Restoring - Step by Step for dummies, please!

Or should I just use Acronis Migrate Easy 7.0? Or use the cloning function in ATIH 2011???

Dag Wolters wrote:

Hi,

I have seen elsewhere in this forum how to restore from an old (partioned) HDD to a new SSD. The problem for me, is that the advice is one notch above my current level of understanding, so it would be extremely helpful if you could guide me on a more "six-year-old-level" so that I can confidently make the transition from and "old" SSD of 160 GB to a new SSD of 240GB.

So my situation looks like this:

I have a Lenovo laptop running Windows 7 - 64 bit, with an SSD (Intel X25-G2) of 160 GB and it has only the C-partion (that is, the drive has not been partitioned)...

As this drive is becomming a bit to "small" for all my files, I would like to install a bigger SSD, and I have bought a new SSD of 240 GB (Corsair Force GT, CSSD-F240GBGT-BK).

If I follow Pat L's advice in post 23774 which involves partions, I think I should do the following (I have put question-marks where I think I need help or do not understan!!).

1. Using ATIH 2011 and with my laptop running on the "old" SSD, I click on "Disk and partition backup".

2. In the window "Configure disk backup process" I tick the box next to my "Local Disk (C:).

Just to be sure, click on the blue link "switch to disk mode", then select your current disk.

3. I click "Disk backup options" at the bottom of the screen.

4. Under the "Advanced" tab, I click "Backup up sector-by-sector" (but NOT "Backup unallocated space"????)

Do NOT choose backup sector by sector.

5. I click "Validation" and select "Validate backup when it is created".

6. As "Destination" choose an attached USB-drive.

7. Shut down lap-top, and install new SSD.

8. Boot laptop with a USB or CD which has been prepared with Acronis Media Builder?????

Correct. Before you change your SSD, use ATI to create a bootable media disk. You can do with on a CD or a USB FLASH drive (not a regular spinning USB disk).

9. Restore from the image on the USB-drive??? Here I really need some more details, thanks!!! I am uncertain what to choose from the "Partition properties" screen... Escpecially what I should choose from the "Unallocated space"-section??? And if I should click on "Show MBR"???

- Once you have booted on the Acronis Recovery CD, click on Browse to select your backup. The drive letters on the recovery CD are not the same as in windows. Look at the drive labels.
- Once your backup has been selected, right click on it and choose restore, then restore whole disk and partitions
- On the right, you should see a panel with the name of the disk, and underneath it, the list of partitions and the MBR + track0.

IF you have only one partition, simply click on the check box at the DISK level and complete the restore with the disk signatur included.

IF you have several partitions, restore them in the same order they were on the original disk (not necessarily the way they are presented by ATI in this panel). Note: some users say they have only C:\system on their disk, but they have not seen some hidden partitions.
The rest of the post here applies to the multi-partition case:
Restoring them one by one allows you to control whether to resize them or not, to take advantage of the bigger space on your new disk:
- do not resize any partition other than C:\system
- leave 1MB before the first partition
- mark active the partition that was active on the previous disk (typically system reserved with Win7, or c:\system on other OSes and some Win7 systems)
- do not change the drive letters.
At the end, restore the MBR+track0 and the disk signature.

In another post, Pat L has adviced to "leave an 1 MB space before the first partition". Is this applicable for this situation as well? If yes, how do I go about to do this???

Should I restore the MBR??? (Which is visible when clicking the "Show MBR").

See above the case where in fact you would have several partitions.

Pat L also mention in post 23774 to restore MBR+track0 and the disk signature"??? Should I do this as well? And how do I do this???

You will see the option to include the disk signature in one of the last screens of the restore wizard.

I have seen discussions on "alignment". Is this anything I have to worry about?

Your SSD is aligned if the first partition starts with an offset that is exactly divisible by 4096. To see the offset, run msinfo32.exe, choose components, hardware, storage, disks.
Do this before uninstalling your OLD SSD. If your OLD SSD is not aligned, you have to follow the case of having multiple partitions to add the 1MB offset and realign your image on your new SSD. If you OLD SSD is aligned and you have only one partition, the whole disk procedure above will preserve the alignment. At any rate, you can check the alignment after the restore.

Will this SSD upgrade process be more secure and better if I first upgrade to ATIH 2012???

It will be the same process. Not more secure or better.

Thanks a lot Pat L!!!

I have now digested what you have written and made myself a step-by-step guide for the single-partition case, for future reference. If you have time I would be glad if you could check that I have not misundstood anything! See enclosed pdf!

Dag,
From page 3 in your PDF, it looks like you have system reserved partition (the 100MB partition). This is the case for many Win7 systems, but not all of them. In some Win7 systems, the Win7 installation didn't even put the system reserved partition on the same disk as the c:\System partition... But generally, with Win7, you have first the hidden System Reserved Partition, then the C:\System partition.
You can check this by right clicking on My Computer on your desktop, choose manage, double click storage, disk management.

When you have this system reserved partition, it should be the partition with a 1MB offset, to keep the disk aligned.

Although it is not strictly necessary to restore this system reserved partition everytime you restore C:\System, I simply include it in all my restores. It is however necessary to restore it when you restore to a new bigger disk.

In this case:
- first restore the System Reserved partition, marking it active, leaving a 1MBoffset before it,
- then restore the C:\system partition (which you can resize at will)
- then restore the MBR+track0 and the disk signature.

NB: your doing a step by step guide and sharing is AWESOME. Thanks!

Thanks Pat L!

I am not really sure what you mean by the System Reserved partition in my case? I thought that when you select the C-drive it automatically included EVERYTHING on that drive, and it is then this image I am recovering to the new SSD... When I look into the Disk management on my laptop there is only one partition mentioned on the Disk 0...

But should I understand your comment that IF Windows makes a separate "System reserved partition" it will be visible in ATIH and when restoring I should do it in the order that you mentioned above???

Are you positive there is no system reserved partition on your computer?
I have attached a clip from your PDF, page 3. It shows there is a 100MB partition at offset 1MB. This is typical of the system reserved partition. It is a bit weird that this partition is shown as Partition #1 and not partition #0. It is also weird you don't see in disk management.

But if you don't see it in disk management, then there is something wrong somewhere on your system that doesn't seem to affect its working (so I would not worry about it).

Your are perfectly right!!!

I have two laptops and had mixed up the screen captures as I tried this on both (as both has SSD:s)... So on one of the laptops there IS this System reserved partition, and on the other not!!!

This means, I guess, that I will have to revise my step-by-step guide a bit including the scenario that there is an existing System Reserved partition and another case when there is no such partition...

Thanks once again for your excellent attention to detail!