Cloning a system drive in Macrium Reflect (Free)

[Kick]

I've been using Macrium Reflect free versions for many years now and have found the program excellent for the creation of backup image files. On several occasions it has come to my rescue.

I am now approaching a time when I should consider replacing the 160GB hard drive on my Windows 7 desktop with something of larger capacity. I would therefore be using the Macrium Reflect disk cloning option which seems straightforward enough. My question, however, relates to the replacement hard drive (it would be a tradition SATA HDD rather than SSD or hybrid). Should the drive be left unformatted for the operation or, as some drives come already formatted ntfs, can the drive be formatted?

I have looked online but have not found any clearcut advice and as I am running the free version of Macrium Reflect, I cannot join the Macrium Reflect users' forum.

Thanks.

 

[DSTM]

Hi Kick
The Drive should be formatted to NTFS, and no partitions.
Macrium Reflect will create it's own partition, the size of your C: Drive you are cloning from.
If you leave the destination drive not formatted, Macrium Reflect will create a GPT Disk which you don't want.
Format the destination drive to NTFS, and the cloned Disk will be MBR which you want.
Always check the clone is bootable, after cloning.

 

[Kick]

Hi Kick
The Drive should be formatted to NTFS, and no partitions.
Macrium Reflect will create it's own partition, the size of your C: Drive you are cloning from.
If you leave the destination drive not formatted/ unallocated, Macrium Reflect will create a GPT Disk which you don't want.
Format the destination drive to NTFS, and the cloned Disk will be MBR which you want.
Always check the clone is bootable, after cloning.

 

[Kick]

Hi Dougie,

Thanks for your quick, succinct and very helpful reply.

 

[DSTM]

Your Welcome.

 

[Kick]

Hi Dougie,

Sorry about the broken post - not sure how I managed that, a bit of sloppy mouse/keyboard action on my part. I really appreciate your explanation - I'm quite clear how to go about the cloning now.

Cheers, Kick.

 

[DSTM]

Anything, you are not sure of, just ask.

ADVICE:

Once you know your clone boots, best to disconnect the Drive.
Because if you were unlucky enough to get hit with Ransomware,the cloned drive if connected. would be infected also, and wouldn't save you.

 

[Kick]

Hi Dougie,

Thanks for the additional advice.

I use Macrium Reflect on a regular basis to do image backups of my Windows partition and Data partition. I also have previously created image backups of the Restoration partition and a normally hidden System partition. Should I get any virus or other malware infection, I should be able to restore to the latest clean versions of these.

My intention, once I acquire a new hdd, is also to get an external usb drive caddy temporarily to take the new drive for the cloning operation via a usb port connection. Once the cloning is done, I would probably keep running the desktop in its current state for a few days so I can be sure there are no problems that would have been copied to the new drive. After that I would remove the original SATA drive from the desktop and replace it with the cloned new drive. The old drive would be placed in the caddy as a portable storage device once I was sure the new drive was doing its job.

Longer term I was thinking, with the larger internal hard drive, I could consider a duel boot arrangement with a Linux OS. At the moment I am trialling Xubuntu 16.04 which I have installed on a usb memory stick - I am very impressed with Xubuntu so far so that is a likely candidate.

One thing I am not sure about after fitting a larger internal hdd is whether or not Windows will require reactivation. Hopefully the change is minor enough for Windows to accept the computer is the same machine as when Windows was originally activated on it.

Cheers, Kick.

 

[DSTM]

Hi Kick.
Cloning the OS on to any Drive whether a Spinner (mechanical) or SSD, does not require further activation.

Dougie.

 

[Kick]

Hi Dougie,

Thanks for that - one less thing to bother about.

You have resolved everything I was concerned about regarding the cloning.

Cheers, Kick.