Incredibly frustrated with laptop upgrade [re: HDD->SSD and OS installation]

[TheVrolok]

So. Figured I'd get my father a new laptop as he's been using the same laptop for 8-9 years now. I picked up an Asus x550ca fairly cheap and then ordered a SSD (Kingston HyperX 3K SH103S3) from Newegg. No biggie, I'll just throw the SSD into the laptop and clean install Windows (8 comes with the laptop, I've never used it before, but shouldn't be too hard). Now. Here we are.

Laptop comes with no rescue media (only a rescue partition) which is not a novelty, but not only that, but there is no Windows 8 CoA anywhere to be found. Actually had to install a third party app just to extract the Windows 8 key from the registry. Apparently that's not a new practice either, which blows my mind. Not including the Windows CoA? That's a legit thing now? Jeez.

Next, I try to get a copy of Windows 8 ISO from MS using my product key. Nope, can't do, not a valid key for DL. (Maybe it's a system builder/OEM key and I can't DL because it's not retail?) So a clean install on the SSD from downloaded media is out?

Fine, I'll just image the HDD and copy the image over to the SSD. Well, my old version of Acronis True Image apparently isn't compatible with the laptop/SSD as booting into the restore media issues a compatibility error and simply states I can't use it to restore an image.

Ok, I'll use the native windows 7/8 file imaging software. Nope. Can't copy any image from a larger HDD (500gb HDD) to a smaller drive (120gb SSD) regardless of the ACTUAL image size (15gb or so). Yep, that's absurd.

What other third party options do I have? Macrium Reflect? Sure, I'll give it a shot. Imaged the HDD. Formatted the SSD into a single primary NTFS partition (GPT like the original drive). Throw in the image DVD and go... Reflect hangs for about 15 minutes and then just "Restore failed."

I'm losing my mind here. It should not be this difficult to simply install a SSD and then put a copy of Windows on it. The computer seems to read the SSD just fine, diskpart/chkdsk work just fine.

Do I really have to order rescue media for the laptop from Asus just to install on a new SSD? My next step is just going to be trying to install Windows 7 from one of my OEM discs to see if it's a hardware problem (unfortunately I don't have any unused CoAs - if I knew somewhere legit I could buy a Windows 7 license and just have it emailed to me I would just put 7 on this thing). If 7 installs at least, I might just format this thing and put Ubuntu on it. I imagine my dad could get by with Linux. (although given my track record with this laptop, I'm sure I wouldn't have driver support for various things and Linux would be a lost cause also )

 

[Steltek]

Do you have USB to SATA cable you can use to connect the SSD to the laptop as an external drive? If so, first create a Windows emergency repair disc from the laptop in case you need to repair the cloned SSD to get it to boot.

Then, install Easus ToDo Backup free version. Use the software to create the ToDo emergency disc. Plug in the SSD to the USB port, and boot the laptop using the ToDo disc. Use this disc to clone the OS directly from the hard drive over to the SSD -- it should have an option you can use to clone the hard drive to an SSD (use this option as it will both properly align the SSD partitions as well as adjust the partition sizes). This will also clone the recovery partition as well.

When the cloning operation is complete, you should be able to shut down, swap in the SSD, and boot the system. If you get an error, run the Windows emergency repair disc to fix the installation.

Another option you have if you have a big enough flash drive is to use the ASUS recovery software to create a bootable recovery flash drive. Swap in the SSD and boot the laptop using the recovery flash drive to restore the OS and recovery partitions. The only thing I'm not certain about is whether the partition will be properly aligned using this method (I don't know if the ASUS software is smart enough to adjust the partition alignment for an SSD).

 

[Fardringle]

Asus doesn't include a utility to create recovery media any more, which is just dumb since they don't give you the media either.

However, Clonezilla (free) should work just fine to image the old hard drive onto the new SSD.

 

[TheVrolok]

Appreciate the suggestions. Trying one last time to create a USB recovery image, if it fails, I'll give your suggestions a shot. Don't have a USB-SATA, but it might be time to finally pick one up for situations like this. Will try Clonezilla. I honestly don't stay up to date on useful apps, etc.. I haven't been doing much computer work anymore.

