A pain-free way to clone operating system to a new drive?

galadial

galadial

galadial

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At the moment I’m running windows 7 on a 1TB HDD and have most of my applications, games etc another 2TB HDD. I'm thinking of installing a SSD to replace my 1TB C: HDD, but of course I can’t fit all the data on the old drive onto the new SSD drive. So, what would be the simplest way of transferring just the operating system? Is it possible to do this without having to reinstall all the applications on my C: drive and games etc on my other D: HDD?

Pete
 
Move stuff off the c drive such that what's left is no greater than say 70% of the storage capacity of the new SSD then clone the drive. Whatever is working on the C drive before the clone (but after moving stuff off) will still work after the cloning process.

I use Macrium Reflect which is free, simple to use, and works well.
:)
 
Pulling the OS from a HDD to a SSD.
Not really advisable mate.

Considering it takes less than 30mins to install windows on a SSD, is it really going to cause that much hassle?
 
CaNsA said:
Pulling the OS from a HDD to a SSD.
Not really advisable mate.

Considering it takes less than 30mins to install windows on a SSD, is it really going to cause that much hassle?
Click to expand...

Yes because you have to reinstall all the dependent programmes which can take quite while....
 
HDD to SSD isn't advised. Some imaging tools will set it up properly, some won't.

Best job is..

Set your SATA ports to 'AHCI' mode in the bios, and install fresh to the SSD.
 
I did this, and the OS ran like crap on the SSD. In windows experience the ssd was 5.9 or something like that and there seemed to be no benefit at all. Installed fresh on SSD and disk performance increased, snapping loading etc. WEI says 7.9 for disk now.

So another vote for biting the bullet and re-installing windows. It's a pain, but you'll have that fresh windows feel... for about a week until the anti virus starts dragging everything backwards again...
 
Meetgrinder said:
I did this, and the OS ran like crap on the SSD. In windows experience the ssd was 5.9 or something like that and there seemed to be no benefit at all. Installed fresh on SSD and disk performance increased, snapping loading etc. WEI says 7.9 for disk now.
Click to expand...

Methinks the OS running on the SSD cloned from the mechanical drive was running exactly as it was on the mechanical drive. A clone is an exact image of the source drive. ;)
 
it will run poor if your original windows install was in ide mode!!!

ahci is a must for ssd's regarding fastest speeds,so if you do clone which will work fine you must first do a reg tweak to enable ahci mode,then clone the hdd to the ssd

here is the reg file for win7,just download it,run it clone your drive and set to ahci mode in the bios and thats it

http://cdn.ithinkdiff.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/ahci.reg
 
wazza300 said:
it will run poor if your original windows install was in ide mode!!!

ahci is a must for ssd's regarding fastest speeds,so if you do clone which will work fine you must first do a reg tweak to enable ahci mode,then clone the hdd to the ssd

here is the reg file for win7,just download it,run it clone your drive and set to ahci mode in the bios and thats it

http://cdn.ithinkdiff.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/ahci.reg
Click to expand...

Very very good point there, I missed the fact that my Dell lappy I recently cloned to SSD was already running AHCI due it being configured for Intel RST. :eek:
 
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