SSD and Acronis

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My hard drive contains a Win7 installation which has a 101 Mb partition that is located just before the partition holding Win7. This I believe is normal.

I used, "Acronis Disk Director 11 Home", to clone this Win7 installation to a SSD Drive. The SSD booted and ran just fine even though the SSD does not have the 101 MB partition. Acronis did not transfer it. What's this all about?

 

[JohnnyLucky]

I'm trying to remember the last time I partitioned a hard drive. It was a long long time ago when early versions of Windows could not handle larger capacity hard drives. Newer versions of Windows do not have that problem.

 

[WyomingKnott]

Well, the 101 Mb partition is the partition with the boot loader and recovery console. In my experience, Acronis should have copied it if you did a disk clone (or save and restore) and not a partition clone. I am confused.

As to cloning a hard drive to an SSD, my fingers are much too tired to go into that. Please read these threads: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/forum2.php?config=tomshardwareus.inc&cat=32&post=275288&page=1&p=1&sondage=0&owntopic=1&trash=0&trash_post=0&print=0&numreponse=0&quote_only=0&new=0&nojs=0 and http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/forum2.php?config=tomshardwareus.inc&cat=32&post=275243&page=1&p=1&sondage=0&owntopic=1&trash=0&trash_post=0&print=0&numreponse=0&quote_only=0&new=0&nojs=0 , and then see if you still want to do it that way.

 

[WyomingKnott]

I'm trying to remember the last time I partitioned a hard drive. It was a long long time ago when early versions of Windows could not handle larger capacity hard drives. Newer versions of Windows do not have that problem.

JohnnyLucky, I suspect that the small partition isn't one that the OP created, but the one that Win7 creates if you let it partition the drive. Were you thinking of this as being a deliberately-created partition, or just musing?

I partition. One for stuff I back up, one for stuff I don't.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

Yes, I was thinking of a deliberately created partion. It just popped into my head automatically. Relic from the good old days.

 

[scroll]

Well, the 101 Mb partition is the partition with the boot loader and recovery console. In my experience, Acronis should have copied it if you did a disk clone (or save and restore) and not a partition clone. I am confused.

As to cloning a hard drive to an SSD, my fingers are much too tired to go into that. Please read these threads: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/forum2.php?config=tomshardwareus.inc&cat=32&post=275288&page=1&p=1&sondage=0&owntopic=1&trash=0&trash_post=0&print=0&numreponse=0&quote_only=0&new=0&nojs=0 and http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/forum2.php?config=tomshardwareus.inc&cat=32&post=275243&page=1&p=1&sondage=0&owntopic=1&trash=0&trash_post=0&print=0&numreponse=0&quote_only=0&new=0&nojs=0 , and then see if you still want to do it that way.

In acronis I did not do a partition clone, I definitely did a disc clone.

 

[RetiredChief]

Although I DO NOT recommend cloning a HDD to a SSD, question why did you use acronis and Not the one built into windows 7 (New feature) I have Acronis, but for Windows 7, I use windows 7 imaging tool.

You said the SSD runs fine after cloning, How did you verify?
Did you manually inable trim in registry, Which driver is the SSD using and is the partition aligned???

You can answer these by running AS SSD (a free download). do not have to run the benchmark, Just look at the upper left.

There have been a number of posts where an Individual has clonned their HDD to a SSD and then wondered why the performance was no where near spec.


Added. If that 101 mb partition is not a "system" partition I don't think that cloning "C" drive will include it.

 

[Meganano]

My hard drive contains a Win7 installation which has a 101 Mb partition that is located just before the partition holding Win7. This I believe is normal.

I used, "Acronis Disk Director 11 Home", to clone this Win7 installation to a SSD Drive. The SSD booted and ran just fine even though the SSD does not have the 101 MB partition. Acronis did not transfer it. What's this all about?

