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My HD missing the 100MB Reserved partition -- will this foil plans for cloning to SSD?

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I've been researching the best way to migrate from my 640GB HD to a 240GB SSD on the forums and came across these 2 incredibly helpful posts:

http://forum.acronis.com/forum/10130
http://forum.acronis.com/forum/26162
http://forum.acronis.com/forum/18263

Both these threads point to the typical 100MB System partition that is created when you do a win7 install on a large disk. I was surprised to find that my Dell system doesn't have a typical setup. Instead it had these partitions:

39MB (OEM Partition)
9.12GB (dell Recovery partition)
587.01GB (Primary partition)

I've attached a screenshot from disk manager in Win7 to show you the current layout.

Since I'll never restore to the Dell factory image, I used instructions I found on Dell's site (referenced from another thread) to remove the recovery partition to help me reclaim that 9.12GB partition: http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/disk-drives/f/3534/t/193536….

This worked fine and my disk layout is now:

39MB (OEM Partition)
9.12GB (FREE space, unassigned)
587.01GB (Primary partition)

Here was my plan based on info I got from other threads, slightly reworded for clarity:

- do a full disk backup (not clone) of the system disk, store it on an external USB disk,
- use the ATI recovery disk to boot the PC and verify you can see your backup, start the recovery wizard. At the last step, don't proceed.
- unplug your existing disks, plug in your SSD (only disk)
- Boot with a Windows 7 installation disc and partition your SSD. I've read that Win 7 will create a system reserved partition that will automatically be aligned.
- using the ATI recovery CD, restore my C:\system partition from my backup to my SSD, after the new system partition that I created in step prior. The goal is to have it primary, boot but not system, not active. Your System Reserved is the one that should be active, system
- try to reboot your system. If it doesn't work, use the windows 7 installation CD to repair the installation. Now you have a bootable system with Win 7.
- plug your other disks back in, use the windows 7 installation CD DISKPART to change your older partitions and make it/them inactive/no boot (at least the older Win 7 partition should not be active nor boot any longer).
- restart with the windows 7 installation CD and use repair so that Win 7 updates the BCD record for your Win7/Vista boot if you so desire (there are other methods to update the BCD)

Are the above steps correct? Since I don't have the typical layout, I'm wondering if I need to do anything different.

Any help would be appreciated!

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- do a full disk backup (not clone) of the system disk, store it on an external USB disk. This backup needs to include all partitions on that disk.
- if the C:\ has too much data to fit on the SSD, first move your content folders to the USB disk, then do the backup.
- use the ATI recovery disk to boot the PC and verify you can see your backup, start the recovery wizard. At the last step, don't proceed.
- unplug your existing disks, plug in your SSD (only disk)
- using the ATI recovery CD, restore the C:\system partition ALONE (not the MBR+Track0) from my backup to my SSD. Make the SSD the new location. Mark the restored partition primary, active. Do not change the drive letter. When ATI shows you the proposed layout on the SSD, verify that you have 1MB before the partition, and that the partition occupies the rest of the SSD. Use the cursors to adjust the right and left settings if necessary.
- in the last restore screen, restore the disk signature
- try to boot just like this. If it doesn't work:

- Boot with a Windows 7 installation disc and partition your SSD, use it to repair the installation. This might take a couple of passes, with a reboot in between. If you cannot fix it, lets us know. Now you have a bootable system with Win 7.
- plug your other disks back in, use the windows 7 disk manager with DISKPART, or your preferred disk manager to do whatever you want with your old disk (not a big deal if the old partition is still active). If you can erase your old disk entirely, launch DISKPART, then type:
- list disk
- select disk X (where X is the number of the OLD disk)
- clean (this will erase the old disk completely. Do not clean the new SSD :-)
- exit
Then use Windows disk management to initiated the old disk and create new volumes on it.

Questions:

1. My C:\ (system partition) has 156GB of used space but the partition size is 587.01GB. Do I need to first resize the partition to be less than the total size of the SSD since the SSD is 240GB? Or does Acronis TIH take care of the resize when you restore to a new disc that's smaller?

2. I noticed you removed the step to use Win7 setup to first initialize the SSD so it lays down the system reserved partition. Instead, you are saying just put my system partition on the SSD with 1MB space before it. Just to be crystal clear, you are saying the layout should be:

1MB (buffer space -- presumably for proper alignment?)
(System partition)

1- Non you don't. Since you have less used space than the size of the SSD, you are good to go.
2- Yes, since you don't have a system reserved partition, and you don't need one if you don't intend to use Bitlocker.

