Anyone successfully cloned Win 8.1 with UEFI/GPT to SSD?
Rog
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I have cloned three Win 7 laptops to SSD with no problems but have now bought a light Lenovo laptop for travelling which comes pre-loaded with "Windows 8 with Bing" on a 500GB mechanical drive.
I notice from browsing the web that people are having problems cloning 8.1 with UEFI BIOS and wondered if anyone has managed to achieve this?
The laptop has UEFI BIOS that can be changed to legacy mode. Secure Boot is currently enabled but can be deselected in the bios. There is no integrated DVD drive, however a USB DVD drive can be plugged in and booted from in legacy mode.
The only backup facility provided is Lenovo one key recovery, which only allows backup of the C drive to a USB stick or external hard drive. There is no facility to backup the other partitions.
First problem was that Macrium Reflect would not install, saying "Reflect is not able to run on this PC"
EasUS Todo Backup did install OK and I attempted to clone to an old hard drive, as a test (not splashed out on the SSD yet). After the cloning operation, I switched to legacy BIOS, to see if the cloned drive would boot from USB. It started but failed to boot fully. I then attempted to install the cloned drive in place of the original drive but realised that the cloned drive is 9.5mm thick, whereas the original drive is only 7mm, so it was not possible to change.
I should add that the old hard drive that I cloned to was originally MBR format, however the UEFI partition is showing present in disk management and it now appears to be GPT format.
I haven't been able to complete my experiment and don't want to splash out on an SSD unless I am fairly confident of success? Any thoughts or pointers please?
I notice from browsing the web that people are having problems cloning 8.1 with UEFI BIOS and wondered if anyone has managed to achieve this?
The laptop has UEFI BIOS that can be changed to legacy mode. Secure Boot is currently enabled but can be deselected in the bios. There is no integrated DVD drive, however a USB DVD drive can be plugged in and booted from in legacy mode.
The only backup facility provided is Lenovo one key recovery, which only allows backup of the C drive to a USB stick or external hard drive. There is no facility to backup the other partitions.
First problem was that Macrium Reflect would not install, saying "Reflect is not able to run on this PC"
EasUS Todo Backup did install OK and I attempted to clone to an old hard drive, as a test (not splashed out on the SSD yet). After the cloning operation, I switched to legacy BIOS, to see if the cloned drive would boot from USB. It started but failed to boot fully. I then attempted to install the cloned drive in place of the original drive but realised that the cloned drive is 9.5mm thick, whereas the original drive is only 7mm, so it was not possible to change.
I should add that the old hard drive that I cloned to was originally MBR format, however the UEFI partition is showing present in disk management and it now appears to be GPT format.
I haven't been able to complete my experiment and don't want to splash out on an SSD unless I am fairly confident of success? Any thoughts or pointers please?
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Even if HDD is cloned OK, it is not a guarantee that an SSD will clone, but Easus is a good bit of software so I would expect it to work.
I am puzzled why Macrium reflect would not install - I have installed it on a Linx 8. When you install windows normally it extracts the OS from a compressed installation file. On the Linx being a tablet, it simply extracts whatever files it needs on the fly, and hence uses a lot less disk space.
I did not think Macrium would work, but it did.
Do you mean that there is no guarantee of an SSD cloning in general or particularly in the case of a UEFI drive?
It's a pity computer manufacturers don't still supply us with full recovery media...
Ok , not sure exact answer to your question
What I do know is I have cloned hdds and ssds in eufi and legacy mode using macrium reflect and it works first time every time.
I have cloned HHDs in legacy and eufi mode using Easeus and it worked every time (so no reason to suppose and SSD would not work but have not tried it.
I used Acronis (paid) and could clone legacy ok to HDDs, but had all sorts of problems with eufi mode. Admittedly, that was a couple of years ago, but I have never tried latest version (as it will cost quite a bit to upgrade for no benefit (Macrium does all I want for nothing).
So in general, apart from special OP case where Macrium does not work, then I would say cloning to an SSD is fine if you use Macrium, probably ok with Easus, but the rest you will have to ask other users.
However, I am fairly sure most packages will clone to SSD ok in legacy mode as it is easier than doing a EUFI clone.
