Got an SSD, cloning windows?

[Asrialol]

So I just got myself a new SSD, some more RAM, and a USb3 1TB external harddrive for those movies and stuff.

What I'm wondering is, my current laptop has a 500gb 5400 (ugh) RPM drive, and basically I want to clone windows or somehow get windows over to the new SSD.

The SSD is 120gb, which is all I need. I want a clean windows install, but I don't have my Windows CD, and I am unable to get it. And I'm hoping I won't need to buy it. What are my options? Tried searching the web, found some really complicated and silly stuff, not sure what to do here..


Am I right that the most simple option would be to create a recovery disk, slap in the new SSD into my laptop, then use the recovery CD, for a clean and fresh install?

Obviously I've already backed up the stuff I want to the external harddrive.

[Deleted]

i dont know about recovery but if you have serial number, it should be on bottom side of ntb, you can simply download iso or borrow from friend and during install just use that code

[Durandir]

Hard to tell whats the best way without no specific Information!

But so far Image will not work and forget this with the Recovery Disk!

Btw you need a 64 bit Windows versions if you have more then 4gb ram

[redmund]

I wouldn't recommend trying to clone windows. I did it when I got my SSD and it was a disaster. Things just don't work properly. Constant errors, Windows thinking it was missing parts of itself, no applications capable of starting. Terrible.

What version of Windows do you have? If you're using Windows 7, MS actually have ISOs available from their own servers that are 100% legal to use, provided you have a legit key.

What I WOULD recommend is first running Windows Easy Transfer on your current installation, making sure to save your entire c:/users folder. Then install Windows to your new SSD. When you've got it installed and you've let Windows Update do its thing. Then do your drivers. Then you can hit up www.ninite.com to get your most commonly used apps and have them all installed automagically. Then, when that's all finished, you can run Windows Easy Transfer again and restore your Windows and application settings and your other personal stuff from My Documents etc... from your old machine using the file you saved earlier.

[Hilppari]

I used HDClone to clone my win7 from my 250gb HDD to my 120gb SSD. Worked like a charm. But of course i had same setup.

[Deleted]

Just run DD from a Linux boot CD? That's the absolutely easiest way to get a HDD cloned to a comething else.

[Deleted]

Norton Ghost if u want to clone your old disk.

< snipped, pirating is bad >

[Schadow]

You can not clone a HDD to an SSD, simply because the filesize, pagefile and other important things that have been placed on an HDD can not be cloned to another drive, whether it's HDD or SSD, unless it's the same disk, completly the same. If you do it, it can work, but your system will be (very) unstable.

As of note, You are allowed to download the Windows software from any website, but you are not allowed to use an illegal key. If you have the key, download Windows from Usenet or a Torrent website (I will not give any recommendations) that corresponds with the key (f.e., If you got Windows 7 Home Premium, download Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit (note that 32-bit does not use more then 4 gig), or if you got Windows Vista Ultimate 64-Bits, download that one. If it does not say what bit it is, it's 32-bits. Else it's 64-bits.)

What you must do.

1: Backup (you already did that).
1.5: Download windows (make sure you got a bootable version, it's most likely an ISO file) and burn the ISO file (use DaemonTools Lite or MagicISO if you don't have an ISO burning program).
2: Take out the Hard Disk and replace it with the SSD.
2.5: Take out the RAM and replace it.
3: Re-install Windows
4: ????
5: Profit.

[Hilppari]

I dunno what you are saying but i cloned my HDD into my SSD after i got all the extra crap out of the HDD to another hdd so it fitted my 120gb vertex 2 ssd. And its not unstable by any means lol.

[redmund]

I dunno what you are saying but i cloned my HDD into my SSD after i got all the extra crap out of the HDD to another hdd so it fitted my 120gb vertex 2 ssd. And its not unstable by any means lol.

It can work, but it's not guaranteed. Also, when you're installing Windows, if it detects an SSD it does a few things differently during installation to help improve both SSD performance and increase the life span of the drive. A clone of a regular HDD installation of Windows will not have these changes.

[Evildeffy]

It can work, but it's not guaranteed. Also, when you're installing Windows, if it detects an SSD it does a few things differently during installation to help improve both SSD performance and increase the life span of the drive. A clone of a regular HDD installation of Windows will not have these changes.

No, it does not.

To windows a hard drive is a hard drive, regardless of what the hell it is.

Provided you have the space on both drives, a clone is a clone, nothing changes as Page File f.ex is not reliant on Disk Size, Defrag is still run and TRIM is still inherently disabled in Windows 7.

You can do w/e you want and apply the changes later (such as disable defrag, prefetch, superfetch etc).

