Migrating Win 7 to a new HD. Any Advice?

I finally decided to to make the jump to a solid state drive. I just ordered the Corsair CSSD-F240GB2-BRKT 240 GB. I am planning of reinstalling windows 7 to this drive. I was just wondering if anyone had any experience or advice on the best way to do this while keeping the drivers and alienware features (command center, alienrespawn) intact.

My plan at this point is to just do a clean win 7 install on the new HD and then use double driver to restore all of the drivers from my last windows install. I am going to keep my current win 7 installed until the new one is done.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Here is a sandra report of my system:
<<< Computer Overview >>>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

< Computer >
Model: Alienware M17x
Workgroup: WORKGROUP
Host Name: Ian-PC
User: Ian

< Processor >
Model: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Extreme CPU Q9300 @
2.53GHz
Speed: 2.53GHz
Cores per Processor: 4 Unit(s)
Threads per Core: 1 Unit(s)
Type: Mobile, Quad-Core
Integrated Data Cache: 4x 32kB, Synchronous, Write-Thru, 8-way, 64
byte line size
L2 On-board Cache: 2x 6MB, ECC, Synchronous, ATC, 24-way, 64
byte line size, 2 threads sharing

< Computer >
Mainboard: Alienware
BIOS: Alienware A02 08/21/2009
Bus(es): X-Bus PCI PCIe USB FireWire/1394 i2c/SMBus
Multi-Processor (MP) Support: No
Multi-Processor Advanced PIC No
Total Memory: 7.75GB

< Chipset >
Model: nVidia MCP79 Host Bridge
Front Side Bus Speed: 4x 267MHz (1GHz)

< Memory Module(s) >
Memory Module: Hynix (Hyundai) HMT351S6AFR8C-H9 4GB DDR3 SO-
DIMM PC3-10700S DDR3-1334 (9-9-9-25 4-34-10-
5)
Memory Module: Hynix (Hyundai) HMT351S6AFR8C-H9 4GB DDR3 SO-
DIMM PC3-10700S DDR3-1334 (9-9-9-25 4-34-10-
5)

< Video System >
Video Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce 9400 (16 SM4.0 1.1GHz, 256MB
DDR2, Integrated Graphics)

< Graphics Processor >
Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce 9400 (16SP 2C 1.1GHz, 237.6MB,
Integrated Graphics)
Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce 9400 (237.6MB, Integrated
Graphics)

< Storage Devices >
ST9500420ASG (500.1GB, SATA300:466GB (C
Seagate FreeAgent XTreme 1.5TB:1TB (E
Optiarc DVD+-RW AD-7640S (ATA,:N/A (D
Disk: N/A (F

< Logical Storage Devices >
Lars (E : 1TB (NTFS) @ Seagate FreeAgent XTreme 1.5TB
(SATA300)
OS (C : 306GB (NTFS) @ ST9500420ASG (500.1GB, SATA300,
2.5", 7200rpm, NCQ, 16MB Cache)
Optical Drive (D : N/A @ Optiarc DVD+-RW AD-7640S (ATA, DVD+-RW,
CD-RW, 2MB Cache)
Optical Drive (F : N/A @ Disk

< Peripherals >
LPC Hub Controller 1: nVidia GeForce ION/9400M/9100M (MCP79) LPC
Bridge
LPC Legacy Controller 1: Winbond W83687THF
Audio Device: nVidia MCP79 High Definition Audio
Audio Codec: Integrated Device Tech 7675h
Disk Controller: Dell MCP79 AHCI Controller
USB Controller 1: Dell MCP79 OHCI USB 1.1 Controller
USB Controller 2: Dell MCP79 EHCI USB 2.0 Controller
USB Controller 3: Dell MCP79 OHCI USB 1.1 Controller
USB Controller 4: Dell MCP79 EHCI USB 2.0 Controller
FireWire/1394 Controller 1: Dell R5C832 IEEE-1394 Controller
SMBus/i2c Controller 1: nVidia MCP5+ SMBus 1
SMBus/i2c Controller 2: nVidia MCP5+ SMBus 2

< Printers and Faxes >
Printer: Send To Microsoft OneNote 2010 Driver
(1200x1200, Colour)
Printer: Amyuni Document Converter 400 (2400x2400,
Colour)
Printer: Microsoft XPS Document Writer (600x600,
Colour)
Printer: HP Photosmart C4600 series (1200x1200, USB,
Colour)
Fax: Microsoft Shared Fax Driver (200x200)
Printer: Epson ESC/P-R (360x360, USB, Colour)
Printer: Canon iP4600 series (USB, Colour)
Printer: Canon iP4600 series (USB, Colour)
Printer: Canon iP4600 series (USB, Colour)
Printer: Adobe PDF Converter (4000x4000, Colour)

< Network Services >
Network Adapter: NVIDIA nForce Networking Controller (Ethernet,
100Mbps)
Network Adapter: Bluetooth Device (Personal Area Network)
Wireless Adapter 1: Broadcom 802.11n Network Adapter (802.11n
(HT), AES-CCMP, 144Mbps)

< Power Management >
Mains (AC) Line Status: On-Line
Battery No 1: 88%

< Operating System >
Windows System: Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 6.01.7600
Platform Compliance: x64

< Windows Experience Index >
Current System: 5.9

 

My advice is to go through the process of reinstalling it manually as you would on a new freshly formated machine and not just because its more fun but you'll have more ground when you start troubleshooting issues.

 

You're going to have to do a fresh install since your new SSD is smaller than your current HDD. Otherwise you could just make an image and migrate it to the new SSD.

 

Acronis True Image Home 2010 will clone it to a smaller drive as long as you have the free space available for the size reduction. Should just boot right up.

 

I would have thought a simple aconis clone would suffice and spare you losing all your programs and there settings.

 

one thing you must take care off, if you clone a disk (normal platter HD to an SSD) using ANY software is the drive offset

AS SSD (free) will tell you if you have it correctly (acronis did it wrong in my case)

 

Windows 7 has its own imaging app now. You can also make a recovery/boot CD and restore your image that way. I haven't found any problems with using it yet. It's pretty quick too.

edit: sorry, it's called Backup and Restore

 

Thanks for the advice guys this is all really helpful. I think I am going to shrink my windows partition to the size of the new HD (one of my favorite new features of win 7) and create an image of that.
I hadn't even thought of imaging before. Thanks for saving me so much trouble

 

You can use 3rd party software and just do a file image backup instead so you can restore to any size partition instead of the sector base imaging where you need the exact same size as when you created your image.

I do this with Ghost particularly. Have not tried with Windows 7 64bit Backup and Restore though so take caution in using it