Need help with HDD cloning

[nerv2010]

Alright, usually I can get projects done by surfing the web but I'm finally stuck. I purchased an ASUS T101MT for my wife and promptly maxed out the RAM and thought it would be a great Christmas gift to upgrade to an SSD.

I purchased an OCZ agility 3 128GB SSD and flashed the newest firmware on the unit. Followed the guide at SSD freaks to clone the HDD. Imaged the drive(only 30GB for OS)
on an external NTFS HDD.

http://www.ssdfreaks.com/content/664...s-own-software

Now here's where I'm stuck. Since it's a notebook/tablet there is no external optical drive. I burned a recovery disk from my desktop Win 7 Pro 74bit. Tried using the recovery disk and first warning was the image from the netbook only will show up if I select image to recover. It doesn't show up as the "most recent". When I do that, it won't complete and says I need an x86 system recovery disk, system image, etc to restore.

Anyone have any tips and/or tricks that can help? I'm so eager to finally use an SSD.

Thanks ahead of time.

[Bad_Machine]

Hi nerv, and welcome! Windows backup is very limited. If I were you I'd use Acronis True Image 2012 to clone the original disk and also to create an Acronis recovery USB stick. All you have to do is swap disks, boot from the Acronis stick and restore the image to the SSD. Acronis will automaticaly align your system partition as well. You can use the Acronis trial for all this but I'd recommend the purchase of the full version, I personaly couldn't do without it.

Of course there are other software some of them freeware that will allow you to do this (e.g. Todo Backup Free, Comodo Backup, Paragon Backup & Recovery 2012 Free, Macrium Reflect etc.), but for me Acronis has always done the job fast and well.

[OS-Wiz]

Yup, Mr Bad is dead on. Use Acronis 2012 to clone the existing HDD to the new SSD. Here's how:

acronis1.jpg

acronis2.jpg

acronis3.jpg

acronis4.jpg

acronis5.jpg

acronis6.jpg

[nerv2010]

Thanks Bad_Machine. Acronis was my next step if I can't get this new image to work. I'm also wondering if there's an issue using a Win7 64bit recovery disk on a Win7 32bit install. Just to be sure I made a 32bit version also.
Dl'd the free version to try out. If it works as they promise, I'm definitely going to purchase a full copy with the add-on to bring my desktop online with a SSD.

---------- Post added at 10:10 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:07 AM ----------

Thanks OS-Wiz. Is there a step to make a backup image and recover from the backup? I'm not going to be able to mount the netbook HDD in my desktop box along with the new SSD.

[OS-Wiz]

Thanks OS-Wiz. Is there a step to make a backup image and recover from the backup? I'm not going to be able to mount the netbook HDD in my desktop box along with the new SSD.

Yes, you can. Backup to DVD (see bottom of dropdown list):

bkup1.jpg

bkup2.jpg

[Sean]

The Windows recovery disc must match the installation to work, i.e. 32-bit for a Windows 7 32-bit installation. As the Windows 7 installation disc has the recovery mode (same features as recovery CD), you can convert a Windows 7 32-bit CD to a 4GB USB pen drive. Microsoft offers the tool here. When this pen drive is botted, select the "Repair your computer" option to bring up the menu like on the repair disc (e.g. restore from backup, startup repair, etc.)

For cloning, Acronis is by far the most commonly recommended and easiest way to clone a drive over as it automates the whole process, e.g. no need to defrag, resize partitions, align, etc.

The Windows backup method in my guide works best when the OS partition has a small amount of data (e.g. 40GB or less), is already aligned and the drive has no additional partitions, e.g. most new Windows 7 laptops. However, if the laptop has additional partitions exceeding the size of the SSD or was upgraded from a previous OS (where the partition is not aligned), then Windows backup will not be suitable.

[Bad_Machine]

Actually I don't even have Acronis installed on my systems at all. I had Acronis installed initially when I first bought it, in order to create the bootable media. Since then I have restored different backups many times and haven't added Acronis to mix again. For me there is no need to have it installed unless you want daily incremental backups, which is something I don't need. All the functionality I ever use can be obtained just with the bootable recovery media.

I've been backing up computers long before live Windows backups became available, so I have to say I'm a bit old fashioned in that way: I prefer to exit Windows completely and backup/restore with bootable media completely outside Windows.

