Ghosting to new SSD?

[Nebor]

So in a bout of terrible luck, the 500gb Seagate Momentus in my 3 month old Asus laptop died a week ago. Working in the morning, dead at lunch. On top of that, I'm in Afghanistan, so replacements are not readily available. Through a bit of scrounging, I found an 80GB Hitachi 2.5" SATA drive laying around, so that's got the laptop back online in the interim. I also ordered an 80gb Intel SSD off Newegg for around $200, which should be here any day now.

Is it ok to just ghost\image the new SSD from the Hitachi 80gb, or does Windows 7 need to be freshly installed on an SSD so it "knows" it's using an SSD and can use TRIM, etc. Please advise.

 

[Claudius-07]

I had asked a similar question before -- have yet to get a complete answer. Windows 7 does a great job of formatting and aligning the SSD properly if you are installing Windows 7 normally etc.. I am still trying to figure out if you can FIRST install the new SSD, let Windows 7 partition format prepare it etc., and then install Window7 normally and THEN do the ghost image on it. I mean again, i am not sure if you need to do these steps. I have asked a few folks at work, even sent emails to OCZ, and have not gotten a complete answer. Thus I am not helping much but I am still scouring for info.

To tell you the truth I have to do a firmware upgrade on my OCZ Vertex turbo. It's one of the original with Firmware 1.0. They are up 1.6 but there is no way to do the firmware update without completely killing the data. Since I will have to do a complete install andways, I am going to test if I can simply do the firware update, kill the data, then try and reinstate the old image of my OS I had on there. I will see if automatically reinstates the proper alignment etc.

In regards to TRIM, in theory if your controller supports it on your laptop, and make sure your BIOS is set to AHCI, and you get the latest chipset drivers (I know Intel's 9.1.1.25, their latest, supports all the SSD features), and you check for the software/utility that Intel has for your SSD drive, then doing the OS ghost recover and then installing the new drivers would be the ONLY thing that you need to do. The question is if in the ghosting process, your SDD drive is formatted and aligned properly for SSD performance, that is the only issue, which I will test out.

Or if anyone else can chime in....

 

[Voo]

The only thing that could "break" if you're using an image is that the partition could not be aligned - that depends solely on the software you're using - TRIM and co will work in either way and alignment isn't a big problem especially for Intel SSDs so I wouldn't worry too much about it.
And even if it's misaligned, that's fixable without loosing any data..

 

[*kjm]

I found this..... may help you out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUu9InlfD_c

 

[AdamK47]

I don't know about ghosting, but I do know you can clone to one. Make sure to watch out for alignment.

 

[corkyg]

Ghosting is a near obsolete Symantec term for cloning.

 

[AdamK47]

Ghosting is a near obsolete Symantec term for cloning.

Yeah, I know. Used it ages back. It's like when people say "I need a Kleenex" instead of saying a tissue, or saving "I need to take a Tylenol" instead of pain reliever or aspirin.

 

[SimMike2]

I did what you are considering, only after the drive was properly formatted, I used a program called Snapshot.exe to transfer all the files. This left the alignment stuff intact.
http://www.drivesnapshot.de/en/

What I did was make a snapshot of my current OS, which was on a regular hard drive. I shut down the computer, unplugged the regular hard drives and let Windows 7 setup the SSD drive. I aborted the install process after it was properly formatted. I turned it off, plugged in my other drives and booted to my old hard drive with the OS. I checked the SSD to make sure the alignment and everything was OK. Then I installed the snapshot image I made, all from within Windows. Next I shut it off, unplugged all but the SSD, and it booted and worked fine. After I was sure it was working fine, I turned it off and plugged in my old hard drives to use as storage and data drives. Just make sure you go to your BIOS and make sure the SSD is first boot priority on hard drives. This program left the alignment intact. Previous to this I had tried Windows 7 built in imaging, which trashed the alignment. Acronis also trashed the alignment.

I recommend unplugging other drives when installing Windows 7, otherwise it might sneak boot information onto secondary drives, which I don't like because it complicates making image files in the future. Snapshot worked for me.

 

[Binky]

Many or most clone/image programs do not retain the alignment. I'm sure this will change as newer versions are released in a world of SSD's, and they make sure that these programs maintain (or force) proper alignment.

A misaligned partition is a slight problem for an SSD. It is NOT something that you absolutely have to avoid. If I were in Afganistan, I'd just clone the drive and ignore it for now. You can always fix it when you get home.

Here is one option to correct the alignment on an existing partition.
http://www.tuxyturvy.com/blog/index...g-Windows-Partitions-Without-Losing-Data.html