Creating system image of HDD for re-image to SSD

Roo Boy · 05 Apr 2013

i was expecting to see read and writes in the 3-400's like ive seen from other peoples bench results.
do you think running it in a laptop that uses an i3 390 is affecting it?

whs · 06 Apr 2013

Nah, the CPU should not have any bearing on it. And again, focus on the 4K R/W, the rest is pretty irrelevant.

chev65 · 06 Apr 2013

whs said:

1. If e.g. the bootmgr sits on another partition, many people forget to image that partition (because it is hidden and they never look into Disk Management) or copy the bootmgr to C.

2. Depending on the imaging program you use, you may get your SSD aligned or not. That's why it is always prudent to predefine an aligned primary active partition into which you can dump the image.

3. When you install an OS to a SSD via an image, there is no installer that makes the settings for you. E.g. you will have to disable defrag yourself and maybe make a few other settings to optimize the space on the SSD.

4. Windows 7 imaging works or it doesn't. In my experience it did not work many times.

I think I had it backwards, I was taking my image from my SSD and saving it to a regular HDD, using that same image back to my SSD never a problem there. I'm pretty sure this is how everyone is doing it these days.

But creating an image of a regular HDD then putting that onto an SSD would be more problematic as you suggested, because the image was made from a regular HDD. Although that may be problematic no matter which imaging software was being used.

So the clean install would be the way to go there.

Britton30 · 06 Apr 2013

Windows backup does at it wishes, no adjustments possible, you use it or not. The free Macrium is quite flexible and does a great job, even, say, restore a bigger partition to a smaller one and vice versa. (Ex. 500GB with 100GB data to a 128GB drive.)
I admit I haven't done it a lot, only 15-20, but Macrium has alway been spot on! I can even image a system with, say, two drives to two drives.
Ahh, you edited the post, thanks. As for a HDD image restored to a SSD I think is what causes many people problems.

Why bootmgr ends up on anther drive? People do odd things trying to do odd things.

whs · 06 Apr 2013

Rob, I never had problems moving systems with Macrium images from Hdds to SSDs. The only things you have to make sure is that you move the bootmgr also and that the data fits on the SSD. I never move the 100MB partition because I alway copy the bootmgr to C. Bootmgr - Move to C:\ with EasyBCD