Backing up OS from HDD to smaller SSD

[aruwin]

Hi guys!
I have a 500 GB HDD and my OS is windows 7 64-bit and I want to image the whole drive onto a 240 GB SSD. Actually I first did this using the windows back up and restore function but it failed to restore the backed up OS because the SSD is smaller than the old HDD, although I have only used 70GB of the HDD.
So I tried to re-do it again by shrinking the OS partition into the minimum that it could but it was impossible to shrink it less than 260 GB

Now my question is, if I use MACRIUM REFLECT FREE to image from the 500GB drive onto an external disk of 200GB, and then from the external disk, I restore the image onto my new 240 GB SSD, will it work? Or is it just gonna turn out the same like I did with the windows back up and restore function?

 

[Kaktussoft]

Hi guys!
I have a 500 GB HDD and my OS is windows 7 64-bit and I want to image the whole drive onto a 240 GB SSD. Actually I first did this using the windows back up and restore function but it failed to restore the backed up OS because the SSD is smaller than the old HDD, although I have only used 70GB of the HDD.
So I tried to re-do it again by shrinking the OS partition into the minimum that it could but it was impossible to shrink it less than 260 GB

Now my question is, if I use MACRIUM REFLECT FREE to image from the 500GB drive onto an external disk of 200GB, and then from the external disk, I restore the image onto my new 240 GB SSD, will it work? Or is it just gonna turn out the same like I did with the windows back up and restore function?

Yes use macrium!! Post screenshot of disk management first please

 

[Kaktussoft]

How many partitions do you have on your current HDD? Look in disk management.
"System Reserved"?
Of course C-partition.
Any more?

 

[aruwin]

How many partitions do you have on your current HDD? Look in disk management.
"System Reserved"?
Of course C-partition.
Any more?

There are three, system reserved, C and one more that has no name :/
But I have only copied the C partition. Is that OK?

 

[Kaktussoft]

How many partitions do you have on your current HDD? Look in disk management.
"System Reserved"?
Of course C-partition.
Any more?

There are three, system reserved, C and one more that has no name :/
But I have only copied the C partition. Is that OK?

Post screenshot of disk management please. system reserved (100MB) should be backupped as well (almost sure). It's the active boot partition I assume

 

[aruwin]

How many partitions do you have on your current HDD? Look in disk management.
"System Reserved"?
Of course C-partition.
Any more?

There are three, system reserved, C and one more that has no name :/
But I have only copied the C partition. Is that OK?

Post screenshot of disk management please. system reserved (100MB) should be backupped as well (almost sure). It's the active boot partition I assume

Oh no, but I have already only backed up the C partition and right now it's already in the restoring process. That's why I can't post the screenshot now. Oh no, what happens if I don't back up the system reserved as well???? But just so you know, the new SSD has 2 partitions, one system reserved and one C part, and I am now restoring the C part of the old HDD onto the C part of this new SSD, meaning that I will still have my system reserve but the one from my new SSD, though. Is it ok?

 

[Kaktussoft]

How come the SSD has system reserved? How did you backup C and how restore C? Using macrium boot from CD?

 

[aruwin]

How come the SSD has system reserved? How did you backup C and how restore C? Using macrium boot from CD?

Yes, using macrium reflect free. And after imaging it onto my external hard disk, I used the macrium CD to for booting it and restore it.

 

[Kaktussoft]

"system reserved" on SSD was working? So it has bootmgr and bcd (bootmenu) on it? If restore completes succesfully.

• power off and detach old HDD drive
• try to boot so from SSD... if not working try "startup repair" from win7 install dvd or win7 system repair disc. (eventually 3 times with reboots in between)

Works? If not... what error on boot?

 

[Kaktussoft]

How come the SSD has system reserved? How did you backup C and how restore C? Using macrium boot from CD?

Yes, using macrium reflect free. And after imaging it onto my external hard disk, I used the macrium CD to for booting it and restore it.

Is old HDD still connected during the restore process? Not a good thing. Maybe it adjusts the bootmenu on HDD "system reserved" instead of SSD "system reserved".

How long does restore take to finish?

 

[aruwin]

How come the SSD has system reserved? How did you backup C and how restore C? Using macrium boot from CD?

Yes, using macrium reflect free. And after imaging it onto my external hard disk, I used the macrium CD to for booting it and restore it.

Is old HDD still connected during the restore process? Not a good thing. Maybe it adjusts the bootmenu on HDD "system reserved" instead of SSD "system reserved".

How long does restore take to finish?

No, I have detached my old HDD right after the image was created (of course after switching it off) so now I am in the restoring process with my backup drive(external Hardisk) and the new SSD that I put into my laptop. The restore process is now at 47% and I started like half an hour ago.

 

[Kaktussoft]

Yes, using macrium reflect free. And after imaging it onto my external hard disk, I used the macrium CD to for booting it and restore it.

Is old HDD still connected during the restore process? Not a good thing. Maybe it adjusts the bootmenu on HDD "system reserved" instead of SSD "system reserved".

How long does restore take to finish?

No, I have detached my old HDD right after the image was created (of course after switching it off) so now I am in the restoring process with my backup drive(external Hardisk) and the new SSD that I put into my laptop. The restore process is now at 47% and I started like half an hour ago.

