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Windows 10 - rebuild

Hi
Windows 10 Pro.  I am going to rebuild a new Win10 machine using a new HDD.  The old HDD will be swapped to a larger disk.

The computer name will be the same.  Is there anything in particular i need to do pre-redeploy?  We use MDT/WDS to push the image joining to the domain etc.

Rename and remove the old computer first?

Sorry, its bee a while.. 

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McKnife
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Normal process would rather be disk duplication. Many tools for that: Macrium reflect (free edition available https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree ), Clonezilla
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We don't have an NVMe clone tool, hence the rebuild, which is probably as quick. 

When I rebuild systems with the same basic hardware I usually don't have to do anything but rejoin the new build to the domain with the same name... Sometimes it fails, especially with any parts that change the MAC address, and in that case I reet the computer account in AD.


All clone tools that I know (including the two free ones I mentioned) support nvme cloning
I've never had a ad-hoc cloning situation where Clonezilla let me down
I do prefer the Ubuntu build over the Debian build though

You will need storage (secondary drive, external HD, NAS etc) to store and retrieve the image from
does the system have 2 nvme ports?


The Cloning Software from the NVMe will do the cloning. seems rather odd to defer something that might take a couple of minutes to something that requires a more cumbersome process.

There are USB3 to sata/nvme adapters (not as fast as native)
Clone NVME to sata
If not mistaken, there are SATA 2 NVMe adapters as well.

What hardware do you have? see if you have a non nvme system that has two spare m.2 ports on the board.
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Only the one NVMe port by the looks of it.  Its an HP Prodesk 400 g5 

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i use a startech  3 port M2 ssd adapter card   M.2 SSD Card 1x PCIe (NVMe) 2x SATA M.2 - SATA Controller Cards | Belgium (startech.com)  


So the clone software you use will find the PCI card and disks without drivers? 

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Just tried clonezilla with the aim to create an image over SAMBA.  It seems to connect all ok, but at the stage where i select the disk for image its only showing me the USB drive.  No sign of the internal HDD

Look, put either the new or old drive I to a usb enclosure and clone directly. If you don't have such an adaptor, use some other usb drive to receive the image, swap drives and restore it.
How big is the existbig nvne, how much. space is left?

In your environment therre is not one system that has 2 nvnes?

Another option is to clone to ssd
Nvme to ssd
Swap nvme, boot from ssd, clone.
Pull ssd.
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128gb, 29gb free, was c10.


Just testing the clone to NFS and back... 

Depending on the manufacturer of the NVMe, you can use macrium, casper or the vendor specific Acronis image to create an image of your existing data written out to the NFS, and then boot the system using the tools each provides to restore.

You could use MDT/WDS if you are already have it setup for OS deployment.
The workout if memory serves, you would need to allocate the IMAGE based on the MAC of the device, or provide a selection/specify the image you want loaded from .....

>>  So the clone software you use will find the PCI card and disks without drivers?    <<  YES i never had to load drivers

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Managed to get them to clone.  Any ideas why the NVMe disks fail to re-partition?  I used the following switch:

Clonezilla - Advanced Mode 

My test machine SATA withed fine.

Could you rephrase that? Did you expect Clonezilla to adjust the partition sizes to the larger disk proportionally? Did you find and utilize a switch for that?
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I did expect it but managed to file the -k switch that does work for sata disk just not nvme.  


The correct switch is -k1
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yes i tried that.  Fails for this type of disk. 

What makes you think the disk type is the culprit? Just because it works with SATA once doesn't mean the disk type is the reason.

But anyway, either you use gparted (another freeware bootdisk) now to resize the partitions, or you try again, this time with Macrium reflect free.
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Also tried an nvme disk clone device and its done the same as clonezilla, cloning the disk but no way ot extending partitions.

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Whats the difference between the Macrium reflect free and gparted?  Strangly gparted doesnt seem to allow the option to extend/resize the partitions of these nvme disks.

Attached is windows disk mgt and gparted GUI

User generated imageUser generated image


one is a partition manager, the other includes options to clone.
When cloning, you need to use advanced options when your source drive is going from one size to a destination of another size

i.e. it sounds as though you went to a 1 to 1 clone
while you want a 1 to 1.5
I.e. you should have had a prompt whether you want to make it proportional, meaning each partition on the source disk will have the same proportion of the disk on the new one.
or you can manually adjust.

at times, the option is not explicitly stated.
i.e. after you go through selecting the source and destination
just before the proceed/clone/ok

you get a representation of what the destination disk had before in the form of partitions (if any)
and what it will look like after the process is complete.
at this stage it might offer you an option to scale, adjust partition boundaries to use the entire disk....
All that is required of you is to hover over a partition boundaries and slide them left or right as you see fit.


Your NVMe already seems to be full. If you want to expand partitions you need unpartitioned space right after the partition you want to expand. What was the size of your original disks & partitions? Do you have screenshots for that as well?


Besides that, I'm not even sure if this would work for bitlocker encrypted partitions. You may have to disable bitlocker before cloning & resizing.

