Upgrade Laptop to Larger SSD

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I just purchased a larger SSD for my Windows 11 Pro Lenovo laptop going from 512 GB to 2 TB. I was planning on having the OS partition the same size and a new partition for the rest of the drive. I used MiniTools Partition Wizard to clone the new drive with the new drive on a USB connector. When I put the new drive in, everything works however, the partitions are split such that I cannot have one larger partition. See screen shot below.

What steps do I follow now in order to have only two partitions, one for the OS and one for data?

TIA

Walter

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When you cloned the 512 GB drive over, it copied the partitions as-is, at their original sizes. There are still only two partitions on the drive… that bit at the end is unallocated space. All you would need to do is use your partition program to expand the second partition to fill up all the space. There should be an option in the context menu for the second partition to grow/expand/resize the volume (or something similar). That should give you what you need!

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BobbyB

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WSwalterwood44 wrote:

What steps do I follow now in order to have only two partitions, one for the OS and one for data?

It’s impossible to have only two partitions in Windows, one for the OS and one for data!

Those two existing partitions are required for Windows to work as follows:

• Partition #1, 286.04 GB (EFI System Partition), controls the boot process and, if removed, Windows will not boot!

• Partition #2, 4755.69 GB (Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Basic Data Partition), is the actual Windows OS itself.

FYI, @Ascaris’s suggestion won’t give you a separate data only partition, it’ll “expand” the existing Windows OS partition to fill up the rest of the drive; which is not what you indicated you want.

To create a data only partition, “right-click” on the 1101.26 GB unallocated space, select New Simple Volume and click Next.

Confirm the partition size (it’ll automatically assign all the unallocated space unless you specify otherwise) and click Next.

Assign it a drive letter from the drop-down (it automatically uses the next “available” drive letter but can be changed if you want) and click Next.

Set the Format options…

File system: NTFS

Volume label: ?? (volume labels are optional)

And check the “Perform a quick format” option (a “full format” would take a extremely long for a 1TB partition.)

… and click Next.

When it’s done, click Finish and you’ll have a “third” partition (with whatever drive letter you assigned) that can use for data only.

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Ascaris

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Hi Ascaris,

Thanks for the reply but I think you missed something. You stated that the cloning program “copied the partitions as-is, at their original sizes.“ This is not correct since  the original drive’s first partition was only 260 MB while the first partition created on the new drive was 286 GB, over 1000 times larger.

If I expanded the second (and Windows) partition to fill up the remaining space at the end, that would give me 1.5 TB (475 + 1101 MG) in the Windows partition when it already has more than enough space for the Windows partition. Besides, that would only leave me 284 GB for data.

What I am looking to end up with a 475 GB partition for Windows and a second one with 1.5 TB for data storage. Somehow, I need to merge the first two partitions and then shrink it to 4.75 GB leaving the rest for data storage.

Walter

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Yes, you are right– I didn’t catch that the EFI partition had been enlarged. I was looking at the bit about the original drive having two partitions while the clone appeared to have three partitions, and I didn’t even look at the size of the EFI partition. Sorry about that!

I have no idea why it would do that with the EFI volume.

As has been mentioned, you can’t only have separate data and Windows partitions, and no others, on a system that uses an EFI boot. There has to be an EFI partition, and there is supposed to be a Microsoft Reserved partition as well, though apparently it is not mandatory. Those two (along with the recovery partition) are not meant to show up in the drive listings in “This PC” though, so it will still act as if there are two partitions from a user perspective, if you create one for data.

Paul mentions Bitlocker, and that the volume cannot easily be expanded. I have not used Bitlocker personally, so I would just hope the partition program would detect that and make it work in the not-so-easy way or just tell you it can’t do that… but after what it did with EFI, I don’t know!

It sounds like the idea of trying the clone again may be a good one, perhaps with different software. It would appear that Bitlocker should be disabled before this though. I do remember reading about some circumstances doing similar things to this where the MS guidance did mention disabling Bitlocker.

Then (once you get the clone done without a gigantic EFI partition), you can make the data partition, move over whatever you want moved (I had my Windows desktop on a separate volume when I last used Windows as a daily OS), and then re-enable Bitlocker (including the new data volume) if you want to.

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Alejr,

You wrote: Partition #1, 286.04 GB (EFI System Partition), controls the boot process and, if removed, Windows will not boot!

I agree, but the original drive only needed 260 MB to accomplish this. How can I recover the disk space lost by increasing the size from 260 MB to 286 GB?

I am beginning to think that I need to do this whole cloning over again.

Walter

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That partition is created/managed by the Windows OS; which is why it’s labeled as EFI System Partition and it’s only use is to run the boot process needed to start Windows.

You should never try to use it for any other purpose than the EFI boot process it was created to support!

I have no idea why your cloning process increased it to 286 GB as it should have left it at the original 260 MB.

FYI, I’ve cloned smaller drives onto larger drives before and never had that happen to me.

I’d suggest you run the cloning process again and make absolutely sure it does not increase the size of that first partition. If it tries to, “manually” adjust the size back down to 260 MB like it should be.

Once the new drive is a direct clone of the old one, then you can create a 3rd data only partition from the unallocated space.

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Personally, I’d recommend doing an image backup of the original drive. Then place the new drive in the computer and boot from a recovery USB and restore from your backup. If your imaging software gives you the option delete all partitions before you restore. I know you can do all this with Macrium Reflect free.

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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Only if using older versions of Macrium Reflect free as newer versions are not exactly “free” anymore.

https://www.easeus.com/backup-recovery/is-macrium-reflect-still-free.html

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The cloning software you have used is faulty missing the 2 partitions.
You should create a full image copy to an external drive.
Create a restore USB stick.
Boot from the USB.
Install the new SSD
Restore image.

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Because your C drive is Bitlocker encrypted you can’t easily expand it when cloning – you’d break the encryption.

I would re-clone, keeping the original sizes, then boot the new disk and use partition manager to expand C to whatever size you want.
If you want a data partition as well, create it in PM.

cheers, Paul

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Windows Partition Manager, not MiniTool!

cheers, Paul

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I finally gave up with the free programs and purchased one. It worked the first time. Sorry for my delay in getting back here but I would like to thank everyone who responded.

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What tool did you purchase that worked for you? Thank you.

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