I want to install a new 128 gb ssd to my win 7 32bit computer to replace my current startup drive.
My plan is to use Norton Ghost to copy my c drive to the ssd then re-format the old c drive, thus giving me a ssd start-up drive and a drive for extra storage.
Am I on the correct path? Is there anything else I need to do?
Yes, you need to first align the SSD and create an active primary partition before you dump the Ghost image on it. See here for details: SSD Alignment Then there are a few useful things to check. There are many threads on this forum where things are explained - e.g. here: how hard is it to "Move" install to another hdd?
PS: If you have the 100MB active boot partition, things are a bit more complicated. Better check that in Disk Management first.
Thanks for the tips. I'll definitely not wipe my old startup disk until I insure the new one is running properly.
That is a safe approach. Also remind you that you have to change the boot sequence in the BIOS after you moved the OS to the SSD. Again, what is the story on the 100MB active boot partition?
Disk Management only shows it as one partition. It shows as Healthy (Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition)
It's 500 Gb with partition size of 465.76 GB
Here's a snip. C is boot, I is internal, the other is external.
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Looks good. Your C: is the active partition. So you can dump the image into the aligned active, primary partition on the SSD. I do not recall the Ghost options during restore (have not used it since Vista), but if it asks to restore the MBR and mark the partition "active", say "yes". Then change the BIOS boot sequence and off you go. - Lots of luck and let us know how it went.
I've never used Ghost for this operation. It allows you to copy one hd to another. It's not really a restore from a backup.
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