Copying Win7 Partition to SSD

Hi

Yesterday (Mon 14 May) I received a Crucial M4 128GB SSD and today have been trying to copy a Win7 partition across to it using the tutorial on the How To Geek website which seemed to be fairly comprehensive. However, although I managed to get to the point of creating a partition and setting the alignment I can get no further even though I am using the software suggested in the tutorial.

The snag seems to arise in that the instructions tell you to create a primary partition with appropriate alignment etc. but then when it comes to copying the partition, the program (Easeus Partition Master) says it must be unallocated space. I've also tried this with Partition Wizard but the same applies - it must be unallocated space. Although I could copy across the partition to unallocated space, goodness only knows what the alignment would be thus probably reducing SSD life and slowing the performce in the process.

Does anyone know of any reliable way in which I can copy the Win7 partition whilst retaining the alignment.

I should also add that I am fully aware that a fresh install would take care of the alignment for me but we want to avoid the hassle and time (probably days since this is my husband's PC) involved in a full re-installation what with the drivers and all apps and their settings etc.

Any help would be most appreciated. Thanks.

Tracey

traceyw said:

Although I could copy across the partition to unallocated space, goodness only knows what the alignment would be thus probably reducing SSD life and slowing the performce in the process.

Does anyone know of any reliable way in which I can copy the Win7 partition whilst retaining the alignment.

I stand to be corrected, but I think unallocated space is correct.

And I think that if the source partition is properly aligned, the proper alignment will be maintained after the transfer.

And I think that alignment can be corrected after the fact if it turns out to be misaligned. It's easily checked.

Let others confirm the above.

Try this Windows Seven Forums tutorial: SSD - Install and Transfer the Operating System

You always want a blank, unallocated drive as the target drive for imaging. That's always the safest way to ensure success. I also believe you can realign a drive afterwards, but I don't know with 100% certainty.

That all being said, far too many people have a fear of clean installs. With a little planning ahead, it can be a very easy, straightforward process. You can always spend a few minutes downloading the latest drivers and making sure you have all the software installers. It doesn't take anywhere near as long as people seem to think. Add in all the benfits of a fresh install, and it often can be the best option.

traceyw said:

Hi

Yesterday (Mon 14 May) I received a Crucial M4 128GB SSD and today have been trying to copy a Win7 partition across to it using the tutorial on the How To Geek

Does anyone know of any reliable way in which I can copy the Win7 partition whilst retaining the alignment.


Any help would be most appreciated. Thanks.

Tracey

The tutorial Seavixen32 Pointed to you is excellent.

In it you will find reference to "the easy way" using Paragon Migrate OS to SSD.

I just got done doing this for the first time and could not recommend it (Paragon) more highly. It truly was easy. The whole operation took about 15 minutes.

Mind you I'm no stranger to command line tools & the like. (My computer experience predates the GUI ) but, if easy is what you have in mind this program is well worth the $20.

HTH
Doug

Hi folks

Bit late posting this message but have been rather busy trying to sort out the installation of my SSD. In the end I had to resort to a reinstall but it did give me an opportunity to remove all sorts of crud that had built up since my husband had win7 first installed well over 2 years ago.

Well thanks for all your input but sadly nothing seemed to work. Perhaps I was doing something wrong but as I say, a reinstall was probably for the best.

Tracey

Cheers Tracey.

It probably was for the best, so thanks for updating us.

If you want to improve overall performence of SSD system disk, need to change the registration key value "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Msahcia" to "0" and then turn on AHCI in BIOS. Thus could use 3th-party software directly migrate os to ssd, and I here recommend a free version provided by Aomei , maybe searched as Partition Assistant5.0 Home...