As promised - The Dance of Death! Cloning The C: Drive

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As promised - The Dance of Death! Cloning The C: Drive

Postby OldAirmail » Sat Jul 08, 2017 5:03 pm

Here's the deal - Having at least two drives, of ANY kind, can improve your flight sim.

That's assuming that you put your sim on the second drive.


THIS IS EASY, BUT NOT DEFINITIVE

Nothing that I can say or write will keep everybody from making a mistake. But take it slowly and it should all work out.

Having said that - There are some people who, no matter how smart they are, just aren't mechanical. Those people should let others do it for them.




Why add another drive?

Other considerations aside, your C: drive holds the operating system and it's always reading or writing data. It's a busy bee. :doh:

Modern systems with multithreading CPUs can access two or more drives at the same time.
So if the C: drive is busy managing everything, a second drive can transfer flight sim data as needed without waiting for the C: drive. The CPU and RAM will get the data sooner

So two drives are better.


A problem

EVERY company thinks that the whole reason that you bought a computer is to run THEIR program.

Some will give you absolutely NO option as to where to put their program. :evil:

So even if you have a nice big second hard drive, they'll insist on putting their program on your smaller SSD.

For a long while I was able to install most of my programs on a 2TB hard drive. But eventually the C: drive fills up. :(

But that's all background.



Cloning an old C: drive

Just about every drive maker offers cloning software on their website. Except, apparently, Toshiba.

The cloning software offered by the manufacturers will often be a simplified version of commercial software. It'll work either direction, so long as ONE of the drives is made by that manufacturer.

There is also some very good freeware cloning software out there. If you've been cloning drives for a while you probably have your favorite.


But what about those who have never cloned a drive in their life?

I bought a copy of Acronis True Image because it's exceptionally good at making backups. But it can also clone drives. :D

So here I am with a Toshiba SSD that doesn't come with cloning software.

Not a problem, I just had to find Acronis and BINGO - cloning time


I had never used Acronis True Image to clone a drive, but the process is very simple with their software. If you want a recommendation for cloning software - there it is

Make sure that you know what your C: drive is called. Identifying your C: drive is the most critical part.

Step 1 - When asked, identify, and select, the SOURCE (C:) drive.

Step 2 - When asked, identify, and select, the destination drive. Again, you need to be very sure of the new drive.

At this point let me say that when you install the new drive you don't need to format it, Acronis will take care of everything that's needed to make it a bootable drive.

Step 3 - Let Acronis do it's thing. At some point it will restart your computer to do the actual cloning outside of Windows. When done, your computer will shut down.

Step 4 - Disconnect your old drive and restart your computer.

Windows should restart, and you'll probably be surprised at how fast it is.



Other factors

A clean and lean drive is a good drive.

Start off by using CCleaner Free edition to clean off leftover files from your drive.

You may want to use it to inspect and clean your Registry. I've never had it cause a problem, but it can certainly fix many problems.


Next, If your C: drive is a hard drive - Defrag it BEFORE cloning.

If you're switching to an SSD you'll probably never need to defrag it again (although there are rare situations when it's a good idea. Just don't use the Windows Defrag program).



Laptops

If you're using an older laptop you'd be crazy not to switch to an SSD. You'll get a bigger speed boost out of an SSD than you will with additional memory.

But to clone a drive that's in a laptop you may want to get one of these kits - hard drive clone kits.



What's the worst that can happen?

Well, if you get sloppy in identifying the source and destination drives you could wipe out your C: drive. So don't be in a rush.

If all goes well, but the new drive doesn't boot, you still have your old C: drive. Swap them out and you're back in business.


And that last part is an important benefit of cloning a drive - You still have a fully functioning C: drive in case the SSD fails.

Me? Assuming that everything keeps on working, I'll clone my G: Prepar3d V4 onto my old C: drive for more room on Sunday.
.. .
Get the most out of your controls - SPAD.neXt

Image
. . . . . .Any time, any plane, any weather.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . Prepar3d V4
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Re: As promised - The Dance of Death! Cloning The C: Drive

Postby OldAirmail » Sat Jul 08, 2017 5:41 pm

I forgot the pictures!


Before and After Easy as pie. :D
Image . . . .Image
.. .
Get the most out of your controls - SPAD.neXt

Image
. . . . . .Any time, any plane, any weather.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . Prepar3d V4
User avatar
OldAirmail
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Posts: 4814
Joined: Sun Feb 17, 2013 3:06 pm
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