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ASUS Laptop Move from HDD to SSD with original windows 7 and OEM Partition

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my laptop: 
ASUS; Windows 7 Home edition sp1 2009 original; 25 GB partition for Windows OEM for factory recovery; MBR 700GB HDD Drive.
HDD has bad sectors: over 40KB per partition.
But Windows currently works well.

summary:
I got a 1TB SSD and I want to move to it since these bad sectors have made so many troubles for me, but I prefer to preserve the HDD as well since it still works. I also want to preserve my Windows 7 since it is original and I do not want to pay for a new Windows.

Questions:
To do so, I have many questions:
1. Image or clone?(I personally prefer image backup as it is reusable)
since I want to preserve the existing HDD and I heard that cloning can cause conflict between two drives due to signature, but others said that this conflict can be solved. which one is true?
1b. if I use backup, since I installed some software on another partition with different letter, is it possible to change the letter of the partitions then the software works?

2. I want to have my OEM Windows partition on the new SSD as well, then if necessary, I would be able it install the factory version. Yet, the problem is that: 2a. How can I make and introduce a new OEM partition to BIOS? 2b. Cloning is the only possible solution or taking an image would also be still possible?  2c. Can I take an image from the OEM windows drive and then reuse it further in the case of failing storage drives?

3. the essential problem hear is bad sectors! should I do “chkdsk” and then do cloning or imaging? (I am afraid that “chkdsk” cleans essential files of Windows! since it happened to me just recently)

4. Is it possible to verify our taken image or not?

5. UEFI or MBR? My HDD is in MBR. I do not know whether my original Windows 7 supports UEFI or not, but the HDD obviously was initially formatted as MBR. 5a. Is converting to UEFI worth it? (I want to do so for upcoming OS and its reliability due to duplicating drive addresses[especially in SSD] & etc) 5b. Is it possible to convert the SSD from MBR to UEFI safely? if yes, which application have you offered (I heard of Easeus and Minitool)? 5c. Does my OEM will work under UEFI?

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welcome to these public User Forums.

1.  Make a full disk backup of the HDD and store this on an external storage drive.  Do this while you can still do so before the drive gets more bad sectors or more serious failure symptoms.

2.  A full disk backup image should include ALL partitions on the source HDD drive, so include the OEM factory recovery partition.  Doing a factory restore of Windows 7 from around 2009 would result in a major action to then install all the missing Windows Updates etc that have been released since then!

3.  CHKDSK should not delete any essential Windows files to my knowledge & experience unless such files are already damaged by residing in existing bad sectors!  It is recommended to run CHKDSK or other diagnostic utilities provided by the HDD manufacturer before attempting any migration to a new SSD.

4.  Any backup image can only include the data that can be captured at the time of the operation - if bad sectors are encountered then some data may be missing if is unreadable by the backup application.  Verifying the backup image only can confirm that the backup image itself is written correctly / successfully to the storage drive - it cannot verify the image against the original source drive contents (which would have changed in the interim period, especially if the backup is performed from within Windows.

5.  If your PC is of the same vintage / age as your copy of Windows 7 SP1 2009 then it is unlikely to support beyond Windows 10 and may not even be capable of using UEFI.  For Windows 11 then the PC BIOS would need both UEFI and TPM secure boot capability.  Windows 10 will work for Legacy boot systems but Windows 11 will not.

I would not waste time trying to convert your Legacy / MBR drive to UEFI / GPT unless you are running Windows 7 on a much newer PC, i.e. less than 3 or 4 years old with both UEFI BIOS and TPM support.  The key benefit of going to GPT over MBR is support for larger drives above 2TB in size. 

Hi dear Steve Smith, Thank you for the comprehensive response.

1.  Make a full disk backup of the HDD and store this on an external storage drive.  Do this while you can still do so before the drive gets more bad sectors or more serious failure symptoms.

2.  A full disk backup image should include ALL partitions on the source HDD drive, so include the OEM factory recovery partition.  Doing a factory restore of Windows 7 from around 2009 would result in a major action to then install all the missing Windows Updates etc that have been released since then!

Is it possible to include just two partitions since just OS drive and OEM are important (others can be created and assigned former letters, and data be copied)? Does image recovery software manage extra space on SSD (750GB => 1TB) (maybe further I should create an extra partition)?

3.  CHKDSK should not delete any essential Windows files to my knowledge & experience unless such files are already damaged by residing in existing bad sectors!  It is recommended to run CHKDSK or other diagnostic utilities provided by the HDD manufacturer before attempting any migration to a new SSD.

yes running CHKDSK is an obligation.

4.  Any backup image can only include the data that can be captured at the time of the operation - if bad sectors are encountered then some data may be missing if is unreadable by the backup application.  Verifying the backup image only can confirm that the backup image itself is written correctly / successfully to the storage drive - it cannot verify the image against the original source drive contents (which would have changed in the interim period, especially if the backup is performed from within Windows.

I’ll take back up in boot. Thx.

Is it possible that the recovered backup will not work? (I heard that just boot may be corrupted which is solvable)

5.  If your PC is of the same vintage / age as your copy of Windows 7 SP1 2009 then it is unlikely to support beyond Windows 10 and may not even be capable of using UEFI.  For Windows 11 then the PC BIOS would need both UEFI and TPM secure boot capability.  Windows 10 will work for Legacy boot systems but Windows 11 will not.

Honestly, I have already install a windows 10 in my SSD to just check it and it is now in GPT mode and contains associated EFI partition. BIOS supports UEFI as well. So it seems it works

I would not waste time trying to convert your Legacy / MBR drive to UEFI / GPT unless you are running Windows 7 on a much newer PC, i.e. less than 3 or 4 years old with both UEFI BIOS and TPM support.  The key benefit of going to GPT over MBR is support for larger drives above 2TB in size. 

Thx, I did not know about TPM 2 as a need for Win11, though I further heard installing win11 is still possible, albeit with losing some features.

Do you think redundancy in partition addresses in GPT/UEFI is not really effective in terms of bad sectors in SSDs as, unlike HDDs, data location on SSDs' ICs varies?

Is it possible to include just two partitions since just OS drive and OEM are important (others can be created and assigned former letters, and data be copied)? Does image recovery software manage extra space on SSD (750GB => 1TB) (maybe further I should create an extra partition)?

Are you 100% sure that you would only need two partitions for Windows?  Normally Windows can have a Microsoft System Reserved partition that holds boot information, a Recovery partition to provide recovery tools for the current installed OS, plus the OEM Factory recovery partition provided by the PC maker, plus sometimes a Diagnostic tools partition (on older Dell laptops).

If Windows 7 was installed to an already formatted NTFS partition, then the boot information can be also on that same partition without having the MSR partition.

Acronis can automatically resize partitions during recovery but this can easily be changed using Partition Manager software such as MiniTool Partition Wizard or similar tools.

Windows 7 has supported using Legacy / MBR and UEFI / GPT for a long time so would work fine in the latter mode as does your Windows 10 test for the SSD, however, the OEM factory restore would revert back to how the PC was originally shipped in MBR mode.

I have not seen any real differences for the end user with changing from MBR to GPT other than the ability to have more partitions without having to go to having extended / logical partitions that MBR requires, plus the ability to support drive sizes beyond 2TB.

SSD's do not suffer from bad sectors as those are applicable only to HDD's with spinning discs but they can get bad logical blocks and can still fail with dramatic effect.  Having said that, I personally haven't had any failed SSD's that I can remember over many years of using them (once the price barrier was removed / lowered).  It is best to install any software provided by the SSD maker that can monitor for any issues and give you a warning if discovered.

Are you 100% sure that you would only need two partitions for Windows?  Normally Windows can have a Microsoft System Reserved partition that holds boot information, a Recovery partition to provide recovery tools for the current installed OS, plus the OEM Factory recovery partition provided by the PC maker, plus sometimes a Diagnostic tools partition (on older Dell laptops).

>Check the pic, the first row is HDD and the second is SSD with its windows 10 and 2 other hidden partitions as you expected (efi, recovery) which are not the case for the HDD. Now is just those partitions (win7 & OEM) enough?

If Windows 7 was installed to an already formatted NTFS partition, then the boot information can be also on that same partition without having the MSR partition.

>Excuse me, I did not get this. My HDD is in MBR while the SSD in GPT. Should I format the SSD as MBR (I do not know how, I think I should format the whole SSD and let image recovery take action!?) and then I will be able to recover the image? (I think it should be to generate EFI partition, etc)

Acronis can automatically resize partitions during recovery but this can easily be changed using Partition Manager software such as MiniTool Partition Wizard or similar tools.

>sure

Windows 7 has supported using Legacy / MBR and UEFI / GPT for a long time so would work fine in the latter mode as does your Windows 10 test for the SSD, however, the OEM factory restore would revert back to how the PC was originally shipped in MBR mode.

>I didn’t get the second part. The OEM factory recovery works based on the format (MBR/GPT) of its storage drive which is impossible to be changed without a third-party application!? Hence, it is expected that OEM will install windows 7 based on UEFI/GPT format? (I think you meant this)

I have not seen any real differences for the end user with changing from MBR to GPT other than the ability to have more partitions without having to go to having extended / logical partitions that MBR requires, plus the ability to support drive sizes beyond 2TB.

SSD's do not suffer from bad sectors as those are applicable only to HDD's with spinning discs but they can get bad logical blocks and can still fail with dramatic effect.  Having said that, I personally haven't had any failed SSD's that I can remember over many years of using them (once the price barrier was removed / lowered).  It is best to install any software provided by the SSD maker that can monitor for any issues and give you a warning if discovered.

>so they are reliable, thx. I personally burnt several of them though not for conventional use.

The OEM factory recovery works based on the format (MBR/GPT) of its storage drive which is impossible to be changed without a third-party application!? Hence, it is expected that OEM will install windows 7 based on UEFI/GPT format? (I think you meant this)

The OEM factory recovery contains a series of disk image files in my experience and these were captured when the PC was built and use the format of the drive that it held at that time, so if it came with Legacy / MBR, then I would expect it to be restored to the same if using that recovery option.

For Acronis, the drive scheme is directed by the BIOS boot mode used when booting the Acronis bootable media - if you boot in Legacy / MBR mode, then that is how the image is restored; if booted in UEFI / GPT mode, then that is used for the restored drive.

KB 59877: Acronis True Image: how to distinguish between UEFI and Legacy BIOS boot modes of Acronis Bootable Media