Partition Image - Restore from a HDD to a SSD

   Information

Searching the Web on this topic showed me, time after time, pages and pages of negative results. I tried it anyway and it worked, 1st time!

   Note

I used Acronis True Image Home 2010 so I am not sure if other programs will work.

   Warning

This process will delete all data from the partition Windows was previously installed on

Here's How:

1. Install the SSD

2. Boot up and enter the BIOS to make sure the drive is detected

3. If the SSD is seen in the BIOS, set it to #1 in the hard drive priorty

4. Install Windows to the SSD as a Custom Installation (from Step 2)

5. Once Windows has successfully installed, enter Control Panel,
AdministrativeTools, Computer Management, Disk Management. Right click
the SSD (it should be c: ) and Mark Partition as Active". Click OK at
the warning/s

6. Delete the old partiton that Windows was installed on and reformat

7. Reboot to your Windows installation media (disk or flash drive)

8. Perform a Startup Repair (You may need to do this a few times before
Windows will boot)

9. Once in Windows, install Acronis True Image Home 2010

10. Start Acronis and Activate Startup Recovery Tool (F11)

11. Reboot

12. Press F11 when prompted

13. Select Acronis True Image Home 2010

14. Select Restore

15. Choose the image you created most recently. Do not select the option to restore the MBR

16. Restore the image to your c: drive

17. When complete reboot

18. This is where I got nervous. Windows booted but hung. A hard reset
was needed. Upon restart I got a message that chkdsk needed to run. Allow it
to run.

19. Reboot and enjoy!

   Tip

Check that Windows has disabled Auto Degfrag by right-clicking the drive, select Properties, Tools and Defragment Now. When you click Configure Schedule and then Select Disks, your SSD should not appear. If it does, however, simply un-tick it

To ensure prefetching and Superfetch are disabled you'll need to enter the registry and check these entries:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\MemoryManagement\PrefetchParamaters

Both EnablePrefetcher and EnableSuperfetch need to have a value of (0)

Related Tutorials

---

• How to Do a System Image Recovery in Windows 7
• How to Create a System Image Backup in Windows 7

 

[SIW2]

Is there less than 110gb data?

Roborestore should work - but it's very laborious.

Shrink the HDD to less than 110gb before making the image.

It will restore fine to the 110gb partition

 

[nicolaas]

Thank you for your very fast reply .

The image is around 22 gb, the data on the c drive around 47 gb.
So enough space on the hdd.
I will try to shrink the hdd to to around 110 gb and try again.

Thanks again.

 

[SIW2]

It has to be less than the size of the partition you want to restore it to .

Try shrinking to 90gb - for example.

 

[nicolaas]

Thanks again.

But I'm not sure what is wrong here.
Explorer gives the following values:
Total disk space: 349 gb
Used 42,2 gb
So I assumed I could shrink to lets say 80 to 90 gb.
No, Windows gives the following values:
Total before shrinking 349 gb
Amount it can be reduced 156 gb
Give the amount you want to shrink ........
Total after shrinking 193 gb
(I have to translate what I see, I use the dutch version. Sorry for any mistakes.)

So some programs/services are blocking the shrinking proces to 90 gb partition.
I found out that the Shadow Copy storage space is max 10 gb, so that is not the reason.
Are there other programs/services that claims hd mem in win7? or do I have to use an application to achieve a 90 gb partition?.

I'm very careful at this point, because I can not install the image on a smaller partition, so if anything goes wrong, I just have to install everything on my SSD.
(Perhaps the best method after all).

 

[SIW2]

Hi,

You need a 3rd party program like the free http://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html

 

[utee05]

Hi,
Sorry to revive an old thread but I am trying to restore from my HDD to an SSD. In my current setup I am booting off of a 250gb HD drive. I have shrunk the partition to 60gb so this will fit on my SSD. I am looking to move this image to a 120GB SSD. Here are the steps I've done so far.

I have created an image of my old HD using Acronis THI that I downloaded for my Western Digital Drive. This image is another HD drive (Drive D) that is connected internally.

I performed a clean install of Win7 onto my SSD.

Installed Acronis THI on the SSD once I booted into Windows.

Restarted to finish install of Acronis.

Used recovery tool of Acronis to copy the image of my old HD from Drive D onto the SSD.

Acronis completed the recovery then restarted the machine.

This is where the issue is. When my machine restarted I got a BSOD and then my machine rebooted again. Then when trying to boot into windows I got an error saying hardware needed to boot not accessible (not sure exact message but something similar to this). It required me to do a repair and I did that a few times but no errors or nothing was fixed. Any idea what I am doing wrong?

Thanks

 

[SIW2]

I don't use Acronis - so can't say if that is specific to the product.

