Tranferring Windows 7 from an HDD to a new SSD

[Red Hawk]

I just ordered a 120 GB SSD that was on sale as a Newegg "Shell Shocker" deal, and intend to transfer my OS (Windows 7 Ultimate) to the drive. What is the best way to go about this? Can I simply plug both drives into the PC and directly transfer files over, or do I need to uninstall the OS and everything else from the current hard drive and reinstall everything to the new hard drive?

Alternatively, might it be better to just put the SSD in my PC and use it for Intel's "Smart Response" technology, since I do have a Z68 motherboard?

 

[Dahak]

Just plug it in and clone it over, if the ssd does not come with a utility to do it(i know intel ssd used to, and kingston's did as well), you can go to western digital or seagate depending on the brand of hard drive you have and the have a free version of acronis true image that you can make a bootable cd to do it with.

 

[corkyg]

You need to use cloning software that will assure correct alignment. If that is done correctoy, you sim0ly replace the HDD with SSD and boot right up to it. Follow Dahak's advice about the cloneware on a bootable CD.

 

[davidthemaster3]

Don't forget to check if TRIM is enabled if you do clone the drive

 

[tweakboy]

Use Windows Image Backup Go to control panel and click backup and restore. and create a image on external drive. Put in windows 7 repair cd ,, boot off CD , and put the image on the new drive. easy!!!

 

[microAmp]

Another option, if you can't find that Arconis image software by the manufacture, is to use Windows 7 Backup and Restore option.

My laptop had a HDD start to die on me, I created that system image, copied over to an external HDD. If I remember right, on the new HDD while installing Win7, I was able to tell it to get the clone off the external HDD. Though I admit I'm a bit fuzzy on that part but I was able to save everything, pics, installed programs, and so on.

Yup, see tweakboy's directions, he beat me while I was typing away. :/

 

[Red Hawk]

There is enough free space on my 500 GB HDD to make a disk image of my 150 GB boot HDD. So I'll probably try that. Thanks!

 

[zephyrprime]

I just did this using partition master to copy partitions and PARTED to align the partition in accordance to various web guides I read. It was slow process and a pain in the butt. Also, I still needed the windows cd to make the drive bootable because realigning the drive causes it to not be bootable (because the files move to a different physical spot than what the boot sector expects).

If I had to do it over again, I would have just created a new partition on the SSD, copied the files over using FASTCOPY or XXCOPY, and then used the Windows CD to make the new drive bootable. People always seem to forget than you can simply copy an os drive over using regular file copying methods IF you also make the drive bootable using your Windows CD's repair option (or linux utils if you are running linux). Partition copying tools ARE NOT ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY and sometimes slower than simply file copying.

Partition tools are nice if you are moving to a bigger drive. If you are not, the extra time needed to resize partitions to fit on a smaller drive makes simple file copying a better choice. Resizing a partition also requires defragging it first. Add in the fact that you may need to do partition aligning with SSDs and partition boot repair and you can see that simple file copying is far faster and easier. File copying requires only 1 pass but partition copying to a smaller partition requires *6* fricken passes (defragging, resizing, copying, realigning, realigning again, resizing again)

How do you know if you need to realign your SSD? Basically, if your current boot drive was formatted with XP, you will need to realign. You can check your partition start address using msinfo32.exe and looking under the "disks" section. If your offset is 1048576, you're ok and don't need alignment. If it is not evenly divisible by 4096, then you need to realign.

 

[taltamir]

cloning software costs money, you could do a fresh install of windows to the SSD for free and then delete windows from the HDD.

Just make sure to:
1. Set bios to ahci
2. Disconnect all drives except the one you are installing windows too during installation (else windows installer will put your bootloader on the wrong drive out of spite)

 

[Channeledbymodem]

I just went through this process myself and learned a few unexpected things regarding hardware configuration. I'll share them since they're relevant to the thread although they may not apply to the OP.

Before I installed the SSD I needed to switch my Windows 7 install from IDE to AHCI. I used the Microsoft "Fix It" registry file change. I switched to AHCI in the bios and when I rebooted Windows told me the bootmgr was missing. My first assumption (and I am not new to cloning the OS to different drives but only with IDE drives) was that somehow my OS had gotten corrupted. It turns out that when you make this change the bios resets the boot order of your harddrives (which were still connected). Windows was looking for an OS on a drive that didn't have one.

After I reconfigured the drives in the bios I found out that the 2.5" to 3.5" adapter I had bought was more or less useless in my Antec Sonata case, due to the HD trays requiring bottom mounted screws. The adapter was also slightly narrower than the tray so until I used shims to close the gap the SSD was loose in the case.

I used Easeus Todo Backup free to restore the system partition. It has an option to optimize for SSD. Once again Windows wouldn't boot although the SSD was configured as the first startup drive.

I solved this by disconnecting all other storage devices and once I did the SSD booted as expected (although not nearly as fast as I had hoped).

So the moral of the story is that if you install a new SATA HD as a startup disk, disconnect any other drives you may have. I'm sure this is old news to frequent builders and I had seen it recommended before (but then you're "supposed" to do a clean install on a new SSD also) but I never had to do this with IDE drives.

Just once I'd like making a hardware change to be straightforward.

 

[zephyrprime]

I solved this by disconnecting all other storage devices and once I did the SSD booted as expected (although not nearly as fast as I had hoped).

