- Jul 12, 2015
- 1
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- 4,510
Hi all
After a lot of research I finally was able to migrate my Windows 8.1 OS from a 3TB HDD to a 250MB Samsung SSD without purchasing any software. My main concern was proper alignment of the OS partition for an SSD (I know very little about the technical details of this).
I have a desktop system with Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 on separate HDD (I was trying Windows 8.1). I shrank the Windows 8.1 partition to about 120GB using Paragon Partition Manager before I started this process.
I installed the SDD internally and then I fresh installed Windows 8.1 onto the SSD. By default this fresh installation setup four partitions: 300MB Recovery, 100 MB EFI system partition, 128MB reserved partition, 232GB (the rest) Windows partition.
I then booted into Windows 7 and installed the MiniTool Drive Copy software. This software is dated 2010 but there seems to be more recent software available on the MiniTool site - but this more recent software DID NOT look like it would do what I wanted.
I started the Drive Copy software and selected Partition to Partition. I then copied the Windows 8.1 partition from my HDD to the fresh Windows 8.1 partition on my SSD. I was able to resize the Windows partition being copied from HDD to SSD at the same time.
I then disabled my Windows 7 and 8.1 HDDs in the BIOS and booted to Windows 8.1 on the new SSD. The took two reboots to "repair" itself and then booted up fully functional.
After a lot of research I finally was able to migrate my Windows 8.1 OS from a 3TB HDD to a 250MB Samsung SSD without purchasing any software. My main concern was proper alignment of the OS partition for an SSD (I know very little about the technical details of this).
I have a desktop system with Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 on separate HDD (I was trying Windows 8.1). I shrank the Windows 8.1 partition to about 120GB using Paragon Partition Manager before I started this process.
I installed the SDD internally and then I fresh installed Windows 8.1 onto the SSD. By default this fresh installation setup four partitions: 300MB Recovery, 100 MB EFI system partition, 128MB reserved partition, 232GB (the rest) Windows partition.
I then booted into Windows 7 and installed the MiniTool Drive Copy software. This software is dated 2010 but there seems to be more recent software available on the MiniTool site - but this more recent software DID NOT look like it would do what I wanted.
I started the Drive Copy software and selected Partition to Partition. I then copied the Windows 8.1 partition from my HDD to the fresh Windows 8.1 partition on my SSD. I was able to resize the Windows partition being copied from HDD to SSD at the same time.
I then disabled my Windows 7 and 8.1 HDDs in the BIOS and booted to Windows 8.1 on the new SSD. The took two reboots to "repair" itself and then booted up fully functional.
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