Some people delete their Windows every Christmas and reinstall that. Yes sounds good, but in practice not recommended for people with for example Omnisphere or Kontakt, because it takes a lot of time and most of the time other errors appear that you don't expect.

In Windows there is also the possibility to repair your system.
Use the tool System File Checker (sfc /scannow) to repair missing or damaged system files:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...em-files-79aa86cb-ca52-166a-92a3-966e85d4094e

The other tool is "Disk Cleanup". https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...-windows-8a96ff42-5751-39ad-23d6-434b4d5b9a68 Sometimes it frees up GigaBytes. Because Windows is a notorious data collector.

By the way, the tool CCleaner also has a "Driver updater" built in.

After cloning, I had about 6 plugins that I had to reinstall and then re-register because they seemed to be attached to the hard drive. With a new CPU it is similar.

 

I have no idea about it but maybe the link will help:

Windows Sysprep for Virtual Machines
/www.thomasmaurer.ch/2016/05/windows-sysprep-for-virtual-machines/

 

If I'm understanding you correctly... why aren't your libraries on another drive? I don't use Omnisphere though, so not sure how that one works, however Kontakt is super easy. Strictly speaking Windows here, but this is even more reason why I use Kontakt Portable. No reinstall of any sort required.. put Kontakt portable on another drive, and libraries too, and all good. As far as LEGIT Kontakt (which I also have), you can keep your libraries stored elsewhere as well and avoid reinstall of those. It's been a bit since I did that, but it's fairly straightforward/quick.

I'm aware of these too, and also use CCleaner, but I don't use it for the driver update, because it's installed the wrong driver on me before (in the case of NVidia).

That's not too bad. I think I'll stick to my way, though.. different strokes for different folks. But maybe one day when I get tired of reinstalling all those VSTs (some of which I could probably drop) I'll look into cloning deeper.

 

well, we use Time Machine backups and small SSDs for Operating System and Applications. None of this takes very long compared to rebuilding every Physical Volume inside the machine. You are backing up WAY more stuff this way. You clone that partition, not the entire machine.

I used to do that when I was still using Windows for music even. You frequently have to format and reinstall windows. But you don't need to be doing all this extra work, if you had setup the machine as C: for OS/Programs and D: For data; at the time of your original work on the hard disk.

I used to use Partition Magic for that and that program was wonderful. It's not Parted, but whatever. It works perfectly for setting up a dual boot MBR, sizing the partitions and committing changes all work great in it. Well, it did when I was using it a number of years ago.

So yes, I agree with the post above my original one.

 

Last edited: Nov 10, 2022

Yes you can in my apprenticeship we learned it on Virtual Maschines.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/generalize

https://techdirectarchive.com/2021/...windows-server-running-on-vmware-workstation/

 

You might like to try the Metasploit Unleashed course using Windows NIST Images in VM. metasploit-unleashed

 

At the latest when the hard disk C./ dies - will probably think about hard disk cloning.
This useful free tool "CrystalDiskInfo" shows you errors and the lifetime of your hard disks.

The Omnisphere was rather meant after a total crash. I have so many programs and software installed that I had to install last time 3 weeks and 9 hours a day, so I always have a backup of the complete hard drive C:/ !

 

The situation you describe is the only one where Cloning is the clearly superior (Cautious is the better word) backup plan. If the Physical Drive becomes damaged, the partition table is immaterial. it will nuke them all too.

 

Try this:

http://www.drivesnapshot.de/

 

Here's what I found. If you're moving to a new system, the C-drive on your PC will slip in, update as needed, and then YOU find the drivers necessary for the other things (Sound Card, Intel stuff, etc.) will be triggered when Windows goes to update the needed files for running the system smoothly. I didn't even need to harness the Acronis image option - simply cloned the one SSD to the other (and an NvME at that!) and all went swimmingly. I would recommend you stay with the same processor type (Intel w. new Intel MOBO, AMD with a new AMD Mobo) but I did this with 2 different makes of motherboards and both times - all went flawlessly with a simple Acronis image. Couldn't be happier. Windows 10 and 11 know what to do with the new hard drive ... rest easy.

 

The thread is interesting. Some unnecessary misunderstanding here and there but also useful advices.

The only problem is that OP used the word "cloning" which is incorrect in case of moving all data of a system disk from one Win pc to another.
The correct term is migrating. Although Samsung also mistakenly names its cloning software as Data Migration software. At least they don't call it disk migration...

