Solved Migrating O/S to SSD - Existing C Drive too big

[stormstorr]

Hi,
Decided to upgrade Computer with an 128GB SSD with a plan of moving my Windows 7 O/S and a couple of regularly used games folders onto. I have 2 other HDD's in the set up.

Fitted the SSD and thats working fine.

Using Paragon's 'Drive Copy' Software I've gone to transfer my O/S from the C Drive onto the new SSD. It would appear that the local computer shop that 'upgraded' my PC a couple of years ago 'forgot' to partition the O/S from the rest of the rubbish on the drive, so now when I go to the transfer wizard it says that the C Drive is bigger than the destination drive. I've tried editing the files to move - but to no avail.

Have tried shrinking the C drive with Windows Disk Management but it is still too big. I've taken a full back up of the drive onto an external HDD - I've toyed with the idea of temporarily deleting everything except the O/S files in the C Drive - running the wizard and then moving the files back to the drive once the O/S is up and running from the SSD.

What are the best options?

A clean install of Windows 7 (or 8) onto the SSD and then link everything back up?

Can you retrospectvley partition the old drive and put the O/S files into the newly created partition?

I'm getting a bit confused!

 

[SIW2]

Doesn't Drive Copy have the migrate to ssd feature?

There is a wizard for that in many paragon programs.

It allows you to exclude non o/s files from being migrated.

Or is that what you are using?

Have tried shrinking the C drive with Windows Disk Management but it is still too big. I've taken a full back up of the drive onto an external HDD - I've toyed with the idea of temporarily deleting everything except the O/S files in the C Drive - running the wizard and then moving the files back to the drive once the O/S is up and running from the SSD.

Might be worth moving as much as you can to the other partition before trying to migrate.

 

[stormstorr]

Thanks,
Its the 'user' folder in the C Drive thats causing the problem as its 130GB!

Presuably because all the documents/ photo's and music are in it. If I take these out temporarily - I should be able to migrate it?

As a minimum which folders do I need in my SSD?

 

[SIW2]

Ah , yes that could be it.

Sure, just open your photos folder, and move a lot of stuff onto another drive/parttion.

Do the same with music files etc.

You won't be able to have all of those on your smaller drive anyhow.

You need to transfer everything except personal files.

Those are just data - they don't actually execute in any way.

You can have all that stuff on a regular drive and just reach across from your installation on SSD to open them up.

Or , you can make a shortcut of some kind to them.

 

[stormstorr]

On with that now - thank you

 

[eduede]

I just went through something similar. I would read through this thread in its entirety as it starts by discussing SSD choices and moves into the process of actually migrating and then using two discs.

http://www.sevenforums.com/installation-setup/235633-install-64bit-homep-ssd.html

 

[gregrocker]

Don't waste any SSD space with a bloated install of any sort. Your best best is the superior Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7.

You only have to do it once then save a Win7 bacup image to use for future reinstalls.

 

[stormstorr]

Thanks for the advice.
Have added a clean install of Windows 8 on the SSD to see if I like it or not.

Both working fine - just need to sort out how you get the boot screen up so you can choose which O/S to open.

Thanks again

 

[gregrocker]

If you installed Win8 to a partition you'd created by correctly booting its installer then it should have created a metro-style Dual Boot menu with Win7 If not run repair from it's booted installer: Automatic Repair - Run in Windows 8[1]=Performance%20Maintenance

If this fails to give you the metro-style Dual Boot menu, then install EasyBCD to add the other OS: EasyBCD (free Download at bottom of page - no name or email required)