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Thread ID: 126996 2012-09-28 22:46:00 Migrating OS to SSD PeterQ (16315) Press F1
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1303972 2012-09-28 22:46:00 This may have been brought up many times on this forum with different approaches but i want to be absolutely sure about what im about to do
I have a 1tb hdd C which has the OS and other files on it which i have backed up to another drive E, i am about to buy an intel 120 gb ssd and want to migrate my c drive to it using intels data migration, apparently i can not do this unless i shrink my C drive to around the size as the SSD, the question is can i do this with the windows 7 application without losing data or do i have to use third party software, the reason is i am reluctant to do a fresh install because that would mean downloading all of windows and office updates etc again, and others state there is no evidence to backup that not doing a fresh install will cause problems so i will go on what the techs say here
PeterQ (16315)
1303973 2012-09-28 23:14:00 Always best to do a clean re-install if you ask me, onto a SSD. It's a bit of a pain re-installing, but well worth it, and you'll get to truly appreciate the full seed of the new SSD :)

You can also do it if you resize your partition to be small enough to fit on the 120GB SSD, then use almost any partition imaging utility.
Chilling_Silence (9)
1303974 2012-09-28 23:22:00 Thanks Chill much appreciated PeterQ (16315)
1303975 2012-09-29 00:36:00 I did a fresh install when I put my SSD in recently, it's like night and day when you first start using it. (Then you get used to it, and it still feels pretty damn fast)

Unless you're severely limited by bandwidth caps, I would just do a fresh one.

edit - Because you'll then have to setup and migrate all your files to the data drive. If you're doing that from a fresh install it's not nearly as difficult as it would be for an existing one.
8ftmetalhaed (14526)
1303976 2012-09-29 00:41:00 Thanks , convinced , will do a fresh install PeterQ (16315)
1303977 2012-09-29 00:43:00 if you want to Migrate the Current OS, try Intel Migrate Software (www.intel.com) Its designed to do it. wainuitech (129)
1303978 2012-09-30 10:22:00 I just cloned my C: drive straight onto the SSD with the intel software, worked fine. I did it again recently with Acronis to a samsung SSD and that worked fine too. I agree a fresh install is the best option but you can always do that later which is my plan.
No need to resize anything first as long as the used space on the source drive will fit onto the SSD.
dugimodo (138)
1303979 2012-09-30 10:40:00 Which ver of Acronis you're using? You cloned the drive or created an image first and then re-imaged it to the SSD? bk T (215)
1303980 2012-09-30 18:00:00 It was the western Digital version of Acronis off their website I used because the samsung SSD didn't come with anything to do the Job, cloned from a 1TB WB black onto a 256GB Samsung SSD.
The intel drive was about 6 months ago and went from a 1TB Samsung drive onto the inTel 120GB SSD, I did have one problem with that one because I let the software resize the partitions automatically and it shrunk the hidden 100MB partition down as small as it could go and still fit whatever was on it. It was so small it screwed up windows backup which requires space for shadow copy and disk management which could'nt deal with a partiton that small. I did it again and left that partition it's original size and all was well.

I just hooked the drive up to a spare SATA port and cloned directly, no imaging first. I have read the comments here about problems with Acronis so I was prepared to try something else if it failed, but it didn't :)
dugimodo (138)
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