SSD - Install and Transfer the Operating System

Thanks for the great tutorial. I'm about to try it out. My system is Win 7 Home Premium SP1 32 bit with 300 GB HDD divided into four partitions C:, D:, E:, F:. Just recently I bought two new drives: one is Samsung SSD 850 PRO - 128 GB, another is HDD 1 TB.

What I want is to clone my C: drive (58.13 GB) to SSD (119.24 GB), and to continue to use my old and new HDD drives. When the new Windows 10 arrives, I want it to be installed on SSD as well.

I have already initialize my new drives in Disk Management window.
My first question - what should I do with partition called WinXP (14.0 GB) on my old drive (see the attached capture)? As far as I can recall, it's a redundant partition that was created long ago by Acronis Backup & Recovery (as a hidden partition) and never used since I uninstall the application. Some time ago I shrunk it from ~50 GB to the current size of 14 GB with 7.89 GB free space. Is it possible to see the content of this WinXP partition ? Can I just delete it?

I have already applied the AHCI in windows registry, but not in BIOS yet. I'll set the BIOS to AHCI prior to activating SSD. My second question - does it matter that in my registry HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services
the value msahci was initially set to 0 (zero). Actually, I only changed the iaStorV from 3 to 0.

XP is booting the Win7 drive as signified by the System Active flags on it's partition.

Move the Bootmgr - Move to C:\ with EasyBCD - Windows 7 Forums
following the steps exactly in the tutorial.

Once Win7 reboots check again Disk Mgmt to see if the System Active flags are now on C. If so it is ready to be cloned or imaged over to the 120 gb drive by itself without any other.

To do this easier I would suggest using our favorite free imaging app here Macrium Imaging - Windows 7 Help Forums. Install Macrium and save the image of C to the large drive you have in DISK1, after formatting it in Disk Mgmt for storage: Partition or Volume - Create New

Then from the Macrium app select Recover, browse to the image, select the SSD as target drive. Drag the C partition to the SSD. From the link that appears just below it adjust the size to take up the whole 120gb drive. Then apply the image with all default settings.

Now reboot into BIOS setup to change the SSD to be first hard drive to boot, reboot into the new SSD Win7.

If the SSD starts to get crowded with the OS and programs, move the User folders to the hard drive following User Folders - Change Default Location.

Dear gregrocker, thanks for the reply.

I probably wasn't patient enough, and have just finished migrating my win7 o/s to the new SSD using Paragon Hard Disk Manager 15 Premium. All went smoothly and I'm already booted from SSD.

Granted that, there are two issues I'd like to clear up.

1. My SSD is currently partitioned to: C: and WinXP (see the attached captures) as shown in Computer Management.
And the WinXP partition is also on my old HDD now shown as WinXP (H:) in Windows Explorer (capture I). Now I can access its content (shown in capture II).

Is it still possible to run the EasyBCD to move/copy the bootmgr to C:/ (on SSD) ? Although, looking at the content of WinXP (H:) - I don't see it there.

2. Re: AHCI

As mentioned in my initial post, I was planning to set the BIOS to AHCI prior to activating SSD. So, after migrating my win7 o/s to SSD, I went to BIOS and was unable to find AHCI in my BIOS settings. Also, I noticed that my SSD was already set as second boot device in the boot sequence. CD/DVD reader remained as the first boot device.

How could I verify if AHCI is enable/disable on my PC ? Or how to find the setting for AHCI in BIOS ?

Another capture of My computer after I have aligned partitions:

Move the Bootmgr to C using the tool I linked earlier, delete XP partition using Partition Wizard then if you need the 14gb space Extend C into it using How to extend partition easily with Partition Wizard - video help.

If you don't have an AHCI setting in BIOS then nothing can be done about that.

This is how my Computer Management looks after I copied the Bootmgr to C:/ using EasyBCD.
Is it OK? Can I delete the WinXP partition now?

Thanks for the prompt reply, whs.

I am glad that I finally can reclaim the space. I'm not sure what to do with it yet. Any suggestions?

The screenshot above after you tried moving Bootmgr shows it did not move. Otherwise as I said eariler both the System and Active flags would be on C and not still on XP. Please look closely. The System flag signifies which partition is actually booting the OS.

Had you rebooted the PC when you posted the last screenshot? Do so now and check again.

If so and it hasn't moved then try the steps again and this time don't miss any.

If that fails the Mark Partition C Active, boot the Win7 disk or System Repair Disk to run Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times until the System flag moves to C. You must unplug the data cable from all other drives before doing this.

You can then delete the XP partition. It isn't enough space to bother extending XP into.

If you want to know what to do with extra space, you can shrink C to make a Data partition to its right, then move the User folders there. This way you can keep a backup image of only the OS and Programs so that if it ever becomes irreparable, you can reimage C in 20 minutes and your data will still be safe and current in its own partition which would not be the case if the data is kept on the image which may have been made months earlier. User Folders - Change Default Location