SSD Upgrade Question

Okay, so this technically isn't a Clevo-specific question. I'm asking here because Clevo owners tend to like upgrading their laptops more than others would, and I suspect many of you have experience upgrading from HDD to SSD. Also, my thread in the Hardware forum isn't getting much help.

So I just got an Intel 160GB SSD (from babyhemi), and I'm trying to clone my current HDD's info to the SSD. I've managed to shrink the partition of my Hitachi down to 97GB, so it's smaller than my SSD. Now I want to clone the partition, load it up on the SSD, and boot from SSD.

I've tried using EaseUs, XXClone, and the free trial version of Macrium Reflect to do this, without success. With XXClone, I get an error at 90% completion and the program tells me it wants to save some files to my floppy disk drive (!?). With EaseUs and Macrium, I'm able to create what looks like an exact replicate of all of my files on my Hitachi, but which my computer does not boot from. My SSD remains labeled the D drive, while my Hitachi is the C drive (if my Hitachi isn't plugged in, Windows doesn't boot at all).

What's the best way to get my drive information cloned that will make the SSD bootable?

 

The best way is to avoid cloning, actually. Because a SSD and a regular spin disk is physically different, you will run into something called allignment problems. The 8760 has 2 spaces for harddrives, doesn't it?
So; Remove your old HDD, insert the SSD - Do a clean install of you OS, after first checking the BIOS for AHCI mode. Add your old HDD. Move everything you want from that to the SSD. Or as much as you have space for. Format the old HDD, to get all traces of the old OS on it gone. Then move everything you don't really need to have on the SSD, back again. It's more cumbersome than a clone, I know, but really; it's the best way.

 

I...once again....recommend the same as above poster for all the reasons posted on the other thread...

 

I second what Redunzl just said. It will be well worth the hassle.

 

I'm not yet convinced that there's no way to do this. One reason I'm reluctant is because I'd need to download Windows 7 and burn a disk (I have a legit download link, but I lost the disk), and I'm on rather slow internet. So while I'm certainly not in a hurry to get this done, it would definitely take a couple days to do the reinstall, not counting the time and hassle of reinstalling all the bajillion tiny little programs I've downloaded and installed (and setting up all their settings).

So yeah, maybe you guys are right and the best and quickest and easiest way will still be with a fresh install. Let's suppose that I still want to get it working through cloning. Can we figure out our way through this "hypothetical" scenario?

 

Have you tried Acronis True Image Home 2010 yet? Clone disk on that one worked for me.. but i would also suggest doing a fresh instal..

 

Try Acronis. Connect booth disk clone the old one to the new (SSD), disconnect the old and start the computer. It should work.

 

Acronis TrueImage worked (Acronis Migrate wasn't working, likely due to a bug on installation, it was giving me funny messages). I'm now running on SSD .

I hope there aren't any issues due to not doing a fresh install. Just in case, I'm going to keep around my HDD without formatting it. But so far, so good.

Thanks for the advice everyone!