If I wanted to enabled bit locker on my new system in the future, should I just set it up with the 100MB reserved partition first, then restore my system partition after it? Or is it more complicated than that?

You can try to create the 100MB reserved partition with the Windows 7 installation DVD and diskpart:
- DISKPART
- LIST DISK
- SELECT DISK X (where X is the number of the disk for your SSD)
- CLEAN (this will delete everything on the disk)
- CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY size=100 offset=1024
- LIST PARTITION
- SELECT PARTITION 1 (1 should be the number of the partition we just created)
- FORMAT FS=NTFS LABEL=System Reserved
- ACTIVE
- ASSIGN LETTER=Z (we will remove this letter later)
- CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
EXIT

Then you restore your C:\System partition onto the new unallocated partition. Don't mark it active. Don't add the offset.

Then, from the Windows DVD again, we have to delete the bootmgr file and the boot folder from the C:\ and create them on the system reserved.

One thing to try is to simply move them from C:\ to Z:\. Then use the Window DVD to repair the startup. THis might take a couple of passes.

Otherwise, try this: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/32523/how-to-manually-repair-windows-7-b…

I just tried the first approach you gave me with the 1MB prefix on the SSD and during the restore it failed after a few minutes.

Here's the log:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>

Recover Backup Archive</bold><endl/><tabpoint value=30><indent value=4>From file: <indent value=10><textcolor value="navyblue">"I:\My backups\SAMSUNG_HD642JJ(1)3.tib"</textcolor></indent><indent value=4><endl/>Recovery of: <indent value=10><textcolor value="navyblue">Disks</textcolor></indent><indent value=4><endl/></indent><endl/>" module="11" time="1325113341" />

Block bitmap corrupted (0x70016)
Tag = 0x89D94B01B483DCFA</indent>" module="1" time="1325113395">

Any ideas?

TMC,
Most likely there is some erroneous information on the SSD.

Do this with the Windows installation DVD:
- DISKPART
- LIST DISK
- SELECT DISK X (where X is the number of the disk for your SSD)
- CLEAN (this will delete everything on the disk)

Then, boot on the Acronis Recovery CD, Choose Add disk, point at the SSD. When ATI proposes to create a partition, delete it or just ignore. Then try the restore again.

How do you use the windows 7 installation DVD to get to a command prompt? When I boot from it, windows 7 setup starts and I can manage the SSD but only from a UI. I don't see an option for a command prompt so I can launch diskpart.

You choose install (first screen that comes up), repair computer (bottom left, if I recall correctly), then you will have a list of options, among which a command prompt.

I believe; If you create the 100MB reserved partition manually on the SSD, then throw your image on the SSD it will look at the new image as drive D in your partitioning tool. I did this and received a BSOD. I just ended up re-imaging the SSD with my latest image, and making sure the disk was in alignment, and TRIM was enabled. The 100MB reserved partition is created with a fresh install, and about 99.9% of anyone installing Windows 7 will never require what that partition is created to do.

Remember: ensuring the drive is in alignment is critical, and making sure you have TRIM support enabled, if its available.

Michael Steele wrote:

I believe; If you create the 100MB reserved partition manually on the SSD, then throw your image on the SSD it will look at the new image as drive D in your partitioning tool. I did this and received a BSOD. I just ended up re-imaging the SSD with my latest image, and making sure the disk was in alignment, and TRIM was enabled. The 100MB reserved partition is created with a fresh install, and about 99.9% of anyone installing Windows 7 will never require what that partition is created to do.

Remember: ensuring the drive is in alignment is critical, and making sure you have TRIM support enabled, if its available.

To ensure drive alignment, do I just need to leave the 1MB space before laying down my system partition to the SSD from my backup as Pat L suggested?

Yes. To be clear, the 1MB offset can be created when you create the system reserved partition with diskpart:
diskpart
list disk
select disk X (where X is your SSD)
clean
create partition primary offset=1024 size=100
active
exit

No you do not need the 100MB reserved partition.

After you get your OS installed you can download Paragon Alignment Tool 3.x to check the alignment, and it will even repair the alignment if needed.

If you want to know exactly what that 100MB reserved partition does, you can Google that to find out.

Michael is right. The 100MB reserved partition is not needed, except when you want to use bitlocker. The system reserved partition is the active partition that contains the bootmgr file and the boot folder. These are hidden system files for booting Windows.