Looking for advice on cloning SSD for new build (and other q

[BuddyDog 36]

Well, my old computer is on it's last legs ( power and MOBO issues), so I am going to be building a new system.

I am thinking (hoping?) I can pull my Samsung SATA drive out of the old machine, install it temporarily onto the new machine and clone that drive to a new Samsung NVME drive on the new computer using Samsung magician, then remove to old SATA drive.

My questions are:

1.  Will that work?

2. I need to uninstall P3D and deactivate the license before I do this?

3. Any other flight sim files to uninstall? (PMDG, Aerosoft, ORBX ,etc)

4.  If I clone the drive, will the new drive remember my bookmarks in Chrome, etc?

5. Any "Oh poop" things to look out for? 

Thanks!

Edited January 9, 2020 by BuddyDog
typo

[Bert Pieke 7,585]

If this drive is your C :  drive, it is not going to be happy in the new system, I  would think..

Any other drive..sure..

[greggerm 312]

"Oh poop" - Going through a flawless clone to the new drive, a flawless system build on the new hardware, only to discover the computer throws a bluescreen on boot because you've pulled the rug out from under it with a new slew of underpinning hardware changes.

Personally? I'd recommend on planning for a complete reinstall of your computer, soup to nuts. You are planning on building a new system, so treat it as a new system!

Make thorough backups, leave your existing drives completely intact so that you can access them as storage from the new build, but treat it as a new OS install, and redo all your apps.

It may feel like more work up front, but it will undoubtedly be the best route in the long run.

Good luck, make backups, and have fun!

[LRBS 947]

My experience with cloning was very positive. 

1) It did work, I had 500 GB and recover my cloned drive to 1 TB

2) If you recover from a clone (like my case) licenses are located on the first partition and it will still be ok.

3) I had PMDG, ORBX installed an no issues with them (did not activate any).

4) Everything you had before will be there. 

Regarding new computer (mobo, cpu, gpu) you will have initial issues with the new drivers and performance.

As @greggerm sugested a deactivation and clean install would be the best case.

Good luck.

 

Edited January 10, 2020 by killthespam

[Soulflight 97]

Knowing a fresh install is days and weeks of work, you can simply try the following.

1. uninstall all drivers of old hardware in safe mode in windows.

2. put your old HDD into the new system, boot from it.

3. Use partition wizard "migrate OS to SSD" function.

4. after completion of the process change the boot disk in BIOS to SSD.

5. hope it worked as planned. 😉 if windows doesnt boot, you need to use the repair options on your windows disk to repair the boot sector on the SSD installation.


The main issue are hardware drivers though, id recommend using something like driver sweeper and regcleaner to be sure I killed everything that I dont need anymore. My Win7 64bit installation is 8 years old and I basically changed the whole PC right under its nose.

In my FSX, I unfortunately had to reactivate FSX, Captainsim and Quality Wings Planes, as well as reinstall fspassengers. PMDG and the rest worked fine, hats off.

 

 

Edited January 10, 2020 by Soulflight

[BuddyDog 36]

Thank you all for the recommendations!

I am mostly worried about all my internet bookmarks and email folders being transferred to the new computer, I can live with a new OS install and all the other programs.

I do have a data transfer cable and wondered if I could use that to migrate the stuff from my Chrome browser.

[Soulflight 97]

Well, in that case look where the information of your browser and mail program are stored, backup them and copy them over, overwiriting once the installation on the new machine is complete. (I use firefox and it works, I dont know about chrome though)