Migrating windows to SSD on laptop

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AdamKun

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Jul 12, 2014
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Hi, long story short I'm trying to upgrade the hard drive in a laptop to a SSD but am running into issues. I've tried using a windows system image to install but was told something along the lines of no suitable drive found, my second attempt was to clone the os to an external drive then clone that onto the new SSD, but the os clone on the external drive is unbootable, citing inaccessible boot device. I can however boot it in safe mode but since that doesn't allow os cloning (I used Ease Us Todo) I'm stumped. So I'm hoping someone could maybe point me in the direction of something that might help.

Thanks
 
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snowctrl


Yes, exactly - and once the clone is made, you take the SSD out of the caddy, take the HD out of the laptop, and put the SSD in it's place. Then you boot the laptop and it runs just like before - but off the SSD
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snowctrl

snowctrl

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Well, cloning the HD to the SSD, then switching them over is the standard procedure, so your approach is right... could you tell us more detail? What laptop, what spec, what SSD, what cloning software etc...

Was the laptop running without issue before the attempt to move to SSD? Did you run full antivirus and antimalware scans (with good stuff like BitDefender and Malwarebytes etc) before the attempted clone? Is the SSD big enough to contain all the data on the HD to be cloned? (these are typical pitfails...)
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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For one, it won't boot off the external drive, whether cloned or whatever.

Clone to whichever drive, then install that internally.

THis is one of the reasons I almost always recommend just a fresh install on a new SSD. Far fewer hassles.
 
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AdamKun

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The laptop is an acer aspire e1-571, the specs are windows 8, 8bg ram and a 2.4ghz processor. The laptop is running perfectly fine and virus free. and the SSD is big enough to house the clone as I have gone through the process of shrinking the current os ready. its a 250gb crucial drive, and the os im trying to migrate is only aprox 70gb.
 
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AdamKun

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I would have fresh installed to the new drive but the laptop didn't come with a windows install disk, so I was hoping to go about it via system image copying or as I stated via an external harddrive interim. But you say that is not possible?
 
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snowctrl

snowctrl

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.... ok, then it should all work... you're using the cloning software that came with the Crucial drive? I did this recently with a Crucial MX100 on my Dell Studio 15, and it went without a hitch. I used an external Sata drive caddy connected to the laptop via USB 2.0 to contain the SSD, loaded the cloning software onto the laptop, ran it, switched the drives, et voila....

??
 
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AdamKun

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The software I was trying use was EaseUs Todo, you say you used a caddy? so that Is a housing to put the SSD in essentialy making it an external drive that I could clone the os to?
 
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game junky

game junky

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if the solid state drive is the same size or larger than the existing HDD, then it should be pretty easy - use a drive cloning utility to create a bit-level copy of the content. I like Ghost and DiskCopy, but there is also an application that comes with Apricorn's USB to SATA drive interface docks that is pretty quick since it only copies the used space on the disk.
If the solid state is smaller than the existing hard drive, then you will have to add an extra step to edit the disk partition. In Windows 7, you can shrink the partition within disk management but it has a threshold based on the size of the existing partition and the amount of space used. With Windows XP, you will have to use a bootable partition editor to shrink the partition size. I use gparted but there several other linux distros like j@ck@ss that have that capability as well. Once you have the partition shrunk to a size that will fit on that solid state drive, use diskcopy to clone that disk partition. Bear in mind, I can't guaruntee this will work - it's been about 50-50 when I have had to shrink a partition.
 
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snowctrl

snowctrl

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Yes, exactly - and once the clone is made, you take the SSD out of the caddy, take the HD out of the laptop, and put the SSD in it's place. Then you boot the laptop and it runs just like before - but off the SSD
 
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AdamKun

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Jul 12, 2014
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Ok thanks for all the input everyone, looks like the easiest route is to get a usb to sata converter and clone it that way. I feel quite stupid for trying to go the long way round but this should be a piece of cake now.
 
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