Win 11 install

[esebm]

Guys,
I have an older PC running win 10 (current) and I'm building a new win 11 PC.
Here's the question: how to mirror the current (win 10, 21H2) setup and install win 11?
I see two scenarios:
1. I install my current HDD into the new PC and let MS detect the eligibility for win 11, let them install it on the old drive and then mirror to the M2 drive, or
2. Mirror the contents of the old drive to M2 first and then let MS upgrade the new drive to win 11
I tend to prefer the 2nd option but I don't understand completely the relative merits of either solution, i.e. if there are merits. Has anyone of you faced a similar situation? What would be the correct answer?
Thanks,
Ed

 

[yodap]

I’m not sure either option will work if the motherboard is a newer chipset. I hope I’m wrong.

 

[esebm]

Why wouldn't mirroring work with a newer chipset? Just curious.

 

[yodap]

In the past windows licensing would end with a new motherboard. Now with 10 and 11, it may be different. There is the problem of windows not handling the new drivers on boot up. Best case scenario is all works as you wish. Worse case is you will need to do a clean install of 11.
Now, can you clone (mirror) win10 on the old machine? Is there an M2 slot on that board?

 

[esebm]

I believe I have some sort of agreement with MS that would support a win 11 update.
Ans yes, there is an M2 slot.

 

[yodap]

Okay so knowing that I would like your option 1 with a wrinkle. If you have a spare ssd I would save all your data to an external drive and mirror your win10 to the spare drive and use that as the guinea pig. If any thing goes wrong, you haven’t lost any thing.

 

[esebm]

That's a great idea, thanks.

 

[akriti]

You can also dual-boot the new operating system on your existing Windows 10 machine and switch between them.

 

[esebm]

My existing machine is too old for win 11, so no dual boot possible.

 

[StevenG]

My existing machine is too old for win 11, so no dual boot possible.

Just in addition to all the above and what I’ve done and experienced over the years with Win-10 and now 11, as I've moved a 2.5" SSD boot drive with Win-10 Pro OS from one old laptop to another laptop that had a completely different mobo and chipset and it worked perfectly. After swapping the 2.5" SSD boot drive the new laptop booted and updated the appropriate drivers and booted perfectly into the OS on the new laptop.

Just as an example and what I did (as this is just a suggestion) I've just finished building a brand-new gaming desktop with the ASUS TUF GAMING X570-PRO (WI-FI) mobo, with the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X (which is a rocket of a CPU for gaming and editing) and also fitted appropriate ram of the G. Skill Trident Z NEO Series at 64GB total (4x 16 DDR4-3600MHz 18-22-22-42) type ram and an EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti FTW3 Ultra Gaming (EVGA are one of the best GPUs around for price and their builds and especially their thermal cooling, but I changed the 87mm GPUs fans to quieter 87mm fans as the OEMs fans were far too loud at full gaming ?

After the build I did the exact thing with the SSD 2.5” boot drive again, but of course I needed to upgrade the ASUS TUF mobo BIOS to be compatible with the 5950X CPU with a new BIOS and then once the system was built, I again swapped/put that exact old 2.5” SSD boot drive (which btw, is a Samsung 850 EVO 1TB type) from that laptop into this new AMD desktop and it worked perfectly and the same, it booted and took about 3 min to update the appropriate drivers and then booted perfectly into the Win-10 Pro OS.

But and before doing all the above, I backed all my personal files onto an external drive up as I was always intending to do a clean install of Win-11 and upgrade it to its latest version 22H2 OS build 22621.963 which is the latest version as of today.

The most important is to make sure that all windows updates are done and also install the latest mobo drivers and especially that the latest GPU driver is also up to date. Yes I know it’s a long process as I also cloned the 2.5” SSD onto a newer/faster SSD M.2 the WD 1TB NS750 PCIe 3 x4 M.2 but everything works perfectly and 100% with Win-11 Pro that has a legit registered under my Microsoft account as before, with a digital license with all that superb hardware. Good luck and hope this has helped you out some ?

 

[esebm]

Guys, I backed the entire drive to an external HDD, using Macrium. It created one large file there. I opened that file and was asked to assign partition letters. I assumed those letters would be created on the external drive but there were created on the source drive in my PC. The entire folder/file structure showed up but I could not open a single one because of some kind of missing or wrong parameter. Does that sound normal or did I screw something up?

 

[StevenG]

Guys, I backed the entire drive to an external HDD, using Macrium. It created one large file there. I opened that file and was asked to assign partition letters. I assumed those letters would be created on the external drive but there were created on the source drive in my PC. The entire folder/file structure showed up but I could not open a single one because of some kind of missing or wrong parameter. Does that sound normal or did I screw something up?