All you have to do is boot from the Acronis USB stick with your old drive in the netbook and backup it up on a USB disk. This is the initial interface looks like:





Once you click the top option, this comes up (I googled the following screenshots so they may be slightly different to the 2012 version - ignore the mouse pointing to Generate System Report on the screenshot):



Click on the Backup My Disks link and take it from there. On the next screen tick the partition/drive you're backing up, then browse for the location of the backup and select a filename. Make sure that the destination disk has enough space and that it is in good condition, no reallocated sectors must be present on a disk that holds your backups. You can easily see if your disks have reallocated sectors by running CrystalDiskInfo:

Download Center - Crystal Dew World

Make sure to choose the FULL backup method. Before clicking "Proceed" check the backup options first (this is from Acronis 2010 but they're similar):



Under COMPRESSION LEVELmake sure you use the normal compression setting (default).Do not choose HIGH and certainly not MAXIMUM compression as this can take forever for very little size reduction, and it can also cause corruption and backup failures especially when backing up to USB2 disks (I know this from experience). Normal compression is the best compromise between speed and size. Under ARCHIVE SPLITING put 4480MB, this will split the image into DVD-sized chunks that you can later transfer to optical media if you want to. MAKE SURE YOU TICK THE ARCHIVE VALIDATION OPTION BEFORE PROCEEDING WITH THE BACKUP, there's nothing worst than thinking you have a valid backup only to discover when trying to restore that the file is corrupt.

If you burn the backup chunks to DVDs at a later date, you must also verify those copies as well. The way to do this on a system without an optical drive, is to use another computer to copy the chunks from the DVDs back to a USB disk, then reboot into Acronis once again, browse the copied backup and verify it. Of course you can verify them directly using a USB DVD drive.

Always verify your backups every few months, and keep more than one copy around (I have backup copies of backups on three different disks plus on BD-RE - but hey, I'm paranoid!)

After verification is done, install the SSD, boot from the Acronis stick again, restore the backup onto the new drive, and you're done!

[nerv2010]

The Windows recovery disc must match the installation to work, i.e. 32-bit for a Windows 7 32-bit installation. As the Windows 7 installation disc has the recovery mode (same features as recovery CD), you can convert a Windows 7 32-bit CD to a 4GB USB pen drive. Microsoft offers the tool here. When this pen drive is botted, select the "Repair your computer" option to bring up the menu like on the repair disc (e.g. restore from backup, startup repair, etc.)

For cloning, Acronis is by far the most commonly recommended and easiest way to clone a drive over as it automates the whole process, e.g. no need to defrag, resize partitions, align, etc.

The Windows backup method in my guide works best when the OS partition has a small amount of data (e.g. 40GB or less), is already aligned and the drive has no additional partitions, e.g. most new Windows 7 laptops. However, if the laptop has additional partitions exceeding the size of the SSD or was upgraded from a previous OS (where the partition is not aligned), then Windows backup will not be suitable.

Thanks for the reply Sean, I found your little FAQ to be most helpful to get up to that point. I had a hunch that my issue with the OS image was the 32/64bit discrepancy. Only the netbook is 32bit and all my other systems are 64bit so I had to beg to use a friend's system to make a new recovery disk. I'll try that first to see. My other concern has to do with the partitions as you mention. The disk is inexplicably split into 4 partitions. 1 for the OS, one for storage, and two random ones(there is no disaster recovery partition). I was going to remove them and shrink the total install from the 160GB to my 128GB. The first image I did was only the OS from the C: drive and after weeding out the garbage it got down to 30GB.

Ideally I'd like to keep the ASUS bloatware so my wife won't notice a difference.....man it's painful to admit I'm going to keep bloatware. Otherwise I'd just purchase a full copy of Win7 home and do a fresh install.

---------- Post added at 02:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:38 PM ----------

Thank you all again guys. You've definitely given me hope to not brick this stupid notebook after all. I've used Norton Ghost in the past and was starting to lean that way till I had read a few good review of Acronis through Google. Seems much easier than Ghost and if I can do it with the trial version, even better. I'll eventually need to do it with my desktop but that will be a new project to tackle....after some more RAM and a new video card.

[nerv2010]

You guys are the BEST! Acronis came through like a champ and cloned quickly and painlessly. Now I have to go through and do the entire follow up.
Check alignment, remove extra crap, be sure win7 starts TRIM, etc. As a follow up though:

Initial system boot to OS: 2 min
SSD system boot to OS: 25 sec

Initial Firefox load: 30 sec
SSD Firefox load: 3 sec

Oh I can't wait to get a SSD for my desktop now! Just have to wait for
another good sale to pick up another. Props again to you guys. Thank
you for making another SSD convert!

[Bill Gates]

Otherwise I'd just purchase a full copy of Win7 home and do a fresh install.

not necessary my friend all you need is a oem copy and use the same number that is on the laptop you dont have to buy anything to do the clean install cause if you need a oem disc i have them.