Replacing laptop HDD with SSD

/\ndy · 31 May 2015 at 16:08

Hey all

Seems like a really simple job, but I plan on fitting an old SSD (64gb) into my work laptop to give it a boost, I am just a bit unsure if it'll work.

Some info:
- Lenovo B50 laptop, no windows cd came with it, only some recovery disk
- Existing drive is 500gb with a 25gb recovery partition

I want to use my existing windows license. I can't download from the MS website as the license isn't a retail copy.

I thought about making a disk image using clonezilla, but the image either has to be identical in size or smaller than the target partition (even after shrinking I cant get it below 64gb)

Any suggestions on how I can make this work?

Cheers

ianh · 31 May 2015 at 17:14

Transfer as many files (pics, vids etc) to an external hard drive so that you left with as little as possible of the HDD, preferabley just windows if possible.

Then use clonedisk to swap windows over to the new SSD.

My preference would be to spend £40 and get a 120GB SSD - http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18673653

megatron · 31 May 2015 at 18:07

Turn off hibernation. Powercfg -h off using a command prompt with administrator privileges. Move the page file to a different partition. Obviously use ccleaner ect.

However I would try and get an Image of the OS and reinstall fresh.

I thought the question was going to be about how to get inside the laptop. I did on a vgn-sz3xwp_c Sony Vaio, with a Sandisk X300. Stellar improvement.

I made a mistake of not removing a screw first while taking off the bendy keyboard, so now its not flat. I used youtube videos to find out how to dismantle but they were lacking in depth.

Deathjester · 1 Jun 2015 at 15:40

Why would you disable hibernation on a laptop?
I also don't see the point in moving the page file; the number of writes to the disk aren't high enough to affect it's lifespan / degrade the disk.
Also in a laptop with it as the only fixed disk, it's pretty tricky to move it to another drive.

DragonQ · 1 Jun 2015 at 16:02

The only reason to disable hibernation is to free up disk space. If you have 8 GiB of RAM, you'll lose 8 GiB of space on your SSD to the hiberfil.sys file. Depending on how much space you have, this might be useful.

Otherwise, no other tweaks needed.

Deathjester · 1 Jun 2015 at 16:10

DragonQ said:
The only reason to disable hibernation is to free up disk space. If you have 8 GiB of RAM, you'll lose 8 GiB of space on your SSD to the hiberfil.sys file. Depending on how much space you have, this might be useful.

Otherwise, no other tweaks needed.

To be fair I assumed I hibernated my laptop with much more frequency than I actually do.

Generally I use sleep.

Deathjester · 1 Jun 2015 at 16:13

also in windows 8.1 it's "powercfg.exe /hibernate off" (just for info)

megatron · 1 Jun 2015 at 19:55

Deathjester said:
Why would you disable hibernation on a laptop?

The OP asks how to migrate his OS when the image is too large. If you then want to enable it once its migrated - then each to his own. However a laptop I upgraded for my Mum has no hibernation, it sleeps. It wakes up instantly and the point of hibernation is to speed things up which when u just upgraded to an SSD is ... pointless especially in comparison to the improvement between the performance before and after the SSD upgrade.

If I missed anything interesting you had to say feel free to quote me because I didn't read past that initial blurt you had which I believe I've fully addressed.

The way I roll is with a page file on a separate disk so you have disks working concurrently, in this case a laptop with 1 drive (I assume) its just for the data migration. Also you can safely archive your my documents folder which can get to a Gb+ in size and then delete it ( you can delete your entire user, windows will create a new temp profile ). Another way to save space on a windows install is to delete your restore points. Again this is for the data migration not general use.

Also see here:
https://everythingsysadmin.wordpress.com/2011/03/16/cleanup-winsxs-after-windows-7-sp1-install/
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...es-under/8d98d924-b0b1-4f2b-bb4b-13f38126c588

Even though the link says win 7, windows 8 is likely to have the same tweaks available. I was running windows 7 on a 17Gb partition, it was too small to make windows updates but I learned how to optimise it for space.

I like to dual boot (at least) to verify if its software or overclocks (or overclock has corrupted software) which is causing any problems.

One other thing, most of my programs are installed on a different drive to the OS (dual booting and using the same hard drive space for programs, saves reinstalling if not necessary and space ofcourse). So if after all that you still can't migrate - its time to start deleting programs. With that said, use this: Glary Utilities to defrag your registry.

However the way I'd do it is this by fresh installing (keeping archived user profile, but you need a bootable windows install image):
http://www.win-raid.com/t750f25-Guide-Integration-of-drivers-into-a-Win-image.html

If you use firefox you can backup your profile with an firefox extention called FEBE: http://www.customsoftwareconsult.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=5&sid=3b1c470205e0e18a899a5d3db38538e6

megatron · 1 Jun 2015 at 20:34

/\ndy said:
- Lenovo B50 laptop, no windows cd came with it, only some recovery disk
- Existing drive is 500gb with a 25gb recovery partition

Cheers

You need to chose a migration software but if the migration software only supports migrating verbatim then you could use this software:
http://www.partitionwizard.com/partition-magic-free.html

to resize the 500Gb partition, but you will need to make a bootable CD with the program on it as you can't resize an in use OS (trust me I've tried it and this software ran from a dual boot partition recovered my partitions for me or I would have lost 2Tb of data!).

You could try this AOMEI BackUpper as a migration tool, I have not tested it (due to my preference of fresh install with integrated microsoft updates) but it was recommended somewhere.