Look at this video Restoring a sytem image with Macrium Reflect 8 or guide Restore Files and Folders processes iof Macrium Reflect and how its done, the backup should be around 132GB plus, if you backed up all your personal folder and also and paid for the subscription, if that backup doesn't work then you have done the backup wrong.

The recovery should be a simple step, as and if your OS or PC crashed and you need a restore, preferably you installed the Macrium Reflect pre boot feature, then you boot into Macrium Reflect Restore software with the backup HDD connected and the software should restore the system to the stage that the OS was at its backup. That is the procedure of doing the restore.

 

[esebm]

OK, thanks, StevenG.
Going back to my original post, which version would you suggest, 1 or 2?

 

[StevenG]

OK, thanks, StevenG.
Going back to my original post, which version would you suggest, 1 or 2?

The best from your original post is to do #2 and first clone the old OS onto an M.2 SSD drive as this drive is allot quicker and then install that M.2 drive and upgrade to Win-11, but upgrading has problems as the best and less problematic install iof a new OS is a Clean Install but of course and if you have personal data on your old drive then you need to back that up before doing a clean install on the new M.2 drive.

 

[esebm]

Thanks bunch!

 

[esebm]

I have already "mirrored" the entire drive onto an external drive but it's not a mirror of the old drive. I was expecting the same folder/file structure but the result was only one large file. If I mirror the old HDD to the new M2 drive, how do I get the C partition to show so the new drive runs win 10?

 

[StevenG]

I have already "mirrored" the entire drive onto an external drive but it's not a mirror of the old drive. I was expecting the same folder/file structure but the result was only one large file. If I mirror the old HDD to the new M2 drive, how do I get the C partition to show so the new drive runs win 10?

Connect the old HDD with the Win-10 OS as an external drive and see if you can see your personal folders that you want in there to backup, try that first, otherwise you need to use another preferably an old laptop to boot this Win-10 old boot HDD and then login into the OS and backup all the folders that you want from there normally with any backup software.

 

[esebm]

After a complete backup clone onto an external drive I have installed the "old" HDD w. win 10 into the new PC. Up comes the MSI click bio with the HDD "disabled". I've messed around with it for hours but I can't enable the win 10 drive. PC doesn't boot. Any ideas/advice what to do next?

 

[StevenG]

After a complete backup clone onto an external drive I have installed the "old" HDD w. win 10 into the new PC. Up comes the MSI click bio with the HDD "disabled". I've messed around with it for hours but I can't enable the win 10 drive. PC doesn't boot. Any ideas/advice what to do next?

What are the exact specs of your new PC that you want to run Win-11 on, give us the mobo, and the M.2 or 3.5" or 2.5" boot drive specs and the old HDD Win-10 boot drive specs. As your already cloned Win-10 boot drive that you inserted into the new PC could be corrupted and/or you haven't done the clone properly and that is why you can't boot the new PC.

The best, quickest and most accurate way to clone an OS from one OS drive to another different OS drive is to do the cloning within the same PC as coning a drive externally with an adaptor and a USB-C or USB 3.x cable takes hours with even 2x M.2 drives and it will take even longer with a SATA-3 6GBs plug connected to a USB 3.x port, as its also prone to a failed clone that has errors.

If you want to do it the easiest way, try to connect your new drive inside the old Win-10 PCs slot, if this is a problem because you are using an M.2 drive and the old PC hasn't got an M.2 drive slot and only has a 3.5" or 2.5" SATA connection, then either take the original Win-10 old drive and connect it straight to the new PC or get a 3.5" or 2.5" drive that you can connect as a 2nd drive in the old PC and clone the old Win-10 onto that drive and then connect this cloned drive into the new PC and clone the M.2 boot drive that way inside the new PC.

Btw, I've just cloned 2x M.2 PCIe 3 x4 drives from a laptops oem 512GB boot drive to a larger 1TB M.2 drive with Acronis True Image that I put the new 1TB new M.2 drive into an external USB-C M.2 case and connected it to the laptops USB-C port to clone, and Acronis software told me that its going to take 4 hours to clone which is ridiculous, as I was trying to do it quickley. So what I did is opened the laptops back cover (as this laptop has provisions for 2x M.2 drives) I connected the second and bigger 1TB M.2 drive inside the laptop and started the cloning process and the cloning took about 10min and it was rocket fast, that is the difference between the two cloning methods, with an external adaptor/cable of either USB-C or just a USB 3.x.

Note: also use the appropriate cloning software for your M.2 or 3.5 or 2.5" manufacturers suggested cloning software, like Acronis True Image is for WD drives or if you have a Samsung drive use their Data Migration software for cloning.

 

[esebm]

Guys, just wanted to report full success. Clean win 11 install, activated, everything works fine. Thanks to all of you for input and advice, much appreciated.

Ed