Preparing SDD for HDD migration via cloning

Kaktussoft said:

stupid! Why not just move the bootmgr and bootmenu? pff....
Why not verify first if burned win7 installation disk is working??

anyway..

Went to boot up from wrd to carry out a repair however I can't boot from the disk.

How did you make the windows recovery disk?
What error do you get on (trying to) boot from that dvd?
Did you set CD/DVD drive as first boot device in BIOS? (or select it as one-time boot device during boot)

I did verify that the windows recovery disk worked but I selected the the dvd drive as a one time boot.

With the disc in drive when I switched and I thought I have pressed esc a number of times but then it did not work

HOWEVER

I have rebooted again and pressed the esc key more frequently and I was able to boot from the dvd and I have repaired the bootmgr and started windows successfully. The relief is truely palpable.

I do have a question though. When I launch disk manager I now have three partition and and then 2 blocks of disk (200mb and 218GB) unallocated. Should I extend the main partition (C:\) now to include these unallocated disks spaces?

I have managed to extend c by 218GB. However the 200mb still shows as unallocated. Persumably I can just leave this as when I create a system image (to restore to the new SDD) this unallocated diskspace will be disregarded as it is not a partition?

Sorry if I have not made myself clear!

Please see attached screenshot

I did delete partition earlier but it now shown as unallocated space. Earlier on today C: partition was over 400GB however only 80GB was used. So i shrank it to about 220GB.

So I think I will create a system image of the 3 current partitions.

Although keeping partition 3 and 4 is probably not critical I will take them across for the time being. If space becomes really short in supply then I can always remove / delete them later.

Kaktussoft said:

Okay.... but for win7 only C is only important now. Be sure to clone that first, make it primary and active.
HP_TOOLS: primary partition size 4GB
Recovery: primary partition size 20GB

Detach the source disk after cloning and the perform a "startup repair" to repair the bootmenu on SSD.
After succesful boot from SSD you can reattach the old disk.
Be sure to boot from SSD!!!!! You can check in disk management.

I have decided to go the system image route (currently creating this via Acronis) and restore to the SSD. So I unless I misunderstood once the image is created I need to plug in the plus in both the external hard disk (which contains the image) and the SDD (via adapter). Once the restore is complete, remove the existing hard disk and replace with the SDD and then switch computer on the and it should hopefully boot up from the SDD or do I need to change the boot option to SDD?

Kaktussoft said:

So you make an image and then restore it. You could have done it in one step.

Are you replacing internal HDD with SSD and use same connector on mainboard after cloning (i mean after restoring the image)? If so.... it should boot from SSD. There is probably no need to do a "startup repair". After reattaching old HDD or any other internal disk.... you probably have to change the boot order in BIOS, or swap the sata connectors.

Yes I am swapping one for the other - point noted really the startup repair.

whs said:

I have decided to go the system image route (currently creating this via Acronis) and restore to the SSD

Smart move. Since your C partition is active (contains the bootmgr), there is nothing else you need to do. Just check the SSD alignment after you restored the image. I am not sure whether Acronis will take care of that. And set defrag off.

Defrag? - I am sure I read somewhere in the last day or so that you never Defrag an ssd?

I now have the disc image (80gb) so I just need the new ssd to arrive in the post, which should happen today. So relieved after my earlier hiccup and looking forward to using my new ssd?!