HDD Image to SSD

tw33k · 31 Mar 2010

Thank you both so much. It'll do for now. I'll fix it up tomorrow if I can. Very late now and got to go to work in the morning

Check it out here
Not perfect but I really need sleep

whs · 31 Mar 2010

Information

Searching the Web on this topic showed me, time after time, pages and pages of negative results. I tried it anyway and it worked, 1st time! I used Acronis True Image Home 2010 so I am not sure if other programs will work.

Arc · 31 Mar 2010

tw33k said:

Can't get screen shots where I want them (in the right place)

Upload an image using snipping tool and attach to the post using the paper clip icon , now browse and click on the upload button ... etc you know. Now, when a snapshot is uploaded, again click on the paper clip icon , it will look like this

now click on the attached inage, so it will be in your post like

Now move the [ATTACH] ####{ATTACH] wherever you want, and so on

Saltgrass · 31 Mar 2010

Can't you just boot to the Acronis CD and make a backup and then reboot to it and recover the image to the new drive?

You could do the same thing with the Win 7 Backup and Restore, but the total partitioned space would have to be equal to or less than the new drive.

If there is something about the SSDs that take special procedures, then proceed with your idea.

zrtom · 31 Mar 2010

Cloning as well as image backup and restore are no different with SSDs. The OCZ Forums are littered with different techniques, stories, tweaks, etc.

Vertex, Agility, Turbo, Solid V2, Summit, Colossus and Z-Drive with Microsoft OS.

I think the most critical part of cloning an existing partition or restoring an image backup to a SSD is to ensure the partition is aligned on the SSD. Performance can suffer considerably on misaligned partitions. Many of the imaging software products handle alignment differently. Some can be manipulated to align the partition and some cannot.
Tom

Arc · 31 Mar 2010

tw33k said:

Thank you both so much. It'll do for now. I'll fix it up tomorrow if I can. Very late now and got to go to work in the morning

Check it out here
Not perfect but I really need sleep

Its nice ! If you think its a bit incomplete, give the final touch next morning. sweet dreams, pal !

tw33k · 31 Mar 2010

Saltgrass said:

Can't you just boot to the Acronis CD and make a backup and then reboot to it and recover the image to the new drive?

You could do the same thing with the Win 7 Backup and Restore, but the total partitioned space would have to be equal to or less than the new drive.

If there is something about the SSDs that take special procedures, then proceed with your idea.

As I said, if you do a web search for this you will find that almost everyone says it can't be done. An example is this

Well, logically you would think that all your answers should be correct. However, I'm afraid you're all grossly mistaken about this. I just bought an OCZ SSD and have spent the last 5 nights trying every way possible to restore my acronis trueimage 10 backup from a standard SATA HDD to this new drive. It doesn't work. Period. From what I can make out during my 20 + attempts (thank God SATA to SATA imaging only takes about 2 minutes for my 6GB image) it's a problem with the MBR and the physical structure of a platter based HDD compared to a SSD. Every single time it fails while verifying the DMI pool information. If you think about this though, the HDD MBR is all composed of pointers referring to sectors and clusters (which actually tell the physical location of the data to the drive controller), this isn't the case with a memcell based SSD. I was reading on Acronis' website and it looks like they have a working solution but it appears you have to buy it as an addon pack (first time I've ever been disappointed with Acronis' attitude, since I think this should be a free enhancement since everyone is pushing SSD down our throats). Anyways, day 5 and I've broken out the old XP CDs and am reinstalling manually. I'm sure you could restore DATA to the drive just fine if you have BEX or something else that will allow you to create a backup in a non-image format. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but take it from an experienced engineer who's been down this road. Acronis+SataHDD+SSD=FAIL (unless you want to buy the fix).

more

Now, however, SevenForums is the first entry when searching this :)

whs · 31 Mar 2010

zrtom touched on an interesting question though. How did you go about the alignment. Did you define the aligned partition first. And there are some other little nits that the Win7 installer does automatically (e.g. switch off defrag). That you should not forget.

zrtom · 01 Apr 2010

tw33k,
Have you tried just a plain clone or backup/restore without any of the extra work? The OCZ Forums are one of the more active Forums for SSDs and people clone their OSs to SSDs regularly and with no problems (except getting the alignment correct). I've cloned several successfully and indeed, straight cloning was the only way for my hack to work to install Windows Home Server to a hard drive less than 75GB.

It appears some people may have a problem cloning due to either their motherboard (nVidia stands out) or whether the clone-donor OS was factory installed and the manufacturer uses a proprietary MBR.

Looking back at my notes from January of this year, I see where in some cases when an applied image or cloned partition will not boot, that I ran "Repair MBR" with Partition Wizard and that fixed the problem. This might be a key element of any cloning to an SSD where problems booting arise.

I think the post you quoted from serverfault.com was from someone who had issues other than simply cloning an OS to a SSD. Although he speaks with great authority, what he says goes against what appears on sited dedicated to SSDs, like the OCZ Forum.

I'm not saying your tutorial isn't a good idea, just suggesting that maybe you might add a blurb that says some people can clone directly and with no extra steps (except maybe running Repair MBR).
Tom