The day I stopped trusting drive clones and started fresh installs

Had a client with a dying laptop last month, 8 year old Dell with a failing HDD. Pulled the old drive, did a sector-by-sector clone to a new SSD thinking I was saving their data and Windows install in one go. Booted it up and got constant blue screens, some weird driver conflict from the old hardware. Wasted 6 hours troubleshooting before I gave up and did a clean Windows install with their files copied over manually. Worked perfect in 2 hours. So here's the debate: when swapping drives, do you always do a clone or do you lean toward fresh installs? I'm team fresh install now after that mess.

2 comments

2 Comments

martinez.anna24d ago

Clones are definitely tempting because you think you're saving time, but they can bring along all the old junk and driver issues. Fresh installs just give you a clean slate, and it's usually faster than fighting with ghost problems from the old setup.

alice24224d ago

Ever try a tool like PC Decrapifier to strip the junk from a clone?