You see a discrepancy in these screenshots. The correct partition size is reflected in the picture but not in the text on it, which still shows the old size.

So what does windows explorer show as partition size?
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Explorer reports the original size 128gb.

Currently suspended bitlocker to see if that is the cause.


Reduce the size of the partition by about 10 KB. You can do that directly from within diskmanagement. If the correct size doesn't immediately show up, reboot, then run a chkdsk on your partition. I've occasionally seen resized partitions not showing up correctly within Explorer if 3rd party tools were used for resizing, & this might help.


If you do the resizing from within Diskmanagement in the first place I don't think that happens, as it usually leaves a couple of KB unused by itself.

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It isnt letting me resize the partition in disk management. 

Isn't the "Shrink Volume" option available? Show a screenshot when you right click the Partition from within Diskmanagement.

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It is but it just comes up with the attached.

User generated image


Then I just suggest you do the 1:1 copy again, this time with bitlocker off. Then make sure that the "recovery" partition (the one behind your OS partition) is either at the end of the disk, or doesn't exist (it normally isn't required for standard operation). With GParted etc you should be able to move it to the end.


Then reboot to the newly cloned system & now try diskmanagement to resize the the OS partition.

can you expand the volume?

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Struggling to disable bitlocker currently.  Its just re-enabling itself.  I can suspend, which i guess isnt gong to help.


No i cant expand nobus

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Managed to disable BL but cloning still results in a 128gb partition even though it shows 350gb free.. 

You did clone 1:1 as I suggested? Don't try resizing during the Clone Process. After cloning, boot the PC to Windoze & show us the screenshot you get in Diskmanagement...

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Yes 1-1 various different ways.


I did in my earlier post. 

That can't be the one after your 1:1 clone. A 1:1 clone shows you the original 128GB size in the graph, with unpartitioned space after that. Delete all your partitions on the disk you want to clone to before starting.

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I've had to give up on this machine and rebuild it.


Will have another machine i can give a 1-1 clone.  When you say 1-1 i presume you mean using clonezilla device-device (i have an nvme clone tool here that reads the 2 disks) ?

To Rindi's point, it seems you have a 400 GB SSD which is a clone of a prior 128GB SSD?
Resize during  cloning is when you are going from a smaller SSD 128 to a 400SSD.
It is possible to custom adjust within the cloning process but gets a bit different, since you are starting with X partitions with one large unallocated, you will still end up with X partition, with the previosuly unallocated being shrunk to a bare minimum.
The process/suggetion rindi outlines, post clone, you would expand the and eliminated the unallocated section.

 

Yes, with a 1:1 clone I mean a clone that ends up with the resulting disk having the same partition sizes as the original one

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But my SATA disk that i did a clonezilla 1-1 via NFS or USB dock worked fine once i ran the expert option of -k to extend.  The NVMe dont extend automatically. 

That's the point I'm trying to make. Don't extend while cloning (1:1 means 1:1, & not 1:1.5, 1:2 or anything else). Extend the partition later from within M$ diskmanagement from Windoze. I have seen that when you extend the partition fully during the cloning Process, Windoze sometimes doesn't recognize the correct size, although it is actually OK. A couple of KiloBytes should be left unpartitioned. Diskmanagement should automatically manage that & leave that space open.

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Ok, accept the defaults (device to device - using the USB caddy?) in clonezilla?

I'm pretty sure i tried this and it failed, but will try again to extend in Windows.

Yes, just the defaults, no special options.

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So i have the same issue, the Disk reports correct size, but the partition will not extend.

 

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If i shrink the disk i have no option to extend to the larger available space, only the space i freed up.

Tried a chkdsk /f and reboot.


Can you show screenshots directly after cloning, & also what options you then get in Diskmanagement?

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Same as before..

User generated image


You have to move that 1.19 partition behind the OS partition to the end of the disk before you can extend C:. In the screenshot I can't see what that partition is, but if it is something like a recovery partition, you can also delete it (it isn't absolutely necessary), but to be safe I would move it with GParted.


After that boot back into Windoze,Open Diskmanagement & try to extend the partition.

To the end or shift it as much space as you want to add to the C:\ partitions.
rindi is correct , however (IMO) depending on what the 1.19 partition is, it likely should be moved in front of the C: partition
(efi partition | 1.19 | C: | freespace)

The EFI partition is already at the front (499 MB).

Right...

Behind the EFI partition, but in front of the C partition

User generated image
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Looks like some sort of recovery partition.


gparted lists them:


EFI - /devnvme0n1p1 - 499mb

reserved - /devnvme0n1p2 - 128mb

basic data partition - /devnvme0n1p3 - 120gb

unallocated - 1mb

basic data partition  - /devnvme0n1p4 - 1.19gb

unallocated - 800gb

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As ive said before gparted struggles to resize too. 

Don't use gparted to resize. Only use it to move that 1.19 GB partition to the end of the disk (Windoze Diskmanagement can't be used for that, it misses the option for moving partitions). After you have moved that partition to the end of the disk, reboot into Windoze & use Diskmanagement to resize C:, as now the space to extend the partition is free & available.

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So a delete and a commit?

Then move it?

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