It is easier to partition the SSD with windows Vista/7 disk management ( or the new Paragon products ), so correct alignment is already there.

No need to install 7 onto it.

Then use the imaging app. boot disc to restore the image to the SSD. In your case, if you are booting into 7 on the HD , you can just run the imaging app. from there to do the restore.

If you are using the new Paragon imaging app. ( even the free one ) - you don't even need to partition with Disk management first - it can align to nt6 rules anyway.

Macrium restore will follow the alignment that is already on the drive.

 

[utee05]

Thanks for the follow up, though I am not sure why I would need to partition the SSD drive. Do I partition the SSD to I can install the HD image onto it? I thought I could just copy the image of my old HD onto the SSD. Is the issue I am seeing an alignment issue?

 

[SIW2]

I am not familiar with Acronis - so don't know where the BSOD is acoming from.

Alignment is an important consideration - restoring an image to unallocated space with some imaging apps. won't use the nt6 rules and won't be optimally aligned for SSD.

Paragon is the only imaging app. to allow for that.

With other imaging apps. e.g. Macrium - as long as you create a properly aligned partition first - then the restore will respect that.

I don't know if Acronis does that.

 

[utee05]

From what I've read I don't Acronis does properly align the disk when restoring the image to an SSD. I will give Paragon a try and create an image using that from my old HD. Then I'll go through the process again and see what happens. I presume there is a trial free version of Paragon that I can use?

Thannks

 

[SIW2]

There is a completely free version - works really well.

Paragon Backup & Recovery (Advanced) Free Edition - Free Download

If you look under the settings tab - you can select the alignment type - choose Vista or later - that will give the 1024 alignment.

Install it on your HD - make an image - then from the installed version you already - restore the image to the SSD.

It is possible to restore a Paragon image to a smaller drive - but it takes a while.

Better to shrink the source partition before making the image. Seems you have already done that.

 

[utee05]

Thanks for the link. Here are the steps I will take to hopefully get things to work.

1)Re-install old HD drive and install Paragon app.
2) Create an image of old HD drive, check alignment box, and place the image onto another internal HD drive (Drive D)
3) Format SSD and perform clean install of Win7 onto SSD
4) Once Win7 is installed and logged in, I will install Paragon App.
5) Use Paragon App to recover the image and copy it onto SSD.
6) Cross fingers and how it works and boots up

Does this sound correct?

 

[SIW2]

Not sure why you want to do all that.

You only need to do this:

1)Re-install old HD drive and install Paragon app.
2) Create an image of old HD drive, check alignment box, and place the image onto another internal HD drive (Drive D)
3) Use Paragon App to recover the image and restore it onto SSD.

I don't know why you want to install win 7 and then paragon onto the SSD before restoring the image.

Just restore the image to it.

I assume you want to use the SDD as first drive in boot order?

In that case, the System partition should be on there.

If you have a 100mb System partition on the old HD - you can image and restore that at the same time.

If the 7 installation on your old HD has no 100 mb thing - and is itself the System partition - then you only need to make and restore an image of the windows 7 partition.

 

[utee05]

I do not think my old HD has a 100mb system partition. I do have 2 partitions on the old HD as it was previously 250 gb and I shrunk the OS image to 60gb and used the remaining data to create another partition.

You are correct in that I want to use my SSD as first in the boot drive and then be able to use that with the other internal drives I have with data. I will use your method and things should be good, hopefully. This will at least save me some steps and time.

One quick question, should I reformet my SSD before using the Paragon App to recover the image and restore it onto the SSD?

 

[SIW2]

I assume then that the 60gb partition you are about to image is the System partition - is it the Active partition?

If so , you are good to go.

Restoring an image to an existing partition will delete and then recreate it anyway - no need to reformat - just restore the Paragon image to it.

Paragon will update all the bcd stores it finds - so there will also be a new boot menu entry on your current boot menu pointing at the SSD. That might be useful in future - you never know.

 

[utee05]

Yup, it is the active system partition that I am going to image.

Will update on my progress tonight after I have a chance to work on the image restore at home.

Thanks for all of your help!

UPDATE: Things never go smoothly for me, just my luck. I installed my old HD that I wanted to create the image from but now it does not want to boot. I get a BSOD and then I go through the startup repair and nothing. I'm still working on this and hopefully I'll figure something out. Will update once I make some sort of progress. Going to be a long night. I did a BootRec/ScanOS and nothing came up for an OS. Not sure what the deal is any ideas?

UPDATE2: Well looks like I'm just going to go with the clean install route. I was not able to reboot using my old HD. I even re-installed the old image onto the HD and ran through startup repair a couple of times and no luck. Thanks for all of your help. I did learn a lot.