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How to Clone a Windows 7 64 bit disk to an SSD

Thread needs solution

I have searched the forum but still can't really understand how to do a clone of my Windows 7 boot disk to an SSD so that the SSD replaces the hard disk. There is lots of conflicting advice.

What I think the mechanism is:-
Using True Image 11 I make a sector copy of my windows 7 boot partition which is Disk 3. I have shrunk it to a manageable size (much less than the target SSD) and it is the only partition on the disk. (is this correct or do I have to use clone disk. Will clone disk work when the target disk size is smaller than the source even though the only partition is small enough to fit on both). 

Boot disk is actually disk 1 as I have Vista on disk 1 and that is where boot mgr is so there is no small recovery partition on disk 3 as far as I can see.

I restore (booting from Acronis DVD) restoring the image to the ssd.
I remove the old disk and put the SSD to the same connection as the old disk and reboot.

Is the above correct.

Now here is the question - Will windows 7 recognise the SSD or will it refuse to boot or not allow activation.

Peter Rowan

0 Users found this helpful

Hi Peter,

Here are the steps I recommend:

- do a full disk backup (not clone) of you system disk, store it on an external USB disk,
- validate your backup
- use the ATI recovery disk to boot your computer 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 Windows 7 installation disk when you boot, partition your SSD. Win 7 will create a system reserved partition and a system partition that will be aligned.
- using the ATI recovery CD, restore your C:\system partition only to new system partition. 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)

Wrt to activation, it is likely your new Win 7 will not be activated. If you cannot activate it online, you will have to call MS automated activation or escalate to MS support to activate it.