So the other day I bought a new SSD and decided to clone my drive over to the new one as I didn't want to redo all my hard work setting the machine up.
I went with Acronis True Image for the software. Mostly because I got a download code with the SSD. This software worked like crap! After a day and a half I decide, let's try bypassing the GPU as once it restarts and is supposed to be cloning, you get a black screen where your mouse constantly shows that something is working. First time through I let it sit for hours, had to restart myself, and then the research and headaches started.
A little note of advice for those looking to clone a drive. The only way I could get this to work/be able to see what is going on was to unplug my monitors from GPU, and plug only one back directly into the motherboard to use on board graphics. It was a pain, but after testing, testing some more, and a bit more testing, I formatted my old drive, shut down, hooked back up the the graphics card and start up. It was so fast I almost missed it! Once the bios boots, it's high speed from there. Literally took me longer to type my password in then it did to push the power button and be into main screen.
Definitely worth the upgrade, but a lot of stress. Not having another key, I did not want to loose my 200 dollar copy of windows. Do your research. I had done a fair bit prior, but there was lots more once I started to google issues. That is when I found all kinds of new information.
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