Installation/Restoration of Windows 7 to New SSD

[vkw104]

Hello all,
I'm making the plunge into SSDs and would like to know what the best way of installing a new one is, if I already have W7 installed on my current hard drive.
I've made a complete image using Acronis True Image that I was planning on restoring directly onto the SSD after removing my original hard drive, but I read that Windows 7 has to do some "alignment" of the SSD. If I simply restored the file, would that not occur?

Should I just do a fresh install and reinstall my other programs one by one?

 

[fseal]

There are quite a few features that W7 modifies or turns off/on when it knows it's running on an SSD. Whether these are turned on or off on the fly after an install I don't know and so would have to assume "No".

The surer bet would be to install fresh onto the SSD...

 

[whs]

Absolutely fresh install. Apart from the alignment, when the Win7 installer determines that it is a disk with zero spin, it will modify all kinds of things in the system - e.g. :

Windows Indexing Service
System Restore
Windows Defrag
Use Large System Cache
Ntfs Memory Usage
Disable 8.3 Filenames
Disable Date Stamping
Disable Boot Tracing
Windows Prefetcher
Windows Superfetch

 

[vkw104]

Ah, I see. Thanks for the heads up!

All that is done automatically, so I would just install as normal, correct?

 

[whs]

Correct.

PS: what model SSD did you buy. Make sure the firmware supports "Trim". Win7 has Trim support, but it has to be supported by the SSD too. This is important to maintain the write speed over time. Only a few recent SSDs support that, so you have to watch out and possibly update the firmware (if an update is available).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIM_(SSD_command)

 

[Brink]

In addition to the above. Remember to do not run a disk defragmenter on a SSD. It can shorten it's life span.

 

[ussj4brolli]

Absolutely fresh install. Apart from the alignment, when the Win7 installer determines that it is a disk with zero spin, it will modify all kinds of things in the system - e.g. :

Windows Indexing Service
System Restore
Windows Defrag
Use Large System Cache
Ntfs Memory Usage
Disable 8.3 Filenames
Disable Date Stamping
Disable Boot Tracing
Windows Prefetcher
Windows Superfetch

Please not that not all of those are disabled automatically. (maybe on some SSD on some installs, but not all the time)
Several posts determined this on forums. I installed 7 pro RTM on my OCZ Vertex and had to manually disable all of those.

 

[vkw104]

Correct.

PS: what model SSD did you buy. Make sure the firmware supports "Trim". Win7 has Trim support, but it has to be supported by the SSD too. This is important to maintain the write speed over time. Only a few recent SSDs support that, so you have to watch out and possibly update the firmware (if an update is available).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIM_(SSD_command)

I grabbed the Gen 2 Intel X25M 80GB, so I think that supports TRIM.

As for disabling the other stuff, would that require any registry edits or just finding the right menu and unchecking some boxes?

 

[pparks1]

I have the Gen 2 Intel X25M 80GB myself...it's a great drive. It will support TRIM...but there is going to be a firmware update from Intel to actually support that functionality. Intel is supposed to release around the same time that Win 7 releases. Oct 22.

 

[whs]

Absolutely fresh install. Apart from the alignment, when the Win7 installer determines that it is a disk with zero spin, it will modify all kinds of things in the system - e.g. :

Windows Indexing Service
System Restore
Windows Defrag
Use Large System Cache
Ntfs Memory Usage
Disable 8.3 Filenames
Disable Date Stamping
Disable Boot Tracing
Windows Prefetcher
Windows Superfetch

Please not that not all of those are disabled automatically. (maybe on some SSD on some installs, but not all the time)
Several posts determined this on forums. I installed 7 pro RTM on my OCZ Vertex and had to manually disable all of those.

Right, at the moment, not ll of the above are being disabled automatically. That's why I said "e.g." But maybe I did not make that clear enough. This article describes the current situation: Engineering Windows 7 : Support and Q&A for Solid-State Drives If you want a full tweak, you can use this tweak utility that some friendly soul provided: Guide SSD Tweak Utility - OCZ Forum

 

[vkw104]

Hmm, I installed the SSD and Windows 7 onto it, everything was running fine. Installed all my programs, then upon my first restart, it said "Reboot and select boot device" or something to that effect. My SSD is correctly at the top of the boot priority but it doesn't seem to be able to boot from it. I tried repairing with my W7 disc, but it doesn't find my original installation of Windows 7. It's like I never installed anything.

Any ideas?

Update:
Ummm...well it works now. I just can't put the Intel SSD as the first boot drive, even though it's installed to the SSD. It boots fine so long as I put my secondary HD as #1 on the boot device list. I wonder if this means I should update my BIOS?

 

[Brink]

VKW,

If you go into Disk Management, is there a 100MB "System Reserved" partition on your secondary HD by chance? That is the boot file used by Windows 7.

 

[vkw104]

VKW,

If you go into Disk Management, is there a 100MB "System Reserved" partition on your secondary HD by chance? That is the boot file used by Windows 7.

Not that I see. D:/ (secondary drive) has it's allocation and Healthy (system, active, primary partition)

C:/ (supposed boot/SSD) says Health (boot, page file, crash dump, primary partition)

No reserved space or anything

 

[Brink]

It sounds like the boot file was installed on the D: drive. Could you post a screenshot of Disk Management to be sure though?

 

[vkw104]

It sounds like the boot file was installed on the D: drive. Could you post a screenshot of Disk Management to be sure though?

Sure, here it is:

 

[Brink]

Yep, the "System" boot partition was installed on the D: drive.

A easy way to fix this is to run a repair install within Windows 7 (C: drive). During the repair install, make sure that Disk 1 (C: drive) is selected to install on.

 

[vkw104]

Hmm, I think I might have to do a fresh install...things are kind of wonky right now. Is there some way to delete the system part of my D:/ drive?

 

[whs]

When you reinstall, pull the wire from the D: drive. Safest method to make sure things don't get mixed up.

 

[vkw104]

When you reinstall, pull the wire from the D: drive. Safest method to make sure things don't get mixed up.

It was a pain to do, but everything is working now. Thanks for all the help everyone!