restore win7 from image

jaschulz · 28 Apr 2010

I did a clean install of win7 on my (aging) ThinkPad. No problem. But then I decided to replace the horribly slow hard disk with an SSD. I first made a recovery disk and an image backup (on an external USB hard drive). ThenI installed the new SSD (without difficulty),and rebooted the machine using the recovery disk. Again there was no difficulty. The recovery environment saw the attached USB drive, and the new (blank) c: drive. I chose recover from a system image, but after about 10 seconds, the recovery process quit saying that "no disk that can be used for recovering the system disk can be found".

The C drive is active. I can get to it from the command prompt. I formatted it (FAT32 which was the only option I had). I tried to copy a file from the recovery DVD to C:, and had no difficulty in doing that. I cannot imagine why the image restore system will not recognize C:

Any ideas?

Thanks,

JAS

jaschulz · 28 Apr 2010

I converted C: to NTFS, but still the image restore fails. I really am out of ideas now.

JAS

Arc · 28 Apr 2010

Here is a tutorial about SSD Partition Image - Restore from a HDD to a SSD
It might help you about some steps I think .

whs · 28 Apr 2010

I suspect that the image (original C partition) is larger than the SSD. Usually you cannot restore an image to a smaller disk/partition. For that you need a clone.

Btw: No disk (internal and external) should be formatted in Fat32 - that is only a valid (useful) format for USB sticks.

jaschulz · 28 Apr 2010

No, the previous hard disk was the same size as the SSD and that hard disk was not nearly full. I understand the original Fat32 format was a mistake, after the conversion

whs · 28 Apr 2010

I would suggest you do a clean install on the SSD. The way you try do do it will leave you with a set of problems.

1. Your SSD will not be aligned unless you did that beforehand. That will give you a major performance hit. The Win7 installer will do that for you.
2. A set of Win7 functions have to be disabled on the SSD (e.g. Defrag is only one of them). Again the Win7 installer will do that for you.
3. Trim may not get properly setup and you'll end up with a write speed that is degraded by 50%.

If you are not an "expert" with SSDs, you are liable to make a lot of mistakes that you can avoid with a clean install.
I am not sure why your restore did not work. I only know that the windows imaging has it's quirks. That's why I use Macrium which never let me down.

jaschulz · 28 Apr 2010

OK. You arguments for a clean install make good sense. I will try it. One more question slightly off topic. I have two sets of Win 7 disks (one for my laptop and one for my desk top). And of course I have two cards bearing the product keys. Is there any way I can tell which product key goes with which set of disks?

Thanks

JAS

whs · 28 Apr 2010

I am not sure I can answer that question. I would think, that as long as you do not use a product key twice, it would not make any difference.

PS: maybe the people from the MS outreach team can answer your question. Send them a PM. https://www.sevenforums.com/members/cassiefwinteam.html

jaschulz · 28 Apr 2010

That, alas, is precisely the question. Both the laptop and the desktop were activated, and if I do the install with the wrong disk, the activation will be refused and I will have to reformat and start with the other disk. Oh well... My fault for not keeping things straight at the beginning.

derekimo · 28 Apr 2010

Why don't you use this Magical Jelly Bean Software - Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder v2.0.1 on the computer you're not doing the clean install on, It will let you know which one NOT to use.