So far so good. Who did create "system reserved" on SSD? A clean install?

 

[aruwin]

Is old HDD still connected during the restore process? Not a good thing. Maybe it adjusts the bootmenu on HDD "system reserved" instead of SSD "system reserved".

How long does restore take to finish?

No, I have detached my old HDD right after the image was created (of course after switching it off) so now I am in the restoring process with my backup drive(external Hardisk) and the new SSD that I put into my laptop. The restore process is now at 47% and I started like half an hour ago.

So far so good. Who did create "system reserved" on SSD? A clean install?

I am not sure what clean install means but I have previously used this SSD and installed windows 7 on it using the windows 7 CD.

 

[Kaktussoft]

A clean install is an install from scratch. so not an upgrade. When you installed win7 and created "system reserved" on SSD .... the SSD didn't have any partitions.... otherwise "system reserved" will not be created. Did it show a startup menu after clean installing win7? Or did you detach old HDD as well when installing?

Are you attaching old HDD later if SSD boots as expected.... or do you keep it as a spare HDD?

Restore is finished?

 

[aruwin]

A clean install is an install from scratch. so not an upgrade. When you installed win7 and created "system reserved" on SSD .... the SSD didn't have any partitions.... otherwise "system reserved" will not be created. Did it show a startup menu after clean installing win7? Or did you detach old HDD as well when installing?

Are you attaching old HDD later if SSD boots as expected.... or do you keep it as a spare HDD?

Restore is finished?

Well, my laptop can't fit two internal hard drives, so I always have either one of my hard drives in the laptop. Restore has not finished yet, it's now at 72%. I will be keeping my old HDD as a spare.

 

[Kaktussoft]

A clean install is an install from scratch. so not an upgrade. When you installed win7 and created "system reserved" on SSD .... the SSD didn't have any partitions.... otherwise "system reserved" will not be created. Did it show a startup menu after clean installing win7? Or did you detach old HDD as well when installing?

Are you attaching old HDD later if SSD boots as expected.... or do you keep it as a spare HDD?

Restore is finished?

Well, my laptop can't fit two internal hard drives, so I always have either one of my hard drives in the laptop. Restore has not finished yet, it's now at 72%. I will be keeping my old HDD as a spare.

After restore finishes:

• I hope macrium adjusts the bootmenu so it points to the new partition on SSD. If not you encounter an error like
  
• I hope macrium adjusts the drive lettering of new C in the registry. Or maybe simply bootup fixes it (C points to old HDD which isn't there... should be adjusted automagically).

 

[aruwin]

A clean install is an install from scratch. so not an upgrade. When you installed win7 and created "system reserved" on SSD .... the SSD didn't have any partitions.... otherwise "system reserved" will not be created. Did it show a startup menu after clean installing win7? Or did you detach old HDD as well when installing?

Are you attaching old HDD later if SSD boots as expected.... or do you keep it as a spare HDD?

Restore is finished?

Well, my laptop can't fit two internal hard drives, so I always have either one of my hard drives in the laptop. Restore has not finished yet, it's now at 72%. I will be keeping my old HDD as a spare.

After restore finishes:

• I hope macrium adjusts the bootmenu so it points to the new partition on SSD. If not you encounter an error like
  
• I hope macrium adjusts the drive lettering of new C in the registry. Or maybe simply bootup fixes it (C points to old HDD which isn't there... should be adjusted automagically).

Oh my God, that's exactly what is happening now!! Why can't I startup my windows? Should I image the old HDD again with the system reserve to fix this? And by the way, the OS is now not C drive but D!!!!

 

[aruwin]

Oh hey, it worked!!!After I put in the windows 7 CD and repaired it, it could start again!!! I did it!!And the OS is recognized as C

 

[Kaktussoft]

Oh my God, that's exactly what is happening now!! Why can't I startup my windows? Should I image the old HDD again with the system reserve to fix this? And by the way, the OS is now not C drive but D!!!!

When is it called D? You mean in recovery environment? A drive letter is just a drive letter and defined in registry of current running OS... probably the recovery environment now. Not a problem at all!


The problem is... all boot entries are still pointing to old HDD! Easiest thing to do:

• Boot into recovery environment->command prompt

C:
CD \boot
attrib -h  -s  bcd
ren  bcd  bcdold

Now old bootmenu is gone (renamed). Now do a startup repair 3 times, with reboots in between.
C is system reseerved now btw. But if repaired and booted in win7... C is OS partition

 

[aruwin]

Oh my God, that's exactly what is happening now!! Why can't I startup my windows? Should I image the old HDD again with the system reserve to fix this? And by the way, the OS is now not C drive but D!!!!

When is it called D? You mean in recovery environment? A drive letter is just a drive letter and defined in registry of current running OS... probably the recovery environment now. Not a problem at all!


The problem is... all boot entries are still pointing to old HDD! Easiest thing to do:

• Boot into recovery environment->command prompt

C:
CD \boot
attrib -h  -s  bcd
ren  bcd  bcdold

Now old bootmenu is gone (renamed). Now do a startup repair 3 times, with reboots in between.
C is system reseerved now btw. But if repaired and booted in win7... C is OS partition

I just did a reboot once with the Windows CD in and then everything went back to normal, as if I hadn't changed my hard drives. Shouldn't this be ok already?