 

[TheVrolok]

Well, made the recovery USB. Can't remove because "A required drive partition is missing." Not sure what the partition table on the SSD SHOULD look like for recovery? Needs to be the same as the HDD? I guess a single full NTFS partition isn't good enough?

 

[chemwiz]

Look for the COA under the battery, I've seen that on a few notebooks lately.

 

[Bubbaleone]

If Windows 8 came with the laptop then I'd bet even money that Asus enabled secure boot in the UEFI/BIOS. If that's the case, you'll need to disable secure boot before you'll be able to install that SSD or image the drive.

 

[TheVrolok]

If Windows 8 came with the laptop then I'd bet even money that Asus enabled secure boot in the UEFI/BIOS. If that's the case, you'll need to disable secure boot before you'll be able to install that SSD or image the drive.

First thing I disabled. Couldn't even boot to DVD/USB without disabling it. Maybe there is a drive issue? Or something I'm just missing with the partitioning?

 

[Ketchup]

The Windows 8 key should be in the BIOS.

Also, have you looked to see if the recovery DVD options is available, as shown here?

http://support.asus.com/Troubleshoo...A&s=516&hashedid=iDj76sQprYFuQe5J&os=&no=1775

Edit: also you can download and use the latest version of Acronis during the trial period, and it may support what you are trying to do.

 

[TheVrolok]

Well, made the backup image USB with Clonezilla (which is a great utility) however am having issues restoring. I chose to back up the partition only (only the system partition given my HDD has 4 partitions with recovery parts, etc.) and then restore the partition. Well, Clonezilla is angry about my destination partition being smaller than my source partition. No biggie I say, that's why Clonezilla included -icds (to ignore destination size matching). Wellllll... apparently it doesn't work? Same error comes up that it can't match the size and to use flag "-C," to ignore matching (not -icds?) but that flag doesn't exist in the options?

Going to try manually using Clonezilla at the command line (it nicely gives you the file command to restore which I can just add -C to; however I'm not sure how to mount the usb, etc., been a long time since I did any serious computer work. ) At work now though, have limited resources to keep hacking away at this.

Maybe a lot of the problem is simply coming down to partitioning now?

 

[Ketchup]

FYI Acronis will not give you this error.

 

[TheVrolok]

FYI Acronis will not give you this error.

Will have to attempt with the trial of a newer version of Acronis.

Random middle of the night thought. If Acronis can't/won't do it, maybe I'll just open up my desktop, grab some spare SATA cables and hook up both the new laptop HDD and SSD to my desktop and just use EaseUS or something to clone the Windows partition without it either drive having to actively run an OS. I don't know why I didn't think to do that earlier, perhaps because I'm fairly certain the SATA headers on the motherboard are a bitch to get to with my current 2 HDDs and 1 SSD installed in the desktop.

 

[TheVrolok]

Just an update. Task completed. I don't know why I didn't think to just attach both drives to my desktop initially to make life simple. (rusty, I suppose).

Repartitioned the SSD into a 100mb FAT32 and the remainder into NTFS. Cloned the HDD OS NTFS partition to the SSD NTFS partition. Put the SSD back into the laptop, booted to a Windows 8 repair disc. Went to the command line and rebuilt the bootloader manually on the FAT32 partition. Rebooted and now it's up and running.

Thanks for all the help folks. Learned a fair bit (I'm pretty new to EFI, so that was a lot of learning). New to learn about utilities I haven't used before (EaseUS Partitioner and Backup, Clonezilla which I'm a huge fan of now). Got a chance to use gparted again which is nice. Lastly, ended up purchasing a USB 3 -> Sata cable which only ran about 25 bucks. Hasn't gotten here yet and didn't need it for this repair, but I could certainly see it coming in handy later. Not to mention I have a few spare SATA HDDs sitting around that I could grab some old data from or use as backup media.

 

[AkumaX]

So. Figured I'd get my father a new laptop as he's been using the same laptop for 8-9 years now. I picked up an Asus x550ca fairly cheap and then ordered a SSD (Kingston HyperX 3K SH103S3) from Newegg. No biggie, I'll just throw the SSD into the laptop and clean install Windows (8 comes with the laptop, I've never used it before, but shouldn't be too hard). Now. Here we are.

Laptop comes with no rescue media (only a rescue partition) which is not a novelty, but not only that, but there is no Windows 8 CoA anywhere to be found. Actually had to install a third party app just to extract the Windows 8 key from the registry. Apparently that's not a new practice either, which blows my mind. Not including the Windows CoA? That's a legit thing now? Jeez.

Next, I try to get a copy of Windows 8 ISO from MS using my product key. Nope, can't do, not a valid key for DL. (Maybe it's a system builder/OEM key and I can't DL because it's not retail?) So a clean install on the SSD from downloaded media is out?

Fine, I'll just image the HDD and copy the image over to the SSD. Well, my old version of Acronis True Image apparently isn't compatible with the laptop/SSD as booting into the restore media issues a compatibility error and simply states I can't use it to restore an image.

Ok, I'll use the native windows 7/8 file imaging software. Nope. Can't copy any image from a larger HDD (500gb HDD) to a smaller drive (120gb SSD) regardless of the ACTUAL image size (15gb or so). Yep, that's absurd.

What other third party options do I have? Macrium Reflect? Sure, I'll give it a shot. Imaged the HDD. Formatted the SSD into a single primary NTFS partition (GPT like the original drive). Throw in the image DVD and go... Reflect hangs for about 15 minutes and then just "Restore failed."

I'm losing my mind here. It should not be this difficult to simply install a SSD and then put a copy of Windows on it. The computer seems to read the SSD just fine, diskpart/chkdsk work just fine.

Do I really have to order rescue media for the laptop from Asus just to install on a new SSD? My next step is just going to be trying to install Windows 7 from one of my OEM discs to see if it's a hardware problem (unfortunately I don't have any unused CoAs - if I knew somewhere legit I could buy a Windows 7 license and just have it emailed to me I would just put 7 on this thing). If 7 installs at least, I might just format this thing and put Ubuntu on it. I imagine my dad could get by with Linux. (although given my track record with this laptop, I'm sure I wouldn't have driver support for various things and Linux would be a lost cause also )

Just an update. Task completed. I don't know why I didn't think to just attach both drives to my desktop initially to make life simple. (rusty, I suppose).

Repartitioned the SSD into a 100mb FAT32 and the remainder into NTFS. Cloned the HDD OS NTFS partition to the SSD NTFS partition. Put the SSD back into the laptop, booted to a Windows 8 repair disc. Went to the command line and rebuilt the bootloader manually on the FAT32 partition. Rebooted and now it's up and running.

Thanks for all the help folks. Learned a fair bit (I'm pretty new to EFI, so that was a lot of learning). New to learn about utilities I haven't used before (EaseUS Partitioner and Backup, Clonezilla which I'm a huge fan of now). Got a chance to use gparted again which is nice. Lastly, ended up purchasing a USB 3 -> Sata cable which only ran about 25 bucks. Hasn't gotten here yet and didn't need it for this repair, but I could certainly see it coming in handy later. Not to mention I have a few spare SATA HDDs sitting around that I could grab some old data from or use as backup media.

Wow your entire experience kind of mimic'd mine.

Knowing how much of a PITA it is to image/copy from the original source HDD to a new HDD (SSD or whatever), I seeked other methods.

On a Lenovo 11.6" Touchscreen laptop, I swapped for an SSD. But instead of trying to image/copy the partition, I used the backup recovery files (can't believe you can't make recovery CDs like windows 7 days!). Not sure if your laptop has this method, but take a look:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQdavKvzeR8

I watched the whole thing in its entirety, followed it step by step, and everything worked out perfect.

 

[TheVrolok]

Bumping this thread as a note to myself and perhaps to offer a little giggle to others. Went through the EXACT same scenario with a new laptop I bought for my gf today. I don't do much computer work anymore (busy with real job, etc.) so quite a bit of the knowledge I gained over the days described above was tucked away in the deep recesses of my brain. Came back more quickly, over a few hours but was hung up for the longest time because I couldn't get the bootloader rebuilt ... until I disabled boot security in the BIOS. I totally forgot. Well, at least it only took 3-4 hours today instead of the days in the past; perhaps next time I'll remember more.