System image recovery disk on new SSD?

[Polyknikes]

Hello everybody,

I recently reinstalled windows 7 and the programs that I like and created a system image which I burned to a blu-ray and also placed on an external HDD.

I just purchased a 120 GB SSD to replace my 250 GB old-skool hard drive which contains my windows installation.

Can I use the system image to reinstall windows to the new SSD or would it be better to do a fresh install? Does windows configure itself differently during setup on a SSD rather than a traditional HDD? If so, will that cause any problems by restoring the image onto the SSD?

I only ask because using the system image to reinstall everything would go a lot faster than reinstalling windows + all the programs I included on the recovery image.

Thanks

 

[RealBeast]

You *can* install an image onto the SSD but it would be highly recommended to do a clean installation.

If you originally installed with your bios set to AHCI mode and you do not have an alignment issue, which you probably would have with an old HDD, it should work -- odds are though that you will have an alignment issue and that would severely impact performance of your SSD.

Now once you have done a clean install to the SSD, you can then back up an image and have it for re-installations, which I do often. The key is to do the first install on the SSD clean with the bios in AHCI sata mode.

 

[J_E_D_70]

Clean install. Also, use the manufacturer's toolbox/app to install the latest firmware *before* you install windows (boot to your primary hard drive). Then use said software to optimize the drive and run Windows Experience (WEI) to further optimize after the OS install.