Testing all you windows 8 geeks

Okay people, lets see if one of you can solve this problem...

I just received the new 17.3" Samsung Series 7 Chronos (with the new 8870m GPU). As you know it comes with windows 8 installed ona 1TB 5700rpm drive.

I purchased a samsung 840 ssd and, using a SATA-USB adaptor, used the datamigration tool to clone/copy the windows 8 O/S from the internal slow hard drive to the externally connected sata SSD.

I replaced the internal drive with the ssd and voila, the computer successfully booted to Windows 8.

I should have been content to stop here and enjoy my blazingly fast laptop, but I didn't....

I had a windows 7 disk and chose to install that on to the new internal ssd. My plan was to create a new partition on the ssd and be able to dual boot but that didn't work. It didn't work until I blew away and re-partitioned/formated the ssd. So now the ssd only has windows 7, however what I didn't know is that the windows 7 was 32 bit and I had all sorts of problems getting drivers.

After researching I have decided that I want windows 8 back on the ssd. What I cannot figure out is how to go about doing this without going back to square 1 which would involve putting the old drive back in and re-doing the datamigration to the ssd, then swapping the drives again. I really want to avoid taking the laptop apart again. I will if I have to, but I was hoping there would be another way.
Ideally, I would like to plug the old hard drive (still has windows 8 on it) into the USB port(using the USB-SATA adaptor), boot off of it, and then re-run the data migration tool and clone/copy the windows 8 to the internal ssd(again). I tried this and could not get the laptop to boot off of the old hard drive connected to the USB port. I changed the boot order in the bios but it still boots to windows 7 on the internal ssd. It seems during the boot process it doesn't see the externally connected SATA drive. I haven't tried anything like pressing F10 to go to the boot menu...

I think if I can get the laptop to boot from the external old SATA hard drive I could re-run the datamigration tool and be good to go.. Unless someone has any other ideas.
I've already tried and it seems impossible to get the windows 8 product key, otherwise I would download and create a windows 8 install disk.

 

1. Disable Fast BIOS in the BIOS (Fast BIOS skips checking for other than the primary boot device).
2. Use F10 at the BIOS screen to select your boot device.

John

 

@Sirkassad: First of all, that's an awesome machine. I envy you that

Second, you made some missteps along the way, as you already discovered. However, testing things like you have done is how new discoveries are made! And as long as your original HDD is intact, you're not in big trouble and can always re-install that HDD if you have to.

The recommended way to clone Win8 from your original HDD to a new SSD is described in the opening post of the 2013 Series 7 Owners Lounge Thread. There are many more discussions about it later in the thread, particularly the last two weeks.

It basically involves using Samsung Recovery to create a bootable backup of the Factory Image (ie Win8) onto a 32GB USB stick, which you can then boot to restore the Factory Image onto a new SSD. In your case it would have been a snap to just start over and restore Win8 again -- any number of times.

The only solution I can think of now (and by far the best if you succeed) is to boot the Recovery on your external HDD. Forget about trying to boot the Windows installation on that HDD: Even if you succeed, it won't give you what you need (as far as I can tell).

What you want, is to boot the Recovery on that external HDD, specifically the WinPE image on the SAMSUNG_REC partition. It's a file called boot.wim in the sources folder on that partition.

There may be other ways, but the easiest I can think of, is to temporarily install Windows 7 on your SSD, then use the free tool EasyBCD to add that Recovery on the external HDD to your Windows boot menu. I have described the process in this post to another member.

When you install Windows 7 on the SSD for this purpose, you don't need drivers or anything, as long as it runs and can read your external HDD. You may have to use a USB2 port (black) instead of a USB3 (blue).

Even if you are able to boot the Recovery on that external HDD, I cannot guarantee you that it will actually work -- because it was designed to run from an internal disk, not an external USB drive. If it fails, you will simply have to install the HDD back into the laptop and start over.

If you DO manage to boot and run the Recovery from the external HDD (congratulations!) I suggest you create that bootable Factory Image backup I mentioned above on a 32GB USB stick (described in the Owners Lounge Opening Post).

Alternatively, you can try and Restore Factory Image directly onto the SSD. But if you need to do this again later, you'll have to go through everything in this post again.

I hope this works for you. And I will be VERY interested to hear your results