On mac Time Machine gives the option to "migrate" data to another system (OS) install, however it also requires some apps to be reactivated but overall it's quite painless. No registry shit etc.

Cloning an entire pc is like you pull out the system drive and put it into another win pc. Nobody does that for a good reason.
When someone has ever installed Windows on a new drive in any pc, that person already knows how many drivers need to be installed manually after Windows apparently finished installation.

If you had every software on your pc in a portable version, well in this case you could use a fresh install on your new pc (manually installing the missing drivers) and just copy these portable apps and folders. That is far from reality but that would be cool, having all your data on an USB-C NVMe SSD and you just connect it to a pc where ever you are.

 

In Companies most of the Time all relevant data for each User Profile are saved to network drives so there is no data migration in the traditional way the most important rule is the 3-2-1 Rule to avoid all possible data losses https://www.backblaze.com/blog/the-3-2-1-backup-strategy/. When there is an change of hardware the company iso will be installed via Pxe and all data will load to the new computer according to the Userprofile and Networkdrives will be mapped over group polices.

The best way to minimze the Time setting up an new system is to create an personalized iso with all programms installed. All Data should be backed up to an Harddrive best case would be NAS Drives (
RAID 5) (1 Harddrive can fail and there is no data loss) (You can build your own Cloud based on free BSD with something like FreeNAS/TrueNAS https://www.truenas.com/download-truenas-core/ or even something like m365 with Nextcloud https://nextcloud.com/athome/) so you can easily map your network drives to the new system (To add them as an normal windows harddrive you can use something like ExpanDrive).

 

Last edited: Nov 11, 2022

@BEAT16, I do feel your pain about Omnisphere. I thought that paying a large amount of money for a legit copy of it would mean no BS installation. How wrong could that be? Very. I think I gave up for a few days before trying to figure it out again. I ended up sticking it on its own shiny new blank external 4tb. Smooooooth sailing ever since. It's a massive amount of data to let rip at a drive all in one delivery attempt. If it doesn't work first try, it gets complicated trying to repair depending on where the process failed. Just like other people experience at that point, but with files directly from spectrasonics. That one program is an animal all it's own.

 

the god of all cloning utilitys: dd

more convenient and user friendly: snapshot

most others are trash including acronis true image / shadow maker/ easus / etc. there will always be something missing / not working / corrupted afterwards

macrium reflect is sort of ok and free (for windows cloning / imaging at least)

 

Last edited: Nov 11, 2022

the first time you see dd operate at the speed it does, you wonder where it has been all your life. Or something to that.

But your other point, speaks to why I do not understand how someone thinks this setup to be a great option now. The internal SSD running the OS and applications is often recommended to be sized as small as possible to accommodate them. For speed and performance, but also it not being recommended to re-write and wipe, or frivolously move around content on the drive. HDDS may suck for nearly everything now in comparison, but barring physical failure they can run almost in perpetuity. (or until luck ends). This isn't expected or promised of SSDs from the day after the warranty ends, and target number of writes. Doing this stuff to them because of bad partition size planning, etc; is basically abuse of the product. And it underperforms against the exact same hardware.

why why why. poor management.

 

Last edited: Nov 11, 2022

just use higher blocksize then speed is not really a problem, i agree that it's not a good idea to clone the system in the first place but to answer op's question for the most accurate cloning utility dd is for sure #1 (bit perfect cloning)

 

Just watch this video:

This guy explains very well, how I already cloned my System into a *.wim image for backup (couldn't explain it better).
When you're finished, you have a Windows Setup image that installs a clone of your current system (instead of the regular windows)
to any hardware you like with all your personal settings, tweaks, drivers, programs & files.

But attention! Clean your system from trash & large files before doing this. Otherwise your image becomes tremendously large
and installation takes ages. I for example moved my music/gfx/video/project libraries to other SSD's and then I started creating
the wim image. When finished, you can take a regular Windows installation iso image, rename your created backup wim file to
"install.wim" and copy/replace it in the "sources" folder of your iso file.

 

Last edited: Nov 11, 2022

To Build your own *.wim File system should also first be Syspreped normally. For people that don't know the Windows PE is the Enviroment to install and the wim file is your recorded system.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/w...ly-windows-using-a-single-wim?view=windows-11

Also there is GImageX which is a GUI fot that Task.

 

Last edited: Nov 11, 2022

I'm using Paragon HD Manager for years now. Very reliable software. Cloning is super easy and restoring to a new system NEVER gave me any problems at all.

 

I don't know why you quoted someone else, and attributed it to me - I haven't even posted in this thread (until this one).