Resizing Hard-drive To Clone To 250gb Ssd

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by Stephen_c16, May 23, 2016.

  1. Stephen_c16

    Stephen_c16 Master Sergeant

    Greetings,
    I have been helping neighbour with their Lenovo-b50-80. It originally came with Windows 8.1 and I have upgraded it to Windows 10 and after a few hiccups is working perfectly.
    The next stage of upgrading this laptop is to clone the 500GB original drive to a 250GB Samsung SSD using Aomei Backupper Standard 3.2 and Aomei Partition Assistant 6.0

    When I go to Disk Management I find that the disk has 6 partitions. Most of which are probably linked to recovering the OS back to Win 8.1
    I would like to get rid of all unessential disk space and so I thought I would ask for your suggestions.
    At this moment all the files including Windows.old are located on the C: drive.
    Many thanks,
    s. diskmanagementmichael.jpg
     
  2. Stephen_c16

    Stephen_c16 Master Sergeant

    So I found https://support.lenovo.com/gb/en/documents/ht077144. Towards the end of the page is this image; lenovo.jpg
    Which is 2 partitions short of the Lenovo in #1. The 2 missing 1. Lenovo D: drive NTFS partition and 2. 1000MB partition.
    Maybe I should keep them all...
    s.
     
  3. mdonah

    mdonah Major Geek Extraordinaire

    If the source disk is larger than the SSD you're cloning it to, there may be a problem.

    If they're the same size, you can do a Disk Clone with AOMEI Backupper choosing to align all partitions for SSD.

    It's what I did with 2 computers and they're both running SSDs now (I'm lovin' it!).
     
  4. Stephen_c16

    Stephen_c16 Master Sergeant

    Interesting...
    I still have a couple of weeks to sort out the procedure but I'm still thinking of resizing the two NTFS partitions so that the accumulated size of all the partitions is slightly less than what's available on the new SSD. - Having made a backup of the drive before I start messing.
    The plan would be to make a direct clone. Hopefully the unallocated disk space would not be transferred and the SSD good to go.
    I think I will suggest a 500GB drive but the 250GB's are very well priced.

    Thanks for the responses,
    s.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 24, 2016
  5. mdonah

    mdonah Major Geek Extraordinaire

    I bought a 500GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD for $138US for my one laptop.

    For the other, I resized and moved the partitions (with AOMEI Partition Assistant) on the 2TB HDD that came with the laptop so that they only occupied 1TB and did a Disk Clone (with AOMEI Backupper) to a 1TB Samsung 850 EVO SSD ($279US). The unallocated 1TB was not copied. AOMEI Backupper defaults to Smart Sector copy.
     
  6. Stephen_c16

    Stephen_c16 Master Sergeant

    Thank you,
    s.
     
  7. mdonah

    mdonah Major Geek Extraordinaire

    Take into consideration how the SSD is initialized. If the source drive is a GPT drive, the SSD will have to be initialized GPT as well. You can't clone a GPT disk to an MBR disk.

    Also, any System Reserved or Recovery partitions cannot be resized. If you make the Recovery CD/DVD, the Recovery partition can be deleted afterward.
     
  8. Stephen_c16

    Stephen_c16 Master Sergeant

    This is really what I want to hear about. My experience rests on creating a cloned MBR disk. This is one reason I am pushing my neighbour to purchase a Samsung SSD. Samsung SSD Magician 4.9.7 and Samsung Data Migration 3.0 look very useful and will hopefully help me through the cloning of the GPT disk.
    Apologies mdonah but I don't fully understand... I'm not sure how useful the recovery partitions will be because they were all created back in the Windows 8.1 OS. I am a little confused on procedure.
    Many thanks,
    s.
     
  9. mdonah

    mdonah Major Geek Extraordinaire

    When first purchased new, the SSD will not be initialized. You need to initialize it in Disk Management before you can use it. Go into Disk Management, right click on Disk 0 and select Properties. Then click on the Volumes tab and it will tell you how your source disk is initialized (either MBR or GPT) [see att'd]. However the source disk is initialized, the SSD will have to be initialized the same way.

    Duh! I just read back through the thread and saw that Disk 0 has 6 partitions so, that tells me that Disk 0 is initialized GPT. The SSD will need to be initialized GPT as well.

    Could you please post a screenshot of Disk Management for Disk 0 so I can better determine which partitions can be deleted (if any) and tell you which partition(s) can be resized?
     

    Attached Files:

  10. Stephen_c16

    Stephen_c16 Master Sergeant

    Thank you for your patience. Luckily I have a few days to sort out the sequence as the SSD has yet to be bought.
    I have uploaded the file - cut and pasted the relevant info so that you can read it.
    Thanks again for steering me in the right direction,
    s. diskmanagetop.jpg
     
  11. mdonah

    mdonah Major Geek Extraordinaire

    Sorry it took so long to get back to you. I had things to do here at my house that couldn't wait.

    The screenshot is rather confusing because it appears to show 7 partitions. But with what's listed, I'm concerned that the computer won't work if you delete ANY of the partitions.

    The only partition you can resize is the one labelled Windows 10. Then you can slide any partitions to the right of the Windows 10 partition all the way to the left so there's no unallocated space between the partitions.

    Restart the computer after EACH partitioning operation to make sure the computer still works.

    When done, there should be 232.88GB of unallocated space at the end (right side). You'll be cloning the same amount to the SSD (250GB actually equals 232.88GB).
     
  12. Stephen_c16

    Stephen_c16 Master Sergeant

    Thank you mdonah for getting back to me. There is no real hurry here. Just happy that you have found the time to answer.
    Give that
    Please note my insertion.
    I was hoping I could empty the LENOVO (D:/) drive. It is a NTFS drive and so you can open it from 'This Computer'. It currently holds 1,6GB of files. Placed there when the laptop was waken by Lenovo and win 8.1.

    you mention 7 partitions...
    The lower 3 on the image were cut from the original image. The C: drive is pictured twice. Apologies for not explaining.

    I will certainly make disk copy backups before I change things.
    Kind regards,
    s.
     
    Last edited: May 26, 2016
  13. mdonah

    mdonah Major Geek Extraordinaire

    Perhaps you could delete the Lenovo partition but, what if your friend doesn't like Windows 10? You'd need to roll back to Win 8.1 and despite what people say about "bloatware", I've found that the information in my Dell partition was helpful (at least on one occasion).

    Off topic though, I run 8.1 Core and Pro, Win 10 Pro and the Win 10 Insider preview on my Dell Inspiron 15-5555. I like some of the changes coming down the pipeline in Win 10. But, that's another discussion.
     
  14. Stephen_c16

    Stephen_c16 Master Sergeant

    Good day M, I think that Windows 10 will sort him. I'm a little reluctant to roll back to 8.1 most especially due to the laptop wouldn't start after the last update. In an endless loop of starting and restarting. I took it back to a working restore point and then suggested Windows 10.
    I think that you get 30 days to roll back if you need to. My neighbour is happy to wait before he moves to a SSD. This should mean that the Windows.old folder will be deleted by the OS.
    I am happy with 10pro. That said I do remember MSDOS3.11. My IBM-compatible had a massive 40MB disk drive...
    My neigbour just wants a machine that will work.
    Best wishes,
    s.
     

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