KB: How to clone and extend an SSD system drive

These instructions will guide you on cloning an SSD system drive to a larger SSD.

NOTE: You will need a USB drive.

This guide is based on having the new larger SSD installed as the main drive in a system, with the previous system drive connected via a USB adapter.

  1. Download Clonezilla from https://clonezilla.org/
  2. With a USB stick, delete any existing partitions and create a new one of 512MiB (on the USB stick).
  3. Format the partition as FAT or FAT32. Any other file format will NOT work!
  4. Extract Clonezilla to the newly created USB partition.
  5. Eject the USB drive and plug it into the computer that will be performing the cloning.
  6. Turn on the computer and boot from the USB stick just inserted.
  7. Select a desired option from the boot menu.
  8. Follow the on-screen prompts, selecting the corrects drives and source and destination.
  9. When prompted, select the option to copy the whole source drive as-is, i.e. all the partitions will be exactly the same size on the destination as the source.
  10. Let the clone complete.
  11. Shutdown the computer, remove the old (source) drive, and remove the Clonezilla USB stick.
  12. Boot up the computer, which should hopefully boot up using the newly cloned drive.
  13. Download and install MiniTool Partition Wizard from https://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html
  14. Run MiniTool Partition Wizard.
  15. With the newly cloned system drive selected, right click the last valid partition and select 'Move'.
  16. In the popup, move that partition to the end of the new drive.
  17. Apply the changes.
  18. When complete, you can close MiniTool Parition Wizard.
  19. Launch Computer Management.
  20. Go to the 'Disk Management' section.
  21. With the new drive, right click the middle partition that is now left of the available space.
  22. Select 'Extend Volume'.
  23. The popup should be pre-populated with all the available space, so click 'Next'.
  24. Complete the wizard and the drive should now be extended correctly.