new SSD+new Thinkpad T420s: best practice for setup

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truwrikodrorowrelupicugojestutroclulachosaswunuhospikigawakijosaswenomaruclojeueclikaspedrubewidebrisubrohutrurifruuagothunugekedrumucisiuobrobