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Restore an existing windows 10 system image not to the old failing HDD but to a new SSD

Anonymous
2020-10-10T22:49:17+00:00

Hi, it's really frustrating that Microsoft makes things so unideal and tough for us users.

The new SSD is connected to the computer through a USB 3.0 to SATA cable, so right now it's external. My computer still runs using the old failing HDD, so I need to get this done asap.

I have a windows system image (windows 7 type backup), and the reason I need to use it is cause I can't clone the old disk using Minitool since the old HDD has bad sectors, and the disk cloning fails in Minitool.

So, the plan B is to take the existing system image and send it to the new SSD disk. Ideally, I should be able to take that image and write to the new SSD drive (which is connected using a USB 3.0 to SATA cable). Again, cloning the disks using this same connection doesn't work because the current HDD has bad sectors and I get a festival of errors, when it tries to clone the disk.

Now, what are my options? (Notice I don't need help with getting access to the recovery utilities or BIOS, I know how to do that, so you please skip that part):

  1. Can I force Windows to give me the option of the new SSD upon recovery, although it's external? It appears to only let me restore the image to the old failing HDD. Perhaps if I disable/dismount the disk 0 (the old failing HDD) with Diskpart? Would it work if I issue the offline command in Diskpart to disable the old HDD using the Cmd/Dos utility?
  2. Is there any software that would allow me to place the windows 10 system image onto the SSD connected to the computer with the USB to SATA cable, while the computer is still up and running?
  3. Perhaps some other better solution?
Windows for home | Windows 10 | Windows update

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-12-24T05:41:39+00:00

    There are two solutions for your reference:

    Solution 1. Restore existing system image to the new SSD via a system repair disc

    1. Create a system repair disc with Backup and Restore (Windows 7).
    2. Replace the old failing HDD with the new SSD.
    3. Boot your computer from the system repair disc. Follow the instructions to restore system image to the new SSD.

    Solution 2. Use another backup and restore tool

    You may use AOMEI Backupper to create a system image. Then, you can restore the system image to the new SSD directly. No system repair disc is needed.

    Learn more from how to transfer system image to a new hard drive.

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-10-10T23:25:11+00:00

    PS I think that's it's kinda sad that MS uses horrible ambiguous language in their recovery tools (there are a zillion options, all with ambiguous and poor wording, to make us confused and mad.) I lost count of how many times the system restarted to windows 10, until I found the right option on the menu that would give me the recovery options. MS, you suck.

    Besides, the dummy recovery program only finds the image if the folder name is kept intact, WindowsBackupImage. And the big techs still gives us this BS of artificial intelligence, which is just embellishment for dumb algorithms, which have no intelligence at all, neither natural nor artificial. LOL

    Last but not least, what's the point of recovery if we can't choose a new hard drive, only a failing one? This is not smart at all, which is typical for MS.

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-10-10T23:22:19+00:00

    I don't want to do that just yet, cause I want to have 2 systems: one running on an old failing internal HDD, and a new one running on a new external SSD.

    Besides, replacing the HDD with the SSD on this computer will be a pain, so I want to take one step at a time.

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-10-10T23:11:06+00:00

    If you want to re-image to a clean drive, remove the old drive and connect the new one.  Boot to the Recovery media and recover the image from where ever you are keeping it..and it should be found by the imaging software..

    If you do this and can't get it worked out. post back.

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