HDD -> SSD clone help

so i got a 128 GB SSD from a store and am having trouble making it work, i cloned it and i get an error that says the drive can not be booted because it is inaccessible (paraphrase) anyone here have any ideas? Also if you cloned your drive can you point me in the direction of some freeware, i already spent $40 on software and the drive connector

 

have you checked out clonezilla?

I personally haven't but i like mozilla products

 

Clonezilla is not a Mozilla product. Nor is Filezilla.

In any case, it sounds like the OP didn't actually clone all of the partitions on the original drive. What utility were you using? There are lots of threads detailing exactly how to clone a drive here already.

 

i used apricorn EZ gig II, it is software which came with an external docking station and it cloned two partitions, the main one and the recovery one

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...w-disk-breaks-windows-update.html#post6455124

Give that a try. It's what I used. Very easy.

 

The Acronis 2011 trial says the cloning is not available in the trial software i can't find the 2010, and another freeware i used was a no go. i am getting ready to smash this ssd this is so frustrating

 

finally got it working! very nice and fast!

 

What did you use to get it working?

 

i had to find the 2010 trial version of Acronis

 

Don't you get better SSD performance if you do it fresh from scratch?

 

You always get better performance when you re-install your OS from scratch, regardless of whether you are going with an SSD or HDD. This is true even for the stock / baseline hard drive image that comes with the M11x. A clean install + installed software will perform faster than the base image - uninstalled software, even though the final software load is equivalent.

There are some things that Windows does automatically if it detects an SSD, such as disable the Disk Defragmenter service and turn TRIM (DeleteNotify) on. These only happen automatically during Windows install, although you can easily change these settings manually if you do decide to do image instead of a clean format.

In any case, a clean format will give you better performance. And it's FUN. It might just be my nerdery, but I always love that feeling of getting new core computer hardware, and doing a fresh Windows install on it just to see how fast Windows installs.

 

I had never done a clean install before but would like to do it once i have gotten myself an SSD, for alienware we just need to swap the new SSD in and load the resource disk to reinstall the window right? What about drivers? Do I need to get them on somewhere first before I clean install or I could just install windows first and get those drivers install later?

Sorry for asking all this as I know next to nothing about SSD and Clean Install

 

Yes, that's the basic idea. The resource disc will contain just the base OS. You will need to get your own drivers. Luckily, Dell is pretty good about this and puts all of them on Welcome to Dell Support. Just download those drivers, put them on a USB flash drive, and then copy them over once you get Windows installed on the M11x.