Create a Local Admin Account Before You Clone a Windows Machine

Let’s say you have an old laptop that needs to be cloned to a new one, and you have Macrium Reflect 8.4 (the last free version) and it’s Rescue ISO. Here are the steps:

Make a boot disk using an old SSD with Ventoy. SSDs are much faster than USB flash drives.
Log in to the old laptop and create a new admin account:

Create a new user:
```
net user CloneAdmin YourPassword123 /add
```
Make the new user an administrator:
```
net localgroup administrators CloneAdmin /add
```
Verify the account:
```
net user CloneAdmin
```
This is the most important step because when the clone runs on your new laptop, Wi-Fi might not work, even the built-in touchpad might not work, and the old PIN might not work. This allows you to first update the machine, clean it up, and then have the user sign in with the proper drivers in place.
Disable Secure Boot in the laptop’s BIOS. (HP machines have an additional procedure after disabling Secure Boot. You need to enter a code displayed on the screen during the next boot to confirm the change, so read the messages carefully.)
Boot from your Ventoy SSD and load the Macrium Rescue ISO.
When Macrium loads, choose to create an image and save it to the larger partition of the Ventoy SSD. (You can create a folder called Images so you know where to save the images.)
Macrium creates and saves the image. Macrium is very fast and only copies the used data, not the entire disk.
Go to the new laptop, disable Secure Boot, and restore the image.
Log in using your new admin account to update the machine, drivers, software, etc., in preparation for the client’s login.

Author

Sanjay Regmi