Workflow for migrating Bootcamp from failing drive to SSD

Winclone
1

Hi

I’m about to tackle a 2011 iMac with a failing hard drive. The Mac side is running 10.7; Windows is Win7. I want to swap out the drive for an SSD and clone the respective partitions.

My plan is this:

  • Partition the SSD HFS/FAT32
  • Install 10.12 on the Mac side
  • Attach the iMac through Thunderbolt target mode to my working Mac (a Mini), attach the SSD through USB.
  • Run WinClone volume-to-volume mode to copy the old Bootcamp partition to the new SSD
  • Install the SSD into the iMac
  • Restore the Mac files via Migration Utility

Does that sound like it should work?
Thanks!

2

Hi - So I ran the volume to volume clone and it seems to have worked - I can boot into Windows fine - except for one major issue.

The original 1TB drive was partitioned 500GB Mac / /500GB Windows. The Windows partition was almost full (482GB used, 18GB free); the Mac side hardly used.
The new SSD drive is partitioned 150GB Mac / 850GB Windows.

I cloned using file-based, NOT block-based, but when I boot into Windows, I see a 850GB drive with again 18GB free - ie, 832GB used.

Do I now need to shrink the Windows filespace? How? Winclone 7 doesn’t seem to have a source list or a shrink tool like the help pages describe for older versions.

I’m rather desperate, as the original need for Winclone was to free up space on the Windows partition.

Thankyou!
Matt

3

Well, I found a resolution to my issue.

To recap, after running a volume-to-volume clone from a small partition on a failing HD to a larger partition on an SSD, the filespace available to Windows was the same capacity it had been on the old HD. The Disk Management tool in Windows even showed the full size for the partition, but the C drive only had the original space - and I could not expand the filespace because there was no “unallocated space”.

I booted into the Mac side and used the free version of Paragon Camptune to adjust the partitioning. I figured that, if the partition map was incorrect, even just making a small change (you are allowed up to 2GB in the trial version of Camptune) would correct the partition map and give me the full capacity in Windows.

I ran Camptune - it took about half an hour and ended with an error about “the user has aborted the process” (I hadn’t), but on rebooting into Windows. I did see the full new disk space.

I would love some feedback from Twocanoes as to whether volume-to-volume always uses a block copy, and it is expected to see the same filespace capacity copied across, or if this is an unusual occurrence.

Thanks!

4

We recently changed the volume-to-volume as always doing a block copy due to reliability issues. I’ll add in some more information in an upcoming release to be more explicit about hat what is happening.

tim

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