# Need help with new Sandisk SSD 120gb (cloning)



## chr6is

So I bought an ultrabook a few months ago and it has a 500gb HDD. Last week I bought a 120gb Sandisk SSD from Tigerdirect. I have tried everything to clone my current drive to the SSD but it seems impossible. I bought a cloning adapter and software and it still doesn't work because the drive is so much smaller than my 500gb HDD. 

I also tried to run backups off my external hard drives and it errors telling me that there are no drivers found. 

I also tried using my 3.5" 1tb Western Digital with the cloning adapter I bought but it will not recognize it. Maybe because I'm dealing with 2.5" drives instead of 3.5". I thought if it would have worked that way, then I could have partitioned my 500gb smaller and then cloned it like originally planned and it wouldn't have been "bigger" than my destination drive.

This seems like too much work to upgrade to a new drive. I'm a techie guy but this one has me running out of patience.


Anybody had this same scenario? I don't really want to start fresh because the laptop is a month old and it has some apps/programs that aren't going to come on a fresh copy of Windows 8.


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## kdfresh09

you need to lok into the software you have for cloning, and be sure to look for a setting that says something about "proportional compression"  or proportional disc layout.  you should be able to look at the 500gig drive and see how much space is being used.  if its more than the ssd drives capacity, hen you will need toget rid of some data (which you should do anyways), and put it on a different drive.  personaly, you need to do  freesh install if you want the most out of your ssd.  ahci should be enabled in the bios no matter what for ssd drives, and overall, you will get beeter performance out of it if you do a fresh install.


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## salvage-this

If you made the recovery disks for your Laptop you can use them to reinstall the OS to the SSD and then migrate over all of your files to the new drive.  

You can also do into disk management and shrink the partition to fit on the SSD.  Then you can either use the methods that you are currently using to clone to the SSD or hook up both drives to a desktop and  bot clonezilla and clone the drives that way.  

http://clonezilla.org/

Guide on how to use Clonezilla

http://www.computerforum.com/213395-how-clone-hard-drive.html

Either way I would make sure to make the restore disks and backup your data in case anything goes wrong.


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## chr6is

Thanks everybody for the input. 
Here is the cloning device and software I bought.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812161004


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## salvage-this

Yep that should work.  Resize the drive to a parition under 120gb and you should be able to clone it to the new drive.


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## chr6is

So I resized the OS partition to 85gb using Ea seUS and thought that would work. When trying to clone I am still getting the error because it still says my 500gb total size is still 465gb.

Now my OS C: drive is 85gb and I'm right where I was in the beginning.

I guess i need to shrink the entire drive but still trying to figure that out.


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## salvage-this

Are there 2 partitons on the drive?  Or is it free space?


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## chr6is

There are 2. It's an HP so it has the D: RECOVERY partition. It is 26gb

Now on the C: (OS) partition I have 44gb used out of 86gb.


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## salvage-this

Is there an option to just clone C:?  I just want to make sure that there are no options that are forcing the whole volume to be cloned instead of just the OS.


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## chr6is

No there isn't. That's what disappointed me in the software. It has "advanced" options" but there is nothing about selecting what to clone. 
The software is basically to clone the entire drive but there is a big difference from 465gb down to 114gb (SSD) to get it to clone. Not so easy to just shrink it down that much.


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## salvage-this

Ok well give clonezilla a try.  I am not sure if it will pull up the USB connected drive but it might.  Worth a shot anyway.  If that does not work then I would either use a desktop with clonezilla or try to see if there is any cloning software from the HDD manufacturer that might have the right features.


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## kdfresh09

try and delete the drive, so there is no partition at all on, just unallocated space.  then run the software and see if that works.  i use acronis, and if the drive im trying to clone TO has a partition on it, then it wont let me do anything with it until its all unallocated.


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