I have an HP Laptop (17-e101nr) with an internal WD 1T Blue installed. I wish to clone this to my new WD 1T Black. I have the WD “A - - -” zip’d software download from this site. BUT, I remain confused.
The PDF says I need the destination drive (Black) installed for best results, OK but where/how do I attach the source drive (Blue)? I do have a USB docking adaptor for ATA (and IDE) drives, can I use that? Can I boot from the source drive (in the adaptor or in the DVD bay)? There is mention of mounting the source drive in the DVD bay, is that just a plug in?
The PDF also speaks of a “Bootable USB” device, how do I make this? How large must it be? What is it for?
I have backed up my drive, I think. I have five “Users” and I backed up from the root account, does that back up the entire drive?
Another package (Clonezilla) that I’ve been reading about appears to just boot the machine in Linux from a stick and uses included programming to clone the disk. Is that what the WD package does as well?
Another Question. When, not if, I successfully clone my WD Blue to the new WD Black, using the WD provided clone software, will the recovery “D” partition be cloned correctly?
History: I’ve been away from this for about ten years. Prior to that was active with UNIX, CPM, DOS 3.2, Win 95,98,XP, etc., so I’m “retreading”.
(Also H-8 self modified, H-9 self modified, and H-100 modified for DOS, etc.)
I see that the WD cloneware is Acronis True Image WD Edition , where do I go to download the bootable USB or CD data/software? They appear to have several editions, OR do I get it from WD???
You install the WD Acronis True Image software, then go to tools and create rescue media to a cd/dvd or a flash drive. Then follow the instructions in the above Acronis KBA.
DUMB QUESTION: If, after I do this, if I then update one drive to Windows 10, will I then be able to, by swapping the cloned (8.1) disk back into the Laptop be able to get 8.1 updates?
That sounds about right. As for the 8.1 question, yes, since you can only have one OS running with the same product key. You can swap between 8.1 and 10.
Ya, I did, I wasn’t pushing the correct “radio button” on the Acronis Tools window. Did that, burned bootable CD, replaced the old Blue HDD with the new Black HDD, booted from the CD, placed the old Blue HDD in a USB dock, and after about an hour I had a cloned HDD in my HP Pavilion.
I’ve still not found how to burn an image to a drive under W 8.1 (works in the library). More to relearn!
Oh, and my dumb question, overtaken by events. When I tried to “upgrade?” to W 10, MS said that I wasn’t eligible. I thought a cloned drive was identical to the original so how did they know it was a clone??? Strange are the ways of MS!!!
