restoring system image to a new SSD

[Bare Foot Kid]

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If you can find an exact Windows version that the PC shipped with you can do a clean install using the activation key on the COA sticker attached to the PC though it may require a robo-call to MS to sort the OEM batch-key.

How to Activate Windows 7 by Phone


If you can't find an exact same version, you could use the info in this tutorial to create an "all versions" installer of any version Windows installer, to install using the same method I posted above.

Windows 7 Universal Installation Disc - Create

Interesting idea. I think I'll look into that option.

Google is your friend.

 

[theog]

Do you get a cloning tool with new HD?
or
You may be download from the OEM manufacturer website.
or
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/149969-ssd-install-transfer-operating-system.html?ltr=S

 

[Wishmaster]

Windows Restore may be having issues restoring a larger Image to a smaller drive.

As mentioned, cloning would be a option.
There are a few ways to accomplish this, other than the method in the link theog posted, but the only one I am familiar with is Acronis which is a paid program.

You may try the trial, and Image the HD to a external, then re-image to the SSD. Acronis will resize the Image, so long as "Used Space" does not exceed the total of the SSD.

Another alternative would be the free version of Acronis. I know some HDs offer this free "stripped" version with thier drives. Western Digital for example does.

There may be other options here, but as I said .. Acronis is the only one I really have experience with doing this.



IMHO, the best bet when moving to a new SSD, would be just bite the bullet and do a Clean Installation.
This way you are absolutely certain everything gets setup properly (alignments and such)
Although I do undersdtand some would prefer to avoid this if they can, its still the best way I think.

 

[GeneO]

The hard drive was 300gig. But I removed everything and just left windows bare-bones.... left it at about 50gb

I think I see what you're about to say though...

Could my restore image be a 'clone' of the old drive? nearly 300gb, while my new SSD is only 120?

Sorry to say, YES.

Shit!

How do people get around this? clean installs then?

I first cleaned my drive so it would fit on the SSD (turned off System restore, moved pagefile turned off hibernate, moved data etc) on my 320 GB OS HDD. I used a third party defragmenter (diskkeper) to defrag the drive so all of the data would be at the logical beginning of the drive so I could shrink it - the Windows 7 defragmenter won't consolidate like this. I then used Windows disk management to shrink the partition to less than the 128 GB SSD size. I then used Western Digital version of Acronis True Image to clone to the SSD. I then expanded the partition to the full size of the SSD with Windows disk management.

 

[whs]

What size was the old HD?

The hard drive was 300gig. But I removed everything and just left windows bare-bones.... left it at about 50gb

I think I see what you're about to say though...

Could my restore image be a 'clone' of the old drive? nearly 300gb, while my new SSD is only 120?

This is not good enough if you work with an image. The partition you image (total size) has to be equal or smaller than the SSD to where you want to restore the image - regardless of the amount of data in the partition. So you have to first shrink to whole partition to less than 120GBs.

You can mount the VHD of the image and shrink that virtual volume. Then you can reimage the virtual volume (suggest you use Macrium for that) and then dump the Macrium image on the SSD.

Alternatively you can transfer the 300GB partition directly to the SSD (attached in an external enclosure) with this program provided the amount of data in the 300GB partition fits into 120GBs. But the transfer program lets you manage that.

 

[mjf]

WHS's Paragon suggestion may be the most straightforward.

You can have a look at Macriums Roborestore which enables you to reimage to a smaller partition.
Macrium KB

 

[ozzysworld]

Update

Hi guys. Thanks to all that have replied with suggestions, here's an update.

After failing to restore an 'image' onto the SSD (because my backup was actually larger than the new SSD capacity) I bit the bullet and went for a clean install..

I think my intentions were not very clear from the outset here. I was only trying to do a baskup & restore because I thought it would be simple and I never had a Windows 7 instalation disk...

Now, failing the backup, I got hold of a Win7 disk & went for a clean install..

Now my problem is that it still wont allow the disk to be used, even for this clean install...

The new SSD is recognised by the windows installer & in BIOS but it won't let me install a new copy of windows onto it saying that it cannot create a partition..

The saga continues...

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hello again mate.


It would be best to do a complete wipe of the Hard Disk Drive / Solid State Drive and then start the installation process again, have a look at Step One of the Optimize tutorial below; after you have copied out or made back-ups of the data you need to save to external media, then boot the Windows 7 installation media to do the wipe secure erase to the HDD / SSD and be sure to post back with any further questions you may have and to keep us informed.


SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation