GUUIDS f the partition(s) so at boot Windows can choose which disk to boot from the normal boot menu.

Cheers
jimbo

z3r010 · Dec 17, 2023

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Fabler2 · Dec 17, 2023

I would make sure the disk is initialised as GPT and you might as well format it to NTFS.

POLYSIUS · Dec 17, 2023

Windows 11 Pro, ordinary laptop.
Means to have a single disk. (1)

That means that your mission is impossible without USB-Emergency/Recovery-Disk
Never initialize the target disk!

Once more: Never initialize the target disk!

cereberus · Dec 17, 2023

POLYSIUS said:
Windows 11 Pro, ordinary laptop.
Means to have a single disk. (1)

That means that your mission is impossible without USB-Emergency/Recovery-Disk
Never initialize the target disk!

Once more: Never initialize the target disk!

wtf are you talking about.

GracieAllen · Dec 17, 2023

Yes, it's the free version. No, I'm NOT dealing with 2 systems. It's a new SSD in the existing laptop.

I"m not at the point where I'm going to start messing with EITHER Hasleo or Macrium. And I'm definitely not booting up Linux anything. If it gets to THAT point, I'll leave the O/S on the current, very small SSD and move everything else off there and just have the system on there.

I'm HOPING to put the most demanding things on the newer Gen 4 SSD (O/S, Lightroom catalogs, cache and so on), but so far, given the bother it's turning into, I may just hold off.

I initialized the new 1TB drive as gpt and put a simple partition on it of a size larger than what the System is currently using.

A question about Windows 11 Pro and partitions... There are typically anywhere from 1 to at least 4 partitions involved in the O/S. On this laptop, there are currently partitions named:
*:ESP (FAT32 680MB - EFI partition)
*: one with NO name that's 128 MB - this just says "Reserved Partition"
*.OS which is the 110GB partition with all the stuff on it.
*: Another one with no name that's NTFS and 805MB that says it's a recovery partition
*:WINRETOOLS that's 990 MB - another data partition - I found a reference and a lot of blather, among it that this partition is for booting (maybe) and that "BitLocker requires the recovery key in the WINRETOOLS drive every boot". In any case, it DIDN'T get backed up.

The system backup ONLY backed up the OS partition and the ESP partitions. It ignored the other 3.

Just out of curiosity, if I intialize the new drive and create a single partition that uses the whole drive, then restore the O/S, HOW is the restore going to find a place to put the ESP (EFI) partition? And WHY would I need to huge partition I'll just have to shrink to the actual size I want for the O/S?

I'll continue playing and see if I can get it to work.

cereberus · Dec 17, 2023

GracieAllen said:
Yes, it's the free version. No, I'm NOT dealing with 2 systems. It's a new SSD in the existing laptop.

I"m not at the point where I'm going to start messing with EITHER Hasleo or Macrium. And I'm definitely not booting up Linux anything. If it gets to THAT point, I'll leave the O/S on the current, very small SSD and move everything else off there and just have the system on there.

I'm HOPING to put the most demanding things on the newer Gen 4 SSD (O/S, Lightroom catalogs, cache and so on), but so far, given the bother it's turning into, I may just hold off.

I initialized the new 1TB drive as gpt and put a simple partition on it of a size larger than what the System is currently using.

A question about Windows 11 Pro and partitions... There are typically anywhere from 1 to at least 4 partitions involved in the O/S. On this laptop, there are currently partitions named:
*:ESP (FAT32 680MB - EFI partition)
*: one with NO name that's 128 MB - this just says "Reserved Partition"
*.OS which is the 110GB partition with all the stuff on it.
*: Another one with no name that's NTFS and 805MB that says it's a recovery partition
*:WINRETOOLS that's 990 MB - another data partition - I found a reference and a lot of blather, among it that this partition is for booting (maybe) and that "BitLocker requires the recovery key in the WINRETOOLS drive every boot". In any case, it DIDN'T get backed up.

The system backup ONLY backed up the OS partition and the ESP partitions. It ignored the other 3.

Just out of curiosity, if I intialize the new drive and create a single partition that uses the whole drive, then restore the O/S, HOW is the restore going to find a place to put the ESP (EFI) partition? And WHY would I need to huge partition I'll just have to shrink to the actual size I want for the O/S?

I'll continue playing and see if I can get it to work.

You are totally over thinking this. Just clone small drive to large drive (or restore image backup) using Macrium Reflect or Hasleo Backup suite and it will sort rest out for you. It does not matter how you create partitions - cloning tools will do it all for you.

If there is any space left over, easy to sort out with tools like minitool partition wizard.

Wynona · Dec 17, 2023

Wynona said:
I think she's working with two systems, Ghot. At least that's the way I read her OP.

I stand corrected! I seem to have misread what she's trying to do.

glasskuter · Dec 17, 2023

I ain't gonna address anything already said in this heated discussion. We all do things our own way so if something works for you it's fine by me.
I'll just state plain and simple what worked for me hoping it might benefit someone reading this.

Imaged my original 256 gb m.2 boot drive,
swapped that drive with an out of box 1 tb m.2.
Booted from my Macrium recovery media, selected restore and chose my image>view unsupported Devices,
Selected a device from the list, clicked locate driver, browse, and pointed it to my nvme driver I had saved.
Macrium loaded the driver and new disk was recognized,
I told Macrium how I wanted new partitions to be resized and that's it.
No initialization, no manual partitioning. Just a restore. Macrium did it all.

GracieAllen · Dec 17, 2023

Yeah, that's pretty much what I thought was going to happen too... Thus, "simple"... And, if I could get the backup software to let me pick the drive to restore to, I'd be done already. But so far, all I can select is the drive I just backed up.

I"ll keep trying things, and if it doesn't work, I"ll just leave the O/S on the current drive.

Ghot · Dec 17, 2023

GracieAllen said:
Yeah, that's pretty much what I thought was going to happen too... Thus, "simple"... And, if I could get the backup software to let me pick the drive to restore to, I'd be done already. But so far, all I can select is the drive I just backed up.

I"ll keep trying things, and if it doesn't work, I"ll just leave the O/S on the current drive.

Are you using EaseUS bootable media to do the restore to the new SSD?
The reason I ask is this...

It may work a lot easier for you, if you try it this way...

1. Make the EaseUS Todo bootable media. That's the EaseUS program on a bootable USB stick.
1a. It's under Tools > Create Emergency Disk
2. Make the new SSD... GPT and format it as Primary, NTFS, default cluster size.
3. Take the old SSD out of the computer.
4. Boot from the EaseUS bootable USB stick.
5. Browse to your backup, and tell EaseUS to restore.
6. It will only "see" the new SSD, so you shouldn't have the problem you are having.

monkeylove · Dec 17, 2023

I forgot to add that rather than move the O/S, you can clone it. Connect the second SSD to the system either internally or through a drive enclosure, then try either the free version of Hasleo or Macrium: