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Struggling with SSD transfer

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Hi,

My current disk setup is shown in the attached jpg. 'Disk 0' is a new SSD I have recently installed. I have a boot menu allowing me to boot into Win7 (C: or E:) or XP (D:). I would like to relocate my Win7 partitions to the SSD. So far I have tried:
1) The SSD came with 'Data Migration' utility. This spent 45 minutes copying C: to the SSD then failed.
2) I backed-up C: to ASZ then restored to the SSD (appears as N: in the jpg). I used EasyBCD to add N: to my boot menu. It starts booting then blue-screens.
3) I repeated step 2 using the ATIH14 from the boot media. No difference.
4) I tried repairing with the Win7 DVD but it says it can't (and kindly offers to report this to Microsoft).
I have tried navigating the ATIH help but promising links always lead me up the wrong path. I think my main 2 problems are:
a) I have a system partition, not a whole drive.
b) I would like to put both Win7 partitions on one SSD.

It may be something simple that I'm missing, but any help would be greatly appreciated.

Rob

Anhang Größe
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Question: Why are you trying to (at least I think you are trying) to have 2 Win 7 installations on a single drive?

Ah, Currently they're on separate drives. I use one for everyday and the other for music.
But I haven't even managed to get one to work on the SSD yet...

Well, I do not believe you will be able to have 2 identical installations on the same disk nor in the same machine. For one thing you will eventually run into Windows Activation issues. For another in your scenario you would have 2 active primary boot partitions on the same drive. I have seen this working and I have also seen massive corruption as a result. Have seen the same thing with dual/multiboot configurations. It is best to keep things clean as possible. One OS install per machine is the best practice. This doesn't mean it won't work just means that there are problems associated with doing so.

OK. Maybe you misunderstand. My PC is working fine as it is. What I wanted to do was relocate the two working Win7 partitions to the SSD. Admittedly they are currently on different disks. And I'm not sure if I can put them both on one disk. But I'm sure I've seen posts from others with dual-booting on one drive.
Are you at least able to explain why the Win7 partition I have restored to the SSD won't boot? That would be some progress...

Well one explanation would be that the MBR partition did not get backed up along with the C:\ partition. Another could be that the MBR has become corrupted and your machine is not able to use it to boot the OS. Another could be that you do not have the SSD attached to the correct drive port on the motherboard (usually port 0).

Do you receive any error messages when you attempt to boot the device? Are you attempting to boot the drive while it is connected via an external connection (USB, eSATA, etc.)? This will not work by the way. When viewing the SSD using Device Manager in Windows how many partitions do you see (you should see at least 2)?

a) I restored the MBR with the C: backup from the ASZ.
b) Quite possibly. I tried MBRFix but couldn't tell if it did anything. The Win7 install DVD says there's nothing wrong...
c) I don't understand the relevance of this point. My currently-bootable partitions are on different ports. As you can see from the jpg, the SSD is "disk 0". Its location is "location 0 (channel 3, target 0 Lun 0)" if that helps.
d) Yes but I'll have to try again to note them down...
e) No. It's connected directly to my MB.
f) Drive manager shows one partition.

Not sure here depends on your motherboard layout and brand and model of SSD but many SSD's simply refuse to or will not run on any port except motherboard port 0 your reference to connection 3 is somewhat suspicious as this could mean the disk is attached to port 3. That could be a problem. Consult your motherboard documentation to determine the location of port 0 and make sure the SSD is connected to that port.

You should have no issue backing up and restoring your Win7 partitions to a single disk. The easiest is to backup your desired partitions on any disk, then disconnect all disks except the SSD. Restore each partition individually on the SSD through the recovery CD. It is possible that your boot records are in fact in the XP partition.

Since you restore one partition at a time, check this post to ensure alignment (and, upon successful restore, do the SSD optimizations):
http://forum.acronis.com/forum/38522#comment-120956

Check out this post to recreate your boot records:
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/win7-windows-7-mbr,10036.html

Once the system boots OK on the SSD, you can connect the other disks.

Hi Pat,

Presumably I don't need to connect the SSD on the port currently used for my C: partition then? I thought that might be my mistake. I've noticed that all other articles on migrating to SSD assume you're replacing your system disk with the SSD. What I'd been trying to do (for safety) was add the restored Win7 install before removing the original. I seem to remember problems before with how Windows identifies the disk it's installed on. Is this no longer a problem in Win7?

Are you also saying that the only difference with what I've done (not working) is to disconnect all other disks (except the one I backed-up to...) before doing the restore?

The system partition currently backs-up to the ASZ, the other doesn't. Does this matter?

I think my boot records are on the XP partition. Should I move these (with EasyBCD) at some point or keep that disk connected?

Rob

Robad,

I think what Pat is saying with respect to your restore process is that you only have the SSD connected in the system during that process and the critical factor in that is when you attempt reboot during that process.

I have found that some SSD's are finicky when it comes to what port they are connected and generally do not respond well when that port changes so if you say have that disk installed on port 1, do a restore to it and then change it to port 0 you could run into issues with booting successfully.

If you think or know that the boot records are on the XP partition then yes you need to move them to the restored SSD. I suppose EasyBCD can do that.

Yes it is a problem with Win 7 identification of the disk it is installed on. In the MBR is a disk signature that Windows uses to identify a disk. This should carry over with the MBR when restored. You will not have Windows activation issues when replacing a disk but windows does keep track of what disk it is installed on. That fact however does not create a situation in which a machine will not boot.

Forgive me, but I'm still confused :-(

Proceed as follows?
a) Backup both Win7 partitions
b) Boot from Acronis recovery CD
c) Restore C: partition to SSD with 1MB start offset and x1MB length - resize if necessary
d) Restore 2nd Win7 partition to SSD
e) Restore MBR
f) Move boot records to SSD.
g) Remove all disks except SSD
h) Reboot from Win7 DVD and repair MBR
i) Reconnect other disks.

Is that correct or have I missed something?

Robad, You are I think correct me if I'm wrong here, going to end up with, or hope to end up with a Win 7 32bit install which you have now on your SSD and along side that you will have a Win 7 64bit install which is still on an HDD. Personal thoughts on this aside I would recommend the following:

1. Restore the MBR partition first to the SSD

2. Restore the Win 7 (doesn't matter which one) next. Resizing as necessary.

3. Restore the other Win 7

4. Follow the procedures in the link Pat provided following the guide with respect to: bootrec.exe/FixMbr  followed by bootrec.exe/FixBoot.

If this procedure fails to produce a bootable disk (and I think there is a high probability it won't) then follow up with the bootrec.exe/RebuildBCD

If that fails as well then follow the bcdedit instructions.

I would only have attached to the system the disks necessary to do the restores, no secondary data disk, external disks, USB thumb drives, etc.  This will allow for less confusion on your part and less for TI to have to deal with as well.

If all goes well and some luck on your side you should be able to pull it off.

Note: You would benefit in setting the offset on the SSD prior to any of the steps above just to make certain alignment is correct.

OK, I followed my sequence above up to step 'h'. Regarding the offset - ATIH seems to have a default offset of 1MB for the first partition. I can now boot into the second partition restored but not the first (which was restored from the ASZ).

The errors I get are:

"autochk program not found - skipping AUTOCHK"

Then after a pause, the blue screen of death with:

"STOP: c000021a { Fatal System Error}

The Session Manager Initialization system process terminated unexpectedly with a status of 0xC000003a

The system has been shutdown."

Any ideas what's gone wrong?

A thought - the pagefile for the non-working partition was located on a different drive. Is it possible to change that back when I can't boot it?

You might be correct suspcting the pagefile,suggest search google using error code or message. see what shows up

Followed the instructions here, not expecting anything good:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/askcore/archive/2011/08/09/operating-system-…

Turned out to be one byte in the registry! Now running from SSD. Yet to replace other drives...

Read the link glad you could solve it. Hope the rest works out