Migrate to a new drive

1 PARTITION OLD DRIVE

Desktop users planning to migrate Windows and apps to a SSD drive while leaving their data behind should first use MiniTool Partition Wizard Free (www.partitionwizard.com): choose ‘Split Partition’ and drag the slider as far left as it can go. Click OK followed by Apply. Reboot when prompted.

2 MOVE DATA TO NEW PARTITION

Once complete, follow the guide on the previous spread on moving data to your new drive, using your newly created partition as the target. Next, download and install Macrium Reflect Free from www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx if you’ve not already done so.

3 SELECT PARTITIONS TO CLONE

Launch Macrium. Select your Windows drive and click ‘Clone this disk…’ Make sure only those partitions you need will be copied across: System Reserved, your actual Windows partition and any hidden partitions at the end of the drive. Untick any others, then click ‘Select a disk to clone to…

4 SET TARGET DISK

Select your new SSD drive – the one with no partitions assigned. Drag each partition across – you will need to click ‘Cloned Partition Properties’ to resize your main partition after dragging it across. Set ‘Free Space’ to match (in MB) the last partition’s size, click OK and drag the final partition into place.

5 WAIT AS DRIVE IS CLONED

Click Finish. Untick ‘Save backup and schedules as an XML Backup Definition File’ and click OK to perform the cloning operation. Each partition is copied in turn, a quick file check is performed and then the actual cloning process will take place. Be patient – this may take some time.

6 FIT NEW SSD DRIVE

Shut down your PC. Laptop users should swap out the current hard drive for their new SSD drive; desktop users will need to reboot and make sure the new SSD drive is the primary boot device in the UEFI/BIOS settings. If all is well, Windows should boot – and much quicker than before.