Cloning GPT system disk

[Phouchg]

Please share how do you accomplish such a task: cloning (migrating) a mechanical hard drive of a new laptop with preinstalled Windows 8 (therefore with GPT and Secure Boot) to a smaller SSD.

Currently I have a mind for Paragon Hard Disk Manager which is guaranteed to do the job (using WinPE boot disk). However, while it includes many useful tools (and even more perhaps not so useful), thus replacing clonezilla, gparted, walking on a live wire with dd, some software of, well, dubious legality and various backasswards methods, the price for proper business edition is rather high for a small business in a proverbial fourth world country, very hard (in fact, impossible) to justify in my paperwork. Given the sad state and mindset of people I'll probably be told to, ahem, obtain it some other way, but profiting from piracy is something I'm not comfortable with.

Are there any similar tools or methods that would help me do this? Perhaps even free, but equally easy to use (including fixing BCDs without hassle)?

[thomastmc]

Hiren's Boot CD is a great tool used by many support technicians for years. It includes several options to copy your HDD. I'm not sure about GPT support with those tools however.

http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd

For guaranteed support, you may need to hold your nose and get off your high horse and use the "restored" version of the Hiren's Boot CD, which includes proprietary tools such as Acronis TrueImage. I don't know anyone who does support on a regular basis who doesn't use this, so most support technicians must be in a sad state of moral repute...

https://www.google.com/search?q=Hiren+boot+cd+restored+15.2

[Praetor]

just did something similar today (Windows 8 in a GPT disk); acronis could make the image and the restore but the computer won't boot. After several unsuccessful tentatives, i called my trusty Norton Ghost 11.0.1 for this job, it never failed on me and this was not an exception :).

[Phouchg]

My high horse is just part of it. Copyright enforcement has recently become a new form of racketeering here. Unannounced visits from BSA, with police officers in tow, based on pure nothing better to do with their time (and ours) have happened. In theory, you'd think they don't have the authority to perform audits without any merit. In practice, it can't be argued - better get it over with quickly.

So, yeah. While I can use whatever I please and find useful (and I probably will - thanks for pointing out that Ghost 11.0.1 can properly perform it - I'll, ahem, find it somewhere), I keep hoping there's some inexpensive legally unambiguous option.

And Ghost has been discontinued. :/

[Karl L.]

While I don't know how well it will work with Secure Boot, I have always had very good luck with Clonezilla. It supports GPT and dynamic image resizing as well. If Norton Ghost works in this scenario, it's likely that Conezilla will too.

On a side note, it is definitely a bad idea to use pirated software for business, regardless of your country's enforcement policy. I strongly recommend against it. You are not required to have no moral backbone to be a good technician - although many technicians unfortunately do wear an eyepatch.

[lars77]

For guaranteed support, you may need to hold your nose and get off your high horse and use the "restored" version of the Hiren's Boot CD, which includes proprietary tools such as Acronis TrueImage. I don't know anyone who does support on a regular basis who doesn't use this, so most support technicians must be in a sad state of moral repute...

Wow, really? I certainly don't use pirated software when supporting my clients (or at my full time gig for that matter). It's a bit insulting you'd even assume something like that, not all of us techs are busy DLing our software off Pirate Bay or using Hiren's boot discs for everything.

re: the main question, personally I'd rather do a clean Win 8 install. But, everything you're trying to do can be accomplished for free anyway. You'd mainly just want to clone the old partition & dump it into a new partition created on the new SSD. (maybe a few extra steps to account for GPT but not showstoppers) Then if you're worried about it booting, just let the Win 8 installer's repair mode fix any startup issues. For the cloning Clonezilla or even GParted should be fine, though personally I'm partial to booting into WinPE & creating a partition's image using imagex, then just dumping the image into the new drive's partition. A bonus is you'll also have a image of the old drive as a backup, which you can mount via imagex/whatever if you want to browse its contents & pick out individual files/folders.

[Phouchg]

Personally I'd prefer clean install, too, what with all OEMs installing increasingly more and more trash. But this process and also driver installation takes too much time - something I do not have - as it befits a small company this is just one of quite many responsibilities I have. Jacks of all trades are a popular thing. Now, Paragon copies data on the fly and then fixes boot configuration without bothering me. Of course, this magic therefore costs big money. And it's surely a blasphemous way for illiterates and loosers - using wizards and such...

I should probably take two spare drives and work out a definite single foolproof method of operation using what free tools there are then...

[Jerry_Da_Man]

I have a question....

I run Windows 7 SP1 on an SSD and, as I ALWAYS do when installing an OS,

I attached ONLY the SSD and loaded a MiniTool Partition Wizard Bootable CD.

I then made a 35GB C, 15GB D and a 62GB E partition.

I rebooted and swapped out the MiniTool for my Win7 DVD and had it install

itself on the 35GB C Drive.

I proceeded to tweak it to my liking and then made a Ghost Image I can

 

restore to the C Drive in about 6 minutes.


WHY can't that be done in Windows 8? I keep reading about it making

3 or 4 partitions when you install it. I installed 8.1 RC like I did

my Win7 above and it worked fine.  Although I went back to Win7 via

my Ghost Image, 8.1 RC behaved itself for the few days I looked it over.

[Phouchg]

I have a question....

I run Windows 7 SP1 on an SSD and, as I ALWAYS do when installing an OS,

I attached ONLY the SSD and loaded a MiniTool Partition Wizard Bootable CD.

I then made a 35GB C, 15GB D and a 62GB E partition.

I rebooted and swapped out the MiniTool for my Win7 DVD and had it install

itself on the 35GB C Drive.

I proceeded to tweak it to my liking and then made a Ghost Image I can

 

restore to the C Drive in about 6 minutes.

WHY can't that be done in Windows 8? I keep reading about it making

3 or 4 partitions when you install it. I installed 8.1 RC like I did

my Win7 above and it worked fine.  Although I went back to Win7 via

my Ghost Image, 8.1 RC behaved itself for the few days I looked it over.

 

You'd better create a new topic about this as it is only somewhat relevant to the topic and, evidently, bound to get lost otherwise.

 

But while we're at it, you can install Windows 8 on an MBR disk still. You just need to format your drive (and create partitions) with some other tool beforehand.