Transfer Win 7 to SSD

C

Camberwell

Gawd
Joined
Jan 20, 2008
Messages
961
I have read a lot of info on this, but I just want to be doubly sure. I have Win 7 x64 on a 100GB partition of my WD Caviar Black 640GB hard drive (actual space used is 55GB). I have just ordered an Intel X25-M 80GB SSD.

IIRC, Acronis will shrink the 100GB partition to fit on the 80GB SSD, which should be fine since only 55GB is used.....otherwise I can manually shrink it myself before making the image.

Can I use Acronis to image only that partition (ie my C: drive) and put it on the SSD, without any alignment issues?
 
Another option could be to do a fresh install, and then use Windows Easy Transfer - would that work?
 
I went through the same thing when I upgraded to a SSD. Acronis won't copy just the partition it will only copy the whole disk. I used erasus partition manager to resize my partitions to fit on the sad and used my WHS to restore to it.

I got lots of suggestions to do a fresh install, but I wanted to save the effort of setting things up again. It did work but I wasn't impressed with the speed so I thought something must be wrong and I ended up doing the fresh install. In the end I think it was just the cheap SSD I have rather than anything else.

Long story short a fresh install is probably the best option. If you don't want to do that your going to have to find something else other than Acronis to do the transfer. Good luck
 
I've just been reading a post on the Microsoft TechNet forum where a moderator mentions that he did a clean install on his SSD, and then did a restore from a backup system image from his HDD to get personal files and system settings.

According to him "By default, disk defragmentation, Superfetch, ReadyBoost are disabled during the Operating System installation on SSD".

Does this sound reasonable?

http://social.technet.microsoft.com...l/thread/7fc9a472-edf3-4315-9ea9-7ba5b3180c5c
 
If you have a WHS, try this: do a full backup to the server, replace the disk drive, do a recovery restore.
 
PigLover said:
If you have a WHS, try this: do a full backup to the server, replace the disk drive, do a recovery restore.
Click to expand...

I don't have a WHS but I do have a Seagate HDD that I save my backups to.....I think that first I will try a clean install, and then use Windows Easy Transfer to get my personal folders and settings back. Then I can re-install any programs that Easy Transfer missed...

My main concern actually is that all of my games are on the data (E: ) partition of my Caviar Black, but there are still Program Files on the C: partition. If I do a clean install of Windows 7, the games won't run anymore. If I re-install the games, will I lose all of my saved games etc?
 
Last edited:
backup your data and do a clean install. Let win7 align your new Solid state and be done with it. Yes it is a huge pain in the ass but if you restore from an image or from WHS you may no gain 100% of the speed you should from adding the solid state drive.
 
Justintoxicated said:
backup your data and do a clean install. Let win7 align your new Solid state and be done with it. Yes it is a huge pain in the ass but if you restore from an image or from WHS you may no gain 100% of the speed you should from adding the solid state drive.
Click to expand...

I second that emotion.

Don't do a 1/2 assed job. :)
 
Justintoxicated said:
backup your data and do a clean install. Let win7 align your new Solid state and be done with it. Yes it is a huge pain in the ass but if you restore from an image or from WHS you may no gain 100% of the speed you should from adding the solid state drive.
Click to expand...

I do plan on doing a clean install, I just want to know if using Windows Easy Transfer will let me regain my settings and personal folders. I did that when I migrated from Vista to Win 7 without too much hassle...
 
As long as it's a clean install I can't see why any program installed after completion would screw with the alignment.

If this "easy transfer" is some kinda OS image restore thing, that may be a different ballgame.
 
Easy Transfer is just that, it transfers settings and files from one install/computer to another. When you are done it will give you a report of what you had installed on the other install/computer, but I don't believe that it will move the Program Files and Program Files(x86) directories.
 
Decibel said:
Easy Transfer is just that, it transfers settings and files from one install/computer to another. When you are done it will give you a report of what you had installed on the other install/computer, but I don't believe that it will move the Program Files and Program Files(x86) directories.
Click to expand...

Should be just fine to use it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top