How do i move OS from HDD to SSD ? and format the HDD?

[dg2903]

Currently i have my OS on my old HDD, i bought new SSD and i now i need to move the whole OS (win 7 oem version) to the new SSD so i can close and open it faster. How do i do that? please show step by step ( give pics if possible)

Plus, i tried to format my old HDD and it said that the HDD is containing the Windows version i am using, so i guess after i move my OS to the SSD i can format the HDD right? If so, how can i format the HDD? When i right click on the C drive, i see the open "format" but i dont know what to do after that.

 

[nukemaster]

Some SSD's come with the required software to clone the drive.

If not, something like this will work.

http://www.easeus.com/disk-copy/home-edition/
This works as well(I used it to clone Win8 from SSD to HDD and several HDD to SSD setups for my personal systems)
http://www.todo-backup.com/products/home/free-backup-software.htm

If you do a copy, you will want to remove your HDD and boot from the SSD(With the HDD disconnected) and make sure everything is working the way you want it before formatting the hard drive.

Sorry I do not have images, but it is literally a source(c then destination(SSD) thing.

You will have 2 partitions on most computers a System reserved and a Windows. You may even have a recovery partition.

Sometimes it works better to select and copy each partition to the drive. Just keep adding the partitions into the free space on the SSD. This can be useful when the software wants to scale partitions(because you are dropping drive size from a large HDD to a smaller SSD).

Again. DO NOT FORMAT the old drive until you have everything working off the SSD with the hard drive removed. In some cases, the hard drive will still be in use, this is why you should remove it after you are done cloning to ensure everything runs fine without it first.

 

[oxford373]

norton GHOST is also good program for that http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=O2il9QoTjYY

 

[photonboy]

If your HARD DRIVE is a Western Digital, or Seagate drive you can find the free version of Acronis True Image (WD version for WD drives) in the hard drive support section.

After you CLONE, to avoid confusion, shut down the PC and physically unhook the two cables to your hard drive, then
1) test the ssd for a few days
2) do a FULL FORMAT on the hard drive (make sure you have booted to the SSD, not the hard drive when you hook the hard drive back up. Boot order can be changed in the BIOS if needed)

3) Finally, create a backup image of your SSD using Acronis True Image free, full or similar software.

 

[dg2903]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233191&nm_mc=TEMC-RMA-Approvel&cm_mmc=TEMC-RMA-Approvel-_-Content-_-text-_-

Thats the ssd i bought.

So which program will i need?

 

[Hawkeye22]

I thought cloning from a HDD to an SSD left you with sector alignment problems. Is this not the case? If so, I would do a clean install or you will have performance problems with the SSD.

 

[nukemaster]

I have cloned without sector alignment issues. I will admit that the "system reserved" partition was for some reason out of alignment, but that was my fault(I had re-sized it. I can always use Gparted to fix it.).