Cloning a Windows 10 drive

[Marbury]

You can use Disk Management to add space to an existing volume, extending it into empty space on the drive, but only if the empty space doesn't have a volume on it (it's unallocated) and comes immediately after the volume you want to extend, with no other volumes in-between.

Unfortunately there is 517mb of "healthy recovery partition" in between. So that's out the window.

[Jimmy B]

OK, that makes sense. I suspected that there might be a recovery partition in the way. I'm not aware of any risk-free way to move it using Microsoft tools, so you need a more powerful set of tools. If, as you say, Easus Partition Master is still demanding money, then it makes sense to try something else, such as the Paragon software that Sonics suggested.
Alternatively, since you used Macrium Reflect 7 to clone the disk (I think?), you could do as you suggest and wipe the new disk and start again, but this time following these instructions on their website to change the partition sizes as a part of the clone process:
https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/displ ... ing+a+disk

As usual there a several ways to solve this, and all of them should work.

[OneWorld]

OK, that makes sense. I suspected that there might be a recovery partition in the way. I'm not aware of any risk-free way to move it using Microsoft tools, so you need a more powerful set of tools. If, as you say, Easus Partition Master is still demanding money, then it makes sense to try something else, such as the Paragon software that Sonics suggested.
Alternatively, since you used Macrium Reflect 7 to clone the disk (I think?), you could do as you suggest and wipe the new disk and start again, but this time following these instructions on their website to change the partition sizes as a part of the clone process:
https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/displ ... ing+a+disk

As usual there a several ways to solve this, and all of them should work.

AOMEI Partition Assistant, MiniTool Partition Tool, Macrium all offer free versions of software that allow partition resizing, the Macrium alternative offering partition resizing when restoring an image, the other two alternatives are more than adequate, I've been using them for ages, no problems

There's a catch though - the user has to READ the download options and the same regarding the instructions for use

[Marbury]

OK, that makes sense. I suspected that there might be a recovery partition in the way. I'm not aware of any risk-free way to move it using Microsoft tools, so you need a more powerful set of tools. If, as you say, Easus Partition Master is still demanding money, then it makes sense to try something else, such as the Paragon software that Sonics suggested.
Alternatively, since you used Macrium Reflect 7 to clone the disk (I think?), you could do as you suggest and wipe the new disk and start again, but this time following these instructions on their website to change the partition sizes as a part of the clone process:
https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/displ ... ing+a+disk

As usual there a several ways to solve this, and all of them should work.

I have managed to wipe the drive and start again with Reflect and it has worked. I then joined the 2 sectors with Partition Master. So far so good, but now the next task is getting the pc to boot from the new drive.

[Jimmy B]

I'm surprised that you needed to merge 2 partitions. It should have been possible to set up Macrium Reflect so that it created the correct partition sizes when it cloned the drive. Hopefully you didn't merge the C drive with the recovery partition?
Assuming that all is good there, this link tells you how to set the system to boot from the new drive:
https://www.easeus.com/partition-master ... html#part1
(about a third of the way down the page)

[Marbury]

Thanks, that worked a treat. I will say however that the extra drive space hasn't made much of a difference to the speed of the pc.

Thank you all for your help with this. Much appreciated.

[Jimmy B]

You are welcome. It's good to hear that it's working.

[Marbury]

Now what to do with the old drive. Perhaps use to make a disc image ?

[Jimmy B]

Since no-one else has answered this...
Your old SSD already contains a copy of your current system. I would keep it as it is for 2-3 weeks in case the new drive fails. It is extremely unlikely to fail, but if it does so, it will probably be in the first few days or weeks. (It will eventually wear out after a very large number of read/write operations, but I wouldn't worry about that now).
After that, having checked that the Recovery Partition is intact on the new drive, and possibly creating a Recovery Drive on a USB stick, the old SSD is "spare". You can install it as an extra drive on your PC, either internally if you have space or in a USB caddy. This is extremely useful for many different purposes including backing up your data. For more ideas of what those purposes may be, I suggest you search the internet for "how to use the D Drive".

[Marbury]

Thanks. Unfortunately I have had the pc freeze twice in the last few days with this blue screen message

"Your device ran into a problem and needs to restart".

It then goes into a re-boot so at least not a crash that nothing can be done with. Should I be worried as this never happened with the old drive ?

[Jimmy B]

Yes you should be worried. A system that randomly crashes is of no use to anyone.

I would go back to the old drive and make sure that the problem goes away. Then swap to the new drive and see if it comes back again. That way you can be sure of the source of the problem.

[Marbury]

I am hoping its hardware related asmy aging Komplete K6 AI has a terrible usb port that has become so flaky. That was flashing when the crash happened indicating it was offline. I have since added more software to the new drive too that I am working on so its not very practical to go back to the older drive. Perhaps running CC cleaner or something similar might find the problem ? Really hate this kind of thing.