Need help with cloning two partitions on Windows 7 SSD

[Diogones]

Hey all,

I'm helping a friend upgrade his SSD from a 120GB Intel 320 to a 240GB OCZ. He has the two standard partitions on the drive: C: and System Reserved. I'm trying to figure out the best way to clone the two drives with both partitions copied over.

I've tried to use Symantec Ghost version 11, as I have a bootable disc, but when I clone the 120 to the 240, Ghost wants to add the extra space to the System Reserved, increasing the size of that partition from 100MB to 220MB. I don't want that extra space spent on the System Reserved Partition, so I had Ghost make the cloned partition 100MB in size - just like the original drive - and then started the cloning.

I decided to risk losing my friend's activation to check the clone and ensured that it booted properly, so I put it in my computer and fired it up. Unfortunately, the cloned drive will not start Windows normally, and just gives me an error that a required component is missing and that I should reboot from a recovery disc and use Startup Repair.

I've tried using DriveImage XML, but that only allows copying one partition at a time, and once the first partition is copied, attempting to copy the second partition only erases the first. I even tried a trial version of the latest version of Ghost now owned by Norton, but it works the same way - single partition copy only.

Does anyone know of a halfway decent cloning tool that will copy the entire disk, including both partitions, block by block, so that it is an exact, bootable copy of the original? Or does anyone know of a way to modify the clone process in Ghost so that I can get the extra space allocated to the C: partition and not the System Reserved partition?

 

[Mark Phelps]

The one tool I have used is Macrium Reflect. The basic version is free and has an option to clone a drive -- including all the partitions.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I also use Macrium Reflect (the Pro version). Macrium Reflect Free (do not download from the homepage; this page is safer to download from) is what most people here use.