I found Acronis True Image rather difficult to use. The first time I tried to make a bootable system backup disk the DVD wasn't bootable and didn't restore the boot sector to the HD. I had to spend considerable time on the phone with their tech support before I understood what buttons to push and boxes to check to make this work. I now have a system backup that works, but plan on doing it again after installing a SSD. I'm afraid that even with my notes I won't get it right next time. It's beyond me why inclusion of the boot sector or partition isn't the default when making a system backup. I'm inclined to try something else such as Norton Ghost or ? next time (reviews on NG don't sound too good either).

 

[WyomingKnott]

meganano

I'm surprised. I've had excellent experience with Acronis, although at work we are only running XP, so that may make a difference.

Norton Ghost for sure! Except, I'm still running the 2003 version.

 

[RetiredChief]

Use windows 7 (It's in control Panel) put the image on either a Internal HDD or a USB HDD drive. Then to restore the Image (You do Not have to create a bootable restore disk) use your Windows installation disk and select repair, then resore using an image file. I've done this about a half dozen times without one problem, Going SSD->SSD, did two going SSD->HDD also.

If Older system, Yes Acronis. I used it runing under windows XP to clone Winows 3.11 SCSI boot Drives, worked great.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

I have some boxes with Acronis but "my boxes " all have Shadow Protect Desktop.

But as was said above, I would not image a HD installation onto a SSD....and yes, I still partition every HD that comes in the door. Mostly for situations like this where I will keep the windows install on the HD as a backup to the SSD....choosing which one to boot from via the BIOS.

 

[Meganano]

Use windows 7 (It's in control Panel) put the image on either a Internal HDD or a USB HDD drive. Then to restore the Image (You do Not have to create a bootable restore disk) use your Windows installation disk and select repair, then resore using an image file. I've done this about a half dozen times without one problem, Going SSD->SSD, did two going SSD->HDD also.

If Older system, Yes Acronis. I used it runing under windows XP to clone Winows 3.11 SCSI boot Drives, worked great.

Retired Chief,
Thanks for clarifying the Windows system backup thing. A few years ago I bought my daughter a Sony laptop. Since there was no system disk included, the first thing I did was make a system backup. I thought I was using the Sony utility, but later when the HD died the backup refused to install to the new HD without the Windows Vista installation disk which of course I didn't have. I had to buy a system disk from Sony to get the thing back up.

I do have the Windows 7 inst. disk for my system, so I'll try doing as you suggested and save the image of my SSD to the HDD.

On the other hand reinstalling a system from scratch isn't nearly as painful as it used to be. In the Windows 98 era it was an all day task. After installing Windows and answering all the stupid questions like what time zone, then installing drivers I had to install patches for the drivers then patches for the patches, etc.. When I build my Sandy Bridge/Win7 system this took less than 1/2 hour.

Still It's nice to have a one step restore to new system drive.

 

[cadder]

That little partition is the Windows system restore partition. I believe it has a function in some versions of Win7 but not in other versions. There are ways to get rid of it if you don't want it. This partition makes cloning more difficult. I have the latest version of ghost and it won't deal with the SRP properly unless you know what you are doing and do it manually. I've read online that previous versions of Ghost and Acronis are recommended.

Of course I wonder why cloning software doesn't copy EVERYTHING on the source disk to the target disk. I have a Win7 machine that I intend to clone soon and I haven't figured out how I'm going to attack it yet.

 

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Best answer selected by scroll.

 

[Malcolm_]

Well, the 101 Mb partition is the partition with the boot loader and recovery console. In my experience, Acronis should have copied it if you did a disk clone (or save and restore) and not a partition clone. I am confused.

As to cloning a hard drive to an SSD, my fingers are much too tired to go into that. Please read these threads: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/forum2.php?config=tomshardwareus.inc&cat=32&post=275288&page=1&p=1&sondage=0&owntopic=1&trash=0&trash_post=0&print=0&numreponse=0&quote_only=0&new=0&nojs=0 and http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/forum2.php?config=tomshardwareus.inc&cat=32&post=275243&page=1&p=1&sondage=0&owntopic=1&trash=0&trash_post=0&print=0&numreponse=0&quote_only=0&new=0&nojs=0 , and then see if you still want to do it that way.

 

[Malcolm_]

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