New SSD in older C700 Compaq laptop problems

Just wondering if anyone can help me, I've recently upgraded my old C710TU Compaq laptop with an Intel T9300 C2D 2.5Ghz and 3Gb of RAM which is working fine, and I've also got an OCZ SATA II SSD I want to install as well.

I created an image of the existing Toshiba 80Gb HDD and the recovery partition using DriveImage XML and copied that to the new SSD.

Now the problem is that when I install the SSD, Windows Vista fails to boot stating that it could be due to a recent hardware change.

The BIOS recognizes the OCZ SSD however there are no selectable options in the BIOS apart from changing the boot order....

What do I need to do to get the SSD to work? Is it a case of it being assigned the wrong drive letter (it was assigned G:/ when I was using DriveImage XML) or do I need to use a recovery disk to get things going? I'm really lost here because I have googled the crap out of this and can't seem to find anyone with this particular problem.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

You still have the old HDD and drive image in case you need to revert back, so if you don't have too much to lose, I would just either use the recovery disks or do a clean install of Windows.

I had a similar issue when transferring a Windows 7 install from HDD to SSD, and was able to fix it without a clean install. I believe the same process would work for Vista.

I first performed a clean install of Windows on the SSD. I let it boot to the desktop the first time, but did not bother installing any drivers or configuring anything. This is a temporary installation and all I wanted from it was a properly configured "System Reserved" partition and bootloader. This will require getting ahold of Vista installation media from somewhere, though.

Next, you'll want to boot from the Vista install DVD again with your old HDD connected as an external, and enter the command prompt. You'll want to format the main Windows partition on the SSD (do not touch the "System Reserved" partition), and then use the following command to copy everything from the Windows partition on your old HDD to the Windows partition you just formatted on your SSD. In this example, assume C: is your Windows partition on the SSD, and D: is the Windows partition on your HDD. Make sure you know which partition is which for your specific system before you go formatting anything or copying files.

robocopy /copyall /mir /xj D:\ C:\

This is essentially a command-line command to "clone" one partition to another. It will keep the file structure, attributes, permissions, etc. intact and will also copy hidden/system files. Once this process is completed, reboot. If all went according to plan, you will have a "new" bootloader with the old OS/data/apps/etc intact, and the system will work properly.

But if that either sounds too complicated, or if you don't have a whole lot of apps/system settings to reconfigure, I would recommend simply doing a clean install. Perhaps upgrade to Windows 7, if you have the cash.

Alternately, if you're willing to spend some money, Acronis True Image 2011 or higher should be able to restore an image from your HDD to SSD and not cause any issues. I've done it this way before, too.

 

Thanks for your help! I got it working. I ended up paying around 10 bucks for a Windows Vista Recovery Disk download, and installed the new SSD then booted from the CD drive, selected Automated Repair and it was all good All my files are still intact and the laptop is noticeably faster. Thanks again.

 

The automated repair option has never actually done anything useful for me, but I'm glad you got it working again.

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