Hope that helps.
Sorry for double post
First of all I am now fairly confident that I will be able to clone my HDD to SSD using the latest version of Macrium Reflect, as suggested by oilman. It seems that the important thing is to have a recent version of disk cloning software that supports UEFI and GPT.
Now we come to booting in UEFI. I have never been in the position of not being able to do a clean install of operating system from scratch in the past and feel a bit exposed with this new laptop. It runs pre-installed Windows 8.1 with Bing and I understand that the Microsoft product key is now contained within the BIOS of the laptop.
In order to provide full recovery media, I downloaded Windows 8.1 with Bing via Bit Torrent. I don't see this as being against the spirit of the law, as I already own the OS on the laptop and this would simply be for re-installation purposes. In any case, it is not possible to activate without a valid product key.
The theory is, that if a new hard drive has to be fitted, it should be possible to install this OS and the product key will simply be picked up from the BIOS. For belt & braces purposes I also obtained my product key from the laptop by using a nifty app called RW Everything.
I burnt the ISO to a DVD and placed in an an external USB DVD drive. Powered on the laptop and went to the boot menu. The DVD drive was not to be seen. It would be easy to get it to show by changing from UEFI to Legacy mode but we don't want that, as Windows 8 needs to be installed in UEFI mode, on UEFI capable devices.
I thought I would try putting the OS on a bootable USB pen drive and did this using Rufus. Put the pen drive in a USB port and went though the boot routine, however no luck. In desperation, even though USB boot was selected in the BIOS, I switched it off and on again, saved and exited, immediately pressing F12, then the pen drive showed as available in the boot menu. More fiddling showed that It seems to work with Secure Boot on or off, worth trying both.
I then tried the DVD again, this time going through the routine of deselecting USB boot and then reselecting it. The DVD now showed in the boot order menu. In both cases, with the DVD and pen drive, I was able to go as far that first Windows installation screen before quitting the installation.
I now feel that I have the media to do a clean install and the knowledge to do it. I don't know if the quirk of disabling and re-enabling USB boot mode applies only to my model of laptop or is a general requirement. It is important to understand, however, that in UEFI mode, the BIOS does not "see" the DVD drive, it actually looks for valid bootable media, so it will never recognise a DVD drive unless it has a copy of a bootable OS in it. The boot menu is dynamic and varies depending on the bootable media present.
Hope all this is of some use to someone and does anyone know if it matters whether you install Windows 8.1 with secure boot enabled or not?
Welcome to the nightmare world of UEFI - why would you bother you may think. There are a number of reasons, but in simple terms, you can now have as many primary partitions on a disk as you like, natively access disks >2TB (without using 3rd party software), and more security etc.
Don't think it matters to much for windows, but you are probably best to leave secure boot on - I think LINUX will not install with it in though, so when you make any recovery disks using macrium, easus etc, always select a win pe based recovery - the linux ones may not work on UEFI (I know people had issues a year or two back).
If you go and buy a new PC (almost certainly a UEFI based machine now), make sure you can access recovery sessions without needing windows to be working i.e ability to boot from a boot usb. Also, ensure PC has option to switch to legacy booting to ensure full backwards capability.
Finally, and most important, once you have done initial windows install, or you buy a pc with it preinstalled - install macrium or similar as the first thing you do, and make a full image backup to an external source, and make a recovery usb/dvd. That way, you will never need to mess around trying to find install disk if thing go pearshaped.
Windows 8.1 has its own image backup tools, but even that has been known to fail on UEFI pcs. As I have stated many times. backup using different tools, then you have more options if any fail (as I always say - "they are out to get you!).
On a more light hearted note - how is UEFI pronounced : is it "you-fee" or "you-eh-fee" (like the UEFA "you-eh-fuh" Cup), or even more phonetic e.g. "ur-fee"?
EDIT: Actually just read another thread re. computer software not installing, and it basically says (not explicitly but interpreting responses) that even if you have admin rights, you may not be able to install software without selecting "run as adminstrator", unless UAC is turned off. This basically confirms my suspicions above.
I glad Macrium worked ok. As I have said previously many times - its a great little package and so reliable. Why pay for others!