Advice for moving to SSD from SATA?

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1) I have XP pro (41g) running for yrs THEN installed Win7 home premium (72g) on D:

2) everything is running great but I want to upgrade to SSD and just one OS (win7).

3) I would just like to delete the XP partition and get win 7 booting then (using Easeus todo) clone it to my samsung SSD and reboot and have all is well.

Is there a scenario somewhere I can follow steps to make it as painless as possible ?

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Migrating to SDD
Get an external backup disk.
Get AOMEI Backupper or Macrium Reflect free.
Create a bootable USB stick.
Boot from the USB stick.
Create a disk image to the external backup disk.
Swap the HDD for the SSD.
Boot from the USB stick.
Restore the disk image from the external backup disk.
Sector alignment with AB
Sector alignment with MR.

Making sure TRIM works in Windows 7

cheers, Paul

1 user thanked author for this post.

Bill C.

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I want to remove the XP os before the ssd install. I want to end up just using win7.

What size usb stick do I need ?

Will I have a boot issue after the “restore” ?

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I have done it on my computer. The easiest method is ,boot to Win 7. Go to disk management , Right click on your Win 7 partition ,& click on the make it active display.Now shutdown the computer. Insert your Win 7 installation DVD & boot through it, and do a start up repair. Reboot the computer. If it does not boot , again boot through Win 7 installation DVD and do another Start Up repair, Shut down the computer & boot normally. If it does not boot , again boot through Win 7 installation DVD and do a Start Up repair 3rd time & do a normal boot, It will certainly boot to Win 7.
In my case it booted to Win 7 after the 1st , Stat Up repair.
Now Go the disk management & format the XP partition.
Now you have your HDD with only on bootable OS ie. Win7.
Take an Image of the Win 7 on another partition of the same HDD using MR or Ease US toDo or Acronis
Shut down the computer. Connect the SSD in addition to the HDD. Boot through the Rescue Disk of the Image creator, Restore the Image of Win 7 to SSD.
Shut down the computer, disconnect the HDD with the Only the SSD connected. Boot normally , now you have the bootable Win 7 ,on the SSD
Good luck

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Jag,

You don’t really need the USB stick as you can create the Recovery Media right on your external hard drive. Once that is done then just make a folder on that drive to store your images in (keeps things tidy).

As to the issue of boot problems after restore it’s one of those that depends things. My experience with doing this was NO you won’t but of course YMMV! You want to have a Windows Recovery Disk handy to take care of any potential boot problems.

HTH :cheers:

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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You will be asked for more info on partition structure, tell us your layout.
:cheers:

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Disk info;=
disk 0 = XP in a 250g partition THEN win 7 in a 236g partition.. of the 1 tb sata drive

It boot to the win 7 boot screen for selection of OS at this time.

I have a lot of spare space on the sata drive.

I’d like to just clone the win7 for move/clone to the new SSD 250g.

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I think you need to post a screen shot of Diskmanager.

Type diskmgmt.msc
in run box or at command line.

As an attachment seems to come across clearest.
:cheers:

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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here you go !!42840-Screenshot-12_6_2015-5_17_00-PM

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I would do what Paul said in post #2. Reason being what ever you do to the SSD you still have the HHD fully functional (albeit w/ both OSs). The set up you have shows the XP partition is where the W7 boot manager is, don’t just format that partition w/o being prepared to repair your boot files. Be sure to make a W7 system repair disk.
Control panel/ Backup and Restore/Create a system repair disk (you will need a DVD and DVD burner drive) Make sure you can boot this and maybe take a look at the options when booted.

:cheers:

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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I missed the bit about dual boot.
Make a W7 install / recovery CD.
When you restore to the SSD, only restore the win7 partition and make it the full size of the SSD.
Boot from the SSD to test, it will probably fail.
If required boot from the W7 CD and repair the boot files.

cheers, Paul

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Thanks All;
If I get into an issue, I’ll post back.

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Q) I use the win7 boot program and just select which OS I want at boot, does that mean both are active??

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Q) I use the win7 boot program and just select which OS I want at boot, does that mean both are active??

Not necessarily, using the stock W7 bootloader, only one drive needs to be active, check in Disk Management.

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Q) I use the win7 boot program and just select which OS I want at boot, does that mean both are active??

You boot to Win 7, Go to Disk Management ,Right click on Win7 partition ,and select Make it active. Originally your Win XP partition was active. When you make Win 7 Partition active , then Win XP partition is no longer the active partition as there can be only one active partition .Then follow my procedure
good luck

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as there can be only one active partition .

I believe that a booted Windows system will only SEE one active partition:the one that began it’s boot sequence. And I find it curious that my UEFI boot W7 System does not list any disk partition as ‘active’,I just have EFI System Partitions!

:cheers:

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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UEFI does it differently – you tell it which boot file on which disk, it doesn’t have to work it out from the partition status. It will search for boot files, but it’s folder based.

cheers, Paul

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Oh thats right thanks for the reminder!:huh:
:cheers:

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Having switched to SSDs on a couple of Windows 7 computers earlier this year, I can add a few points. I used an Apricorn cable and software to clone my HDs. It was quick, simply, and worked great. Then after physically installing the new SSD & booting, the only thing I had to tweak was System Restore, which was not turned on, and my old restore points obviously were gone. Not a big deal, but it’s something to check after the job is done.
The only other thing I remember needing attention was some Chrome browser settings. Again, no big deal.
Both computers needed the same tweaks.

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Have you checked that TRIM actually works? (See post #2)

cheers, Paul

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Have you checked that TRIM actually works? (See post #2)

cheers, Paul

Thanks for bring that to my attention. I went back to Post #2, used the link, and I’m good.

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OK Folks, this is what I did !!

I went into win7 disk management, made the win 7 partition active (and then it wouldn’t boot) so I used the win 7 OEM disk to fix the boot, I then deleted the XP partition.

I installed the Samsung migration and magician tools that came with the SSD drive, I installed the SSD on my PC using a different power & data (of which I have several on my power supply).

I used the migration tool to clone the win7 to SSD, shut down PC and disconnected the old sata HD, booted up and all is fast.
I then used the magician navigation tool to see how Samsung thought it was benchmarked and it’s fast and well satisfied.

The Samsung software said that the “trim” will continue to be engaged but I don’t 100% really know.

Thanks to all for the help!!

PS: if anyone want a copy of this Samsung software, I can wetranfer it to members.

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You can only use the Samsung software with Samsung drives – but they are fast and efficient, so why not buy one.

cheers, Paul

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@Paul-T –

You may want to revise the link mentioned in the second post of this thread (#1540723) about checking the status of TRIM, as it currently only leads to the AskWoody Windows Secrets landing page and goes nowhere else.  I’m very curious as to the TRIM status of my Win7 installation, and would love to be able to verify it’s working as it should.

Thanks!

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I think it works now (assuming I found the right post )

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Yep, fixed!

Thanks, PK!

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SSDs come in NVMe and SATA forms.

What Is an SSD? A Basic Definition – Tom’s Hardware site
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-solid-state-drive-definition,5763.html

topic should be renamed to “Advice for moving to SSD from HDD?

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