Fortunately or unfortunately, when we are not building a hard drive with Hardware, we have to use a specific program. Many of them have connections to Windows, but in the end they often offer problems or high-quality jobs only available when you buy a paid version of the software. In this tutorial we will look at the cheapest way to do it, with free software, and would not need anything extra besides USB flash drive.
What do you need to change the hard drive to SSD
This is all we will need:
- A hard drive source, where you have everything installed.
- The hard disk or SSD, which should be empty and has a size equal to or greater than the old one.
- USB flash drive with at least 2 GB installed in FAT or NTFS format.
We think you should have both disks (new and old) connected to a PC, either internally by SATA or via a USB adapter. It doesn't matter.
Configure a portable USB flash drive
The first thing that should be done is to configure the USB flash drive where we will install everything needed to start the free software we will use. To do this, the first thing we will do is uninstall Tuxboot, a free software that will directly release Clonezilla and convert the pendrive into a device in the boot
Once we download it, we remove it (no need to install it). At the top we select from the «On-Line distribution» clonezilla_live_stable and current, which are the default parameters. At the bottom, we select USB Drive from Type and then Drive we select the drive character where it is connected via USB (ideally we should connect it to the front).
We don't have to do anything else, once the process is complete, we will have Clonezilla on a USB flash drive ready to go.
Replace the new hard drive
With the USB pendrive connected, we restart and press F10 / F12 (depending on the handlebar) to select the device on the boot, and logically indicate to the system that it has to boot from the pendrive and Clonezilla. When loading, we will find the following menu.
Here we have to select the first option, Clonezilla live, and wait for the app to load. Next, a new window will appear where we have to choose a language, and after doing that and accepting it, another one will appear and request a keyboard map. In this second screen it changes nothing and simply presses the ENTER key on the keyboard to continue.
In the next window that appears, we simply tell you to start Clonezilla.
Now the software will ask us what we want to do. You must select a second option, which includes from device to device. The first option is to make a copy from a disk image, but it's not something we want as we intend to create a hard disk.
Now it will ask us if we want to access the default options or to use professional mode. We can tell you to start in startup mode, but we will choose expert mode to see what options are offered to us.
In the next step, we should select the source disk, where we now have our data. You have to make sure we choose the right hard drive. In the next step, it asks us about the local disk, where we should select a new disk or SSD.
The advanced selection screen will now appear (in this case choose expert mode). It is best to leave the default values, or at least select the last option (-v) to see detailed information.
There is little left. Now the software asks us if we want to make a copy once it's done. If we choose yes, remember that the process will take a long time to complete. In your choice.
Now you will ask us about the partition table. Ideally, check the option to use the same partition table as the source disk to avoid data corruption when making disk to disk.
Now it will show us a summary of everything to do, as well as a warning because the information we have on your destination hard disk will be lost, because we will add the source disk above. We should answer yes, and for this we enter «and 2 and press ENTER.
Only one step remains. Now you ask us if we want to boot booter from source disk to your destination. Similarly, press «y» and ENTER.
Once this is done, the hard disk repair will begin and we will have to wait only for it to finish.
Once it's done, it will urge us to turn off the program and replace the hard disk with another one, and that's what we should do: shut down the PC, uninstall the old disk and put the new one in place, if possible. SATA BIOS port to get started. This way, we can wrap the system with a new disk and exactly the same as what we had in the old one.
