How to migrate OS & Boot from different drives to SSD

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
P

PanSola

Distinguished
May 1, 2009
42
0
18,530
Hi,

I have a non-standard setup as the following:
* Hard disk 1 is the boot disk
* Hard disk 2 has a partition with my Windows 7 on it, plus some other partitions for other purposes.

I have a new SSD that I would like to make my boot disk as well as hold my Windows 7 partition.
The total size of hard disk 2 is greater than my SSD, but the Windows partition alone is much smaller than the SSD.

So far the guides on the web I've been able to find only handles the case where the OS partition is the boot drive.

My fallback solution would be a fresh installation of Windows 7 on the SSD, but if possible I would like to migrate my existing installation.

Any help would be much appreciated.
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
SuperSoph_WD

SuperSoph_WD

Glorious
Jul 30, 2014
6,758
3
45,960
Hey there, PanSola!

I'd strongly recommend you to perform a clean install! You can try using some third-party cloning utility that would let you select the partitions/data that you wish to clone onto the SSD, however, I'm not sure how successful that would be. Here's a thread you can check out for suggestions: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-1848564/hdd-cloning-software.html
What is the OS of your booting HDD?
My concern is that you would encounter a number of booting issues if the clone doesn't work properly. It will also transfer all the redundant, temp, dump files from both operating systems. I'd advise you to simply clean install both of them onto the SSD creating a dual boot drive. However, make sure you have both of the old HDDs unplugged during the installation, otherwise you might encounter an OS confusion.

Hope it helps. Good luck!: )
SuperSoph_WD
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
P

PanSola

Distinguished
May 1, 2009
42
0
18,530


The booting HDD has the release candidate version of Windows 7 (the one that shuts down every 2 hours). When Win7 came out I didn't want to install over the release candidate so I put the full version of Win7 on a different HDD as a dual boot and left it that way. Now I don't really need anything from the rc installation anymore, so that HDD has been serving only as my boot disk (and also holds the page file)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
SuperSoph_WD

SuperSoph_WD

Glorious
Jul 30, 2014
6,758
3
45,960
Hey again, PanSola!

I'd totally agree with @USAFRet! You'd definitely confuse your system if you decide to migrate both versions. Better re-install everything from scratch onto the SSD. Just make sure you unplug the other HDDs from the system while installing Windows 7 on the solid-state drive.
After that is completed, plug back the HDDs, backup any important data from them and re-format them through Disk Management.
Make sure you set the boot priority in BIOS right as well.

Good luck! :)
SuperSoph_WD
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom