Cloning Win7 to SSD

We all know there are tons of different ways to do anything, so I just wanted to check my procedures with you all for any obvious or fatal flaws.

I'll be cloning my Windows 7, on a 115gb partition, to a Kingston V+ 128gb ssd drive. The origin drive is 460gb, but I've deleted the other partitions (after backing up of course).
The origin partition is on the left of the drive.

I'll be using the Acronis True Image that comes with the bundle.

Currently, the boot drive sits in the disk 1 position - disk 0 is my old XP drive, which I still keep as a dual boot.

Once the cloning is done, I'll shut down, change the SSD to the disk 1. I'll leave the old win 7 drive unconnected until the new drive is stable, then reconnect, reformat and partition it.

I know I may have to do a repair install so I'll have the win7 disk handy.


Does this plan work?
Will I have trouble using Acronis true image cloning the 115gb partition of the 460gb drive to the new ssd even if the other 345gb are unparitioned? Do I need to unformat the unused space?

Please don't ask why I dont do a clean install. My preference is try this way first.

thanks in advance for your help.

That's an interesting method.

Would the restored image have the effect of re-installing all my software, and settings?

You also might want to add the 'make a backup image' as step zero.

I used Acronis TrueImage Home v10 to clone my 160Gb Intel SSD and found things did not always work correctly and the drive seemed to act odd at time so I did a fresh install of Windows 7 after format and the drive runs ever so smoothly. I'm not saying your experience will be bad just something to know about.

tw33k,

Any reason why you installed 7 to the ssd first., then restored the image?

To clone your drive:
!. Make a System Repair Disk
2. Make a system image of your present disk using Windows Backup and Restore.
3. Disconnect old disk.
4. Connect new disk
5. Boot using your system repair disk, choose the option to restore a system image.

Windows Backup and Restore creates, and uses, a VHD file.

Actually, you can. If the image vhd requires less space than physically available you are ok.

A system image is not a track for track copy, thus a system image of a drive of size x will require less space than x.

Since in this situation one can simply try the procedure and watch it work with no loss (you could always reconnect the old drive), then the "just do it" approach is valid.