A fresh installation will not alter in any way from a normal installation on either HDD or SSD, i have no idea where you got this idea from, but it's incorrect.

[Asera]

No, it does not.

To windows a hard drive is a hard drive, regardless of what the hell it is.

Provided you have the space on both drives, a clone is a clone, nothing changes as Page File f.ex is not reliant on Disk Size, Defrag is still run and TRIM is still inherently disabled in Windows 7.

You can do w/e you want and apply the changes later (such as disable defrag, prefetch, superfetch etc).

A fresh installation will not alter in any way from a normal installation on either HDD or SSD, i have no idea where you got this idea from, but it's incorrect.

But... Windows DOES do things differently on a fresh install on an SSD...

So you are saying it doesn't, then going on to say "oh all that stuff it does you can just clone it and disable/enable crap yourself".

Sorry but this is an aching double standard. Fresh install on an SSD is absolutely different from a fresh install on a PAD, there are countless SSD guides and articles saying this.

But you're right when you say you can just manually do all the tweaks Windows setup does. Except I'm not sure if you can correct block alignment when cloning.

[redmund]

No, it does not.

To windows a hard drive is a hard drive, regardless of what the hell it is.

Provided you have the space on both drives, a clone is a clone, nothing changes as Page File f.ex is not reliant on Disk Size, Defrag is still run and TRIM is still inherently disabled in Windows 7.

You can do w/e you want and apply the changes later (such as disable defrag, prefetch, superfetch etc).

A fresh installation will not alter in any way from a normal installation on either HDD or SSD, i have no idea where you got this idea from, but it's incorrect.

Yes, it does. It disables prefetch, indexing and a few other things that are unnecessary on SSDs. Also, when the SSD is formatted initially, Windows 7 will automatically align the partition for you, leading to improved write speeds. Defrag is also disabled by default for the SSD as it has a negative effect on drive life.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...alignment.html

TRIM support is also enabled if you're running your controller in AHCI mode and you've installed Windows 7 with AHCI enabled in the bios. Otherwise, it's disabled.

[Evildeffy]

But... Windows DOES do things differently on a fresh install on an SSD...

So you are saying it doesn't, then going on to say "oh all that stuff it does you can just clone it and disable/enable crap yourself".

Sorry but this is an aching double standard. Fresh install on an SSD is absolutely different from a fresh install on a PAD, there are countless SSD guides and articles saying this.

But you're right when you say you can just manually do all the tweaks Windows setup does. Except I'm not sure if you can correct block alignment when cloning.

A block alignment may be the only thing altered in between an SSD and HDD installation, HOWEVER it does not alter anything windows installs at any point, as the alignment doesn't even have anything to do with windows, just the partition utility the pre-setup environment runs to read the CMOS (SMART) attributes of the HDD/SSD and adjust to that.

It would be sheer insanity if it did, all Hard Drives, be it magnetic or flash storage, has to follow specific ISO guidelines, otherwise it'd mean A would respond differently to B, and be incompatible with C.

Windows does not care what the hell you have as a storage unit, not 1 flipping bit, all it wants to know is whether it can store info there yes or no.
Otherwise how would it respond to a RAID0 system f.ex, where you can name it "Honkey Tonkey" and as such will be detected by Windows as a drive called "Honkey Tonkey", it cannot and does not want to discern anything else from it.

What i said for disabling, well that's applied regardless of drive you stick in.

However if you have actual proof that windows installs differently just because it's an SSD, please show me where it says that, i'll study it and tell you whether it's a load of crap or not.
The reason fresh installs are recommended is just for that reason, a fresh install, free of unnecessary drivers and/or software, and for no other reason.

---------- Post added 2011-09-15 at 02:12 PM ----------

Yes, it does. It disables prefetch, indexing and a few other things that are unnecessary on SSDs. Also, when the SSD is formatted initially, Windows 7 will automatically align the partition for you, leading to improved write speeds. Defrag is also disabled by default for the SSD as it has a negative effect on drive life.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...alignment.html

TRIM support is also enabled if you're running your controller in AHCI mode and you've installed Windows 7 with AHCI enabled in the bios. Otherwise, it's disabled.

Oh really?
I can make you a bet it does not do all the things you just mentioned barring the alignment, as stated when quoted the guy before.

But please, PLEASE show me where Windows disables all that stuff automatically, because i've worked with 4 different languages of Windows 7 with 3 different variants both with and without SP1 pre-installed that all tell me that you are wholly incorrect.

