SSD, NVMe, HDD: Can I clone operating system partitions back and forth [with Clonezilla or GParted]? What do I need to pay attention for?
The background is: I have two almost identical laptops. One is an SSD with an operating system - Win 8.1.
On the other - just bought used - is a Win 10 Pro on an NVMe PCI SSD.
I would like to clone Win 8.1 - my current and favorite OS - onto the NVMe SSD and, in the best case, use this new system hard drive.
But I also want to preserve Win 10 in case I want to restore everything. Or if I want to resell one of the computers with the Win 10. Etc. Pp.
So ultimately the question: Can I just clone the partitions back and forth? So the Win 10 from the NVMe to an HDD?
Then the Win 8.1 from SSD to NVMe?
And later, if necessary, the Win 10 from HDD back to NVMe?
Or would there be problems here due to the different architectures?
I hope it's clear what I'm getting at. With thanks and best regards
What to watch out for - first of all the most important things:
Especially when it comes to such operations.
When cloning, you should make sure to clone the entire disk and not just the system partition.
Apart from that, there should be enough storage space on the target disk.
For such purposes I use Acronis True Image.
I don't know the functionality of Gparted or Clonezilla.
Therefore, I can't promise you 100% whether it will work.
Once again clearly stated: Make backups of the system data carriers - no matter what you do - always do it promptly and regularly. In case of doubt, this saves a lot of work and saves data.
But: As long as you can make 1: 1 images of the complete data carrier, the answer should be "Yes", otherwise the software is not suitable as a cloner or backup imager.
So to make it clear: This is not about the backup issue. This is solved differently for me.
The point here is to temporarily move the contents of system disks back and forth.
Basically, I asked the question because I remembered something from before. Namely: If I'm not completely mistaken, it used to be said that when cloning from HDD to SSD you have to pay attention to the fact that. Well how should I say. The corresponding program also writes the data correctly on the SSD. That the data are correctly assigned during the sector division or something like that.
So my question aims to make me want to know:
If, for example, I drag the Win 10 from the NVMe to an HDD - which will probably work without any problems - and then want to bring it back later: Is it that easy? [Presumably it depends on the program?!]
I'll try to find out something by doing my own research. But I had not yet succeeded in doing that.
Your question has been answered.
Perhaps I have now found the keyword I was looking for. I think it was alignment.
Just found:
"Alignment" is about aligning the "beginning" of a partition on an SSD so that the first logical sector of the first partition exactly matches a physical memory cell (page) on the SSD. "
and later in the text
"And even if you have saved a Vista or 7 installation using imaging software (eg Acronis TrueImage) and then play it back, the alignment is mostly lost because the imaging software in the current versions apparently does not yet take the correct alignment into account. "
But the text is from 2010. So this is outdated information, I'm sure.
Or you take the Windows 10 key and then completely reinstall Windows 10 using the USB tool and then enter the key to activate. You should know whether it is the Pro or Home version.
