upgrade to SSD

[kalos]

hello!

time has come for me to upgrade to an SSD

is there a painless way, without losing any data/settings? without having to reinstall Win7, drivers, etc?

thanks!

[Cloq]

From experience, windows loves a fresh install.

New computer/laptop?

If new then you might be better off doing a fresh install (check bios to set HD to AHCI) and install Win7.

Not sure if there is a painless way aside from creating an image and hope it will work properly (when restored back). I think Win7 has a built in image creation tool.

[Renegade]

Clone your drive to the SSD if possible. However, the SSD must be as large or larger than your current system drive.

If you have a Samsung SSD, they have a program called "Magician" that helps you do it.

Keep in mind that you'll need to reboot for all this and likely need to create a bootable USB or CD for the cloning software, etc.

[skwire]

XXClone should be all you need.  I have used it myself to easily clone a current Windows boot disk to another disk/SSD.

[lanux128]

all these 8 seconds boot-up time is enticing me to get an SSD.

[Jibz]

I recently added an Intel SSD to a computer that was a few years old. There was some software for migrating Windows included (based on Acronis), but the old drive was partioned, and the software was unable to clone just one partition to the new drive, and insisted on fitting the entire 1 TB drive onto the 120 GB SSD and failed.

I ended up installing the free version of Macrium, and it copied the Windows partition including resizing and everything without any problems.

[Carol Haynes]

Use a Partition tool to downsize your C: drive so that combined with the support partitions it is smaller than the SSD. If you have data on another user partition copy it to drive C: then use Windows 7 Backup to make a system of Drive C: and the support partitions (not any extra user partitions) to an external drive or DVDs. If you haven't got a Windows 7 original DVD let Backup create a recovery CD.

Install the SSD and then boot from the recovery CD and restore the image to the SSD.

Voila you are done

PS: Probably best to do any cleanups and defrags before you make the backup - give a cleaner start on the SSD and means you don't have to copy as much rubbish.

[40hz]

^Alternatively, if you're not too loaded up - or are due for some major housecleaning - you could also just go with a clean OS plus apps install on the SSD and then use Microsoft's easy transfer utility to move your settings and data over.

Sometimes that's the best strategy when you can't or don't want to clone a partition - but you also have a lot on the drive - so you don't want to start over completely from scratch.

It's a good way to avoid bringing registry gremlins and other 'squirrels' over from the old drive too!

[f0dder]

Do a reinstall.

And start by installing on a HDD (or a virtual machine image (on a HDD) - I prefer this approach myself, since I can keep using my physical machine while the VM guest reboots those countless times) with the partition size you expect using on the SSD - once you've got everything set up, defrag the filesystem, and clone it to the target SSD.

Also, be sure you have a very well planned backup strategy before you boot from the SSD. Unless you don't care about the data you put on it, you do need something that can painlessly handle continuous backup. (Genie Timeline had some really nice features, but in the end I gave up on it - story for another post. CrashPlan isn't nearly as sweet, but it does the job almost well enough).

[tomos]

If cloning or using an image, wont the hidden boot (100MB) drive need to be copied as well ?

[Carol Haynes]

Yes - that's why I suggested using Windows 7 Recovery Image - it copies all the required partitions automatically.

And start by installing on a HDD (or a virtual machine image (on a HDD) - I prefer this approach myself, since I can keep using my physical machine while the VM guest reboots those countless times) with the partition size you expect using on the SSD - once you've got everything set up, defrag the filesystem, and clone it to the target SSD.

-f0dder (March 06, 2013, 04:40 PM)

Don't you have problems with drivers - or do you use a bare metal restore tool?

[iphigenie]

Also, be sure you have a very well planned backup strategy before you boot from the SSD. Unless you don't care about the data you put on it, you do need something that can painlessly handle continuous backup. (Genie Timeline had some really nice features, but in the end I gave up on it - story for another post. CrashPlan isn't nearly as sweet, but it does the job almost well enough).

-f0dder (March 06, 2013, 04:40 PM)

I have Genie Timeline as part of my tool stack, I want that story!

[f0dder]

I have Genie Timeline as part of my tool stack, I want that story!

-iphigenie (March 09, 2013, 08:21 AM)

Well, start by reading here.

A bit after that, TimeLine had used the allotted storage on my fileserver. Instead of cleaning up previous versions, as it's supposed to be able to do, it simply said it had run out of space, and stopped backing up. Dunno if the "clean up previous" thing only works on USB drives or whatever, but this is a major flaw.

Went off to look at registration cost anyway, and the pro version was way too steep. Even the home edition was a bit pricey, considering you only get the software and no cloud storage or whatever. And looking at the feature matrix confused the hell out of me, since my home trial was doing stuff apparently only the pro version should handle (frequent backups, and manual file selection rather than the presets).

I uninstalled, and referred to both the no-cleanup-bug and feature-confusion. Got a mail from a sales rep some days later... which said I should look at the feature matrix to clear up any misunderstanding. Right, so much for reading comprehension skills, sales monkey

After running backup-less (apart from SpiderOak for the most important stuff) for a while, I ended up biting the bullet and going for CrashPlan after having used it on my work laptop (company paid). It's kinda clungy and resource hungry, and only after purchasing it I realized you can't do local backups to a network share (which pisses me off royally!), but at least it works.

Still haven't found any backup program I feel really good about, though. Timeline with bugs (and some of the stuff mentioned in the posts I linked to above) fixed + cloud sync of a specified backup subset would come very close. But it's not there.

[tslim]

I have Genie Timeline as part of my tool stack, I want that story!

-iphigenie (March 09, 2013, 08:21 AM)

Well, start by reading here.

-f0dder (March 09, 2013, 08:57 AM)

I have nice experience with Genie Timeline Pro and actually it has saved me many many times in the past two years.
I treat it as non-conventional type of backup utility, to me it is supposed to cater for folders that holds frequent change files that one can not afford to loss. The best part is the idea that you can track back in time and restore the right instance (or should I say right version?) of a file.

I highly recommend it to anyone who has frequently changed files to backup and better still if one needs backup of very detailed version (say as detail as up to 3 minutes interval).

Just remember:
1. Never hope to see a good UI in any of the Genie program.
2. The company always promotes their product (many times a year) by giving up to 50% discount. Wait for it or ask for it, I believe you will be granted the discount even in non promotion day.

[Mark0]

When I migrated from HD to SDD from my main machine, I used the Parted Magic live distro, from a USB pen drive. It have everything that was needed: GParted for partitioning, CloneZilla to copy (whole disk, single partition, etc.), lots of other tools.
Also, shell and browser to keep doing some (more or less) useful things while copying.