[redmund]

Quoting from here http://blogs.msdn.com/b/e7/archive/2...rives-and.aspx

Windows 7 Optimizations and Default Behavior Summary

As noted above, all of today’s SSDs have considerable work to do when presented with disk writes and disk flushes. Windows 7 tends to perform well on today’s SSDs, in part, because we made many engineering changes to reduce the frequency of writes and flushes. This benefits traditional HDDs as well, but is particularly helpful on today’s SSDs.

Windows 7 will disable disk defragmentation on SSD system drives. Because SSDs perform extremely well on random read operations, defragmenting files isn’t helpful enough to warrant the added disk writing defragmentation produces. The FAQ section below has some additional details.

Be default, Windows 7 will disable Superfetch, ReadyBoost, as well as boot and application launch prefetching on SSDs with good random read, random write and flush performance. These technologies were all designed to improve performance on traditional HDDs, where random read performance could easily be a major bottleneck. See the FAQ section for more details.

Since SSDs tend to perform at their best when the operating system’s partitions are created with the SSD’s alignment needs in mind, all of the partition-creating tools in Windows 7 place newly created partitions with the appropriate alignment.

[Evildeffy]

Quoting from here http://blogs.msdn.com/b/e7/archive/2...rives-and.aspx

An old and outdated Article which is incorrect, May 2009.

I suppose this link: Clicky existing from the 8th of October 2009 is also incorrect?

Not to mention personal experiences of such?

Tell you what, as it happens i have to build a new machine with Windows 7 Professional 64 bit in the next couple days, i'll tell you aswell then that it's wrong.

[Deleted]

An old and outdated Article which is incorrect, May 2009.

I suppose this link: Clicky existing from the 8th of October 2009 is also incorrect?

Not to mention personal experiences of such?

Tell you what, as it happens i have to build a new machine with Windows 7 Professional 64 bit in the next couple days, i'll tell you aswell then that it's wrong.

Installed win 7 on normal HDD, automatic defragmentation on HDD was enabled. Built a new computer, installed win7 on SSD and also put in 3 HDD's, automatic defragmentation was DISABLED on the SSD and enabled on all of the HDD's. How much more evidence do you need that windows does take into account the difference between SSD and HDD?

[Azuri]

I just did this 3 weeks ago and used Arcronis true disc imagine. I imaged the entire HD from one sata II SSD to a sata III SSD including my OS and it went flawless.

[Evildeffy]

Installed win 7 on normal HDD, automatic defragmentation on HDD was enabled. Built a new computer, installed win7 on SSD and also put in 3 HDD's, automatic defragmentation was DISABLED on the SSD and enabled on all of the HDD's. How much more evidence do you need that windows does take into account the difference between SSD and HDD?

Because i build machines for a living, and on every single one with SSDs i've had to follow the tweaks procedure every single time on all of them.
That's between a shitton of versions and languages.

Besides what evidence have you just presented, "I've done A so B is true!"?
As i said i'll admit when i'm wrong, so far i've not been wrong on settings like these, especially not with the amount of SSDs i've gone through.
And i'll be, as stated, getting a rig to be built with Vertex 3 MAX IOPS drives, i'll tell you what comes out, though recent experiences with Agility 3 and normal Vertex 3 hasn't changed a damn thing.

[Schadow]

No, it does not.

To windows a hard drive is a hard drive, regardless of what the hell it is.

Provided you have the space on both drives, a clone is a clone, nothing changes as Page File f.ex is not reliant on Disk Size, Defrag is still run and TRIM is still inherently disabled in Windows 7.

You can do w/e you want and apply the changes later (such as disable defrag, prefetch, superfetch etc).

A fresh installation will not alter in any way from a normal installation on either HDD or SSD, i have no idea where you got this idea from, but it's incorrect.

If Windows thought a Hard Drive is a Hard Drive, how come FAT32 can not communicate with NTFS if it's installed on Windows 98 machines and older? If Windows thought a Hard Drive is a Hard Drive, how come you can't take out one Hard Drive out of RAID-0 composition without breaking all your data of both Disks?

Bullshit arguements you gave, incorrect.

Installed win 7 on normal HDD, automatic defragmentation on HDD was enabled. Built a new computer, installed win7 on SSD and also put in 3 HDD's, automatic defragmentation was DISABLED on the SSD and enabled on all of the HDD's. How much more evidence do you need that windows does take into account the difference between SSD and HDD?

There is a difference between cloning an HDD to an SDD = having a clone of Windows 7 where the OS is installed assuming on the Hard Drive, with the Hard Drive enabled, the data on the Hard Drive. If you got more data on your HDD then the SDD has the amount of space, it will either fail or it won't boot at all. Also, if you have it partioned, it ain't correct at all, partitions, and then your data, will be corrupted and destroyed as the tables are correct.

and there is a difference between re-installing Windows 7 from an HDD to an SDD.