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Ought I clone my C Windows drive, from my old SSD to new SSD in new computer?
To save time, rather than installing Windows and programs afresh, I fancy cloning my old C SSD, on to my new SSD in my new computer. But I am getting mixed messages on cloning! Who's correct?
- Perform a clean install
- Copy system disk to the SSD
- Migrate operating system to the new disk
Against Cloning
For Cloning
On April 30 2020, gronostaj commented
2 answers
Over time, the Windows folder keeps gathering crap and grow. Therefore, a fresh installation of Windows is bliss - it is the only 100% working way to get rid of all waste files that it picks up over the years. This is one of the reasons why it is recommended to install Windows on a HD of its own and everything important on another HD - so that you might nuke Windows and make a clean install in case it goes bananas.
Also all drivers installed will be irrelevant to the new computer but may cause conflicts. You don't want the drivers to be copied. And probably not other installed programs either.
So I strongly recommend to install it from scratch to save hard drive space and avoid unexpected conflicts and problems with drivers and installed programs.
Also you only need to install Windows manually if you are building the computer yourself from scratch. Pre-assembled computers come with Windows pre-installed these days and there aren't many reasons to "build" computers yourself nowadays, except as a hobby or for learning purposes.
Cloning is fine provided you do a proper clone. Something I used to do with Win7 is to actually clone the partition with a partition manager, and then boot from the new one. After everything is fine, resize the partition to fill the disk.
- The PCWorld article sounds like meaningless filler.
- I haven't used Windows in years, but the hard drive change may trip DRM just like any hardware change.
- You have to clone it properly - just drag&drop will not work because there are hidden/special files. Also things like primary vs. logical partitions.
Cloning will usually work, and it's faster than a brand new install. There is always a small chance that something will break, due to factors outside your control (eg. Microsoft copy protection). But if it doesn't work you can always go back to your old drive and try reinstalling.
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