I was able to avoid these problems in my case by simply moving my ssd to the port that my old boot drive was connected on. This made the SSD a drop in physical replacement for my old boot drive.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Clonezilla.

 

[razel]

Since it's your boot drive, assuming the total data will fit onto the 120GB, you got two choices:

FASTEST and SAFE:
Clone direct from the HDD to the SSD. Check your SSD and current HDD manufacturer onlline if they provide cloning tools for download. Western Digital, Seagate and Intel do. Some from Samsung and Kingston come with a CD. The free cloning software is often from Acronis and only requires that the HDD/SSD is installed naively via SATA so that it can detect it properly. You can then just disconnect your old HDD and keep it around as a backup. This can also be a good test with how fast SSDs can be. You will reach the speed limit of your HDD during the clone.

RAINY DAY SAFE:
Like with everyone, Win7's built-in image backup. Can take twice as long since this forces you to make a backup file that you then restore from. It actually creates a VHD. A virtual hard disk that you can mount in Win7 that you can treat as a regular drive or even use in VM's to boot from, even some versions of Vista/Win7 can boot from it.

 

[nk215]

I just went through this process myself and learned a few unexpected things regarding hardware configuration. I'll share them since they're relevant to the thread although they may not apply to the OP.

Before I installed the SSD I needed to switch my Windows 7 install from IDE to AHCI. I used the Microsoft "Fix It" registry file change. I switched to AHCI in the bios and when I rebooted Windows told me the bootmgr was missing. My first assumption (and I am not new to cloning the OS to different drives but only with IDE drives) was that somehow my OS had gotten corrupted. It turns out that when you make this change the bios resets the boot order of your harddrives (which were still connected). Windows was looking for an OS on a drive that didn't have one.

After I reconfigured the drives in the bios I found out that the 2.5" to 3.5" adapter I had bought was more or less useless in my Antec Sonata case, due to the HD trays requiring bottom mounted screws. The adapter was also slightly narrower than the tray so until I used shims to close the gap the SSD was loose in the case.

I used Easeus Todo Backup free to restore the system partition. It has an option to optimize for SSD. Once again Windows wouldn't boot although the SSD was configured as the first startup drive.

I solved this by disconnecting all other storage devices and once I did the SSD booted as expected (although not nearly as fast as I had hoped).

So the moral of the story is that if you install a new SATA HD as a startup disk, disconnect any other drives you may have. I'm sure this is old news to frequent builders and I had seen it recommended before (but then you're "supposed" to do a clean install on a new SSD also) but I never had to do this with IDE drives.

Just once I'd like making a hardware change to be straightforward.

If the OP run into similar problem "bootmgr is missing" error.

+ Boot from your windows 7 DVD
+ Select "repair" wait a few second then cancel the repair process
+ Pick the "command prompt"
+ Type in:
bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /fixmbr
bcdboot c:\windows


that should fix it.

 

[Red Hawk]

Ok, something odd is going on...I'm trying to make a system image on my 500 GB hard drive. However, it won't allow me. It says I can't save an image on a drive my system boots from or Windows is installed on...but I don't use the 500 GB drive to boot, and Windows is installed on the 150 GB drive, not the 500 GB drive.

Maybe just making a new partition on the 500 GB drive to put the image on would work?

Edit: Ok...my "D : \" drive, the 500 GB drive, is apparently considered part of the system and would have to be backed up with a system image. Windows is not installed to it, so I don't even know why it's requiring this. There's 288 GB of data on D : \, there's no way I can back up both it and C: \ without buying a new, larger HDD. Is there any way to remove D : \ from being considered part of the system?

 

[razel]

That's just one of the many love/hate things I have with the Win7 backup. It's not MS's fault, if they made it 'better' they'll get sued by the backup software people as a monopoly.

It'll work for you if you have an external USB SATA enclosure or adapter to plug the 500GB into. Another thing you can try is, in 'Disk Management' right click the 500GB to remove the drive letter associated. Start Windows Backup until you get to the 'choose target disk' screen. Then put the drive letter back and have it rescan for a target disk. Hope it works.

By the way, you will have to 'shrink' your 150GB disk's partition to 110GiB so that it fits into the SSD. Win7 backup will not automatically shrink to smaller disks even if the data fits. Again you can shrink it using 'Disk Management'.

 

[Red Hawk]

If I can't make a disc image of just my C: \ drive, I think I'll just do a clean install of Windows. I'll archive my installed games onto my D : \ drive as best I can, move all important files to D, and just do a fresh install. The idea of waiting for fresh install of Windows to update itself is not wholly appealing though.

 

[Diogenes2]

Ok, something odd is going on...I'm trying to make a system image on my 500 GB hard drive. ...
.............

Use Macrium Reflect free to clone to your SSD.. Should work seamlessly ..

 

[pcm81]

1. internal windows HD clone software will not work on a system drive. i tried.
2. To get it done you need a Boot Disk, like norton Ghost boot disk, and do a full HD backup using that disk. then restore to new HD. i tried this method and it worked. I usel old norton 11.5 boot disk, it opens up with windows 95/98 logo, but it works. Use the same disk to restore image to new hd.

 

[Diogenes2]

Which internal clone software are you talking about ?


I just cloned my C drive, a 500gb Seagate HDD to my 2 x240 SDD Raid 0 using Macrium, and it's what I'm running right now as I type this..