Problems Moving OS partition to new SSD

[el_brio]

I am trying to move my Win 7 install from a 40GB partition on a 500Gb drive to a 60GB SSD.

I first tried windows 7 built in recover option but that wouldn't work. I think the problem is that there was a size difference between the old and new drive. Tried Acronis True Image last night. My OS partition is a 40GB partition on a 500GB drive. 20 of the 40GB are full. Here is what I tried last night:

1. Made a boot disk in Acronis True Image
2. Booted up w/ boot disk
3. Backed up OS partition
4. Restored OS partition to SSD (made sure the partition was marked "primary" & "active". It also copied over the MBR)
5. Unplugged the old HD and the USB backup drives & rebooted
6. Get a error along the lines of "No OS present"
7. Insert Windows Recovery Disk
8. Try to repair the drive
9. Get error "Partition Table is Corrupt"

This is the second time I tried to do the restore using Acronis. I wasn't sure if I set it to copy the MBR the first time so I tried again this morning. After the first try, I went into a Easeus partition software and removed the created partitions on the SSD before trying the second time. I am really getting frustrated at this point. I don't want to have to reinstall windows. It would be a huge pain in the neck.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Brian

 

[TemjinGold]

Based on what you went through already and the fact that we're only talking about 40gbs worth, it would probably be much less of a pain in the neck for you to simply reinstall windows. Windows also behaves differently for SSDs versus HDDs so you would benefit from a reinstall as well.

 

[el_brio]

I have a ton of applications installed on the other partitions of the HD. Reinstalling everything would take ages.

 

[abaez]

Then reinstall them. It is not worth the hassle to try to get it all setup correctly.

 

[el_brio]

From what I have read, it shouldn't be a big hassle. Reinstalling everything will easily take me 6 solid hours of work. I suspect that there is just some minor detail I am missing. I may shell out the $20 for Paragon's OS Migration tool which I have heard good things about, but again, I think that there is a relatively simple solution to this problem.

 

[Fardringle]

How much time have you already spent trying to do this (and it still doesn't work)? Compare that to the time it would take to do a clean install of Windows on the SSD and set up your programs again.

When a disk/partition clone works, it can certainly save time. When it doesn't work at all (like yours) there's no reason to keep wasting time fighting with it and plenty of reasons not to.

 

[el_brio]

I figured it out. I needed to first restore the OS to the drive and THEN restore the MBR & Disk ID. I'm not sure why. I was trying to do both at the same time. In any case, thanks for the advice. I would have taken it if I couldn't resolve the problem in a reasonable amount of time. In this case, I am glad I stuck with it rather than giving up. I wouldn't have learned anything that way. Next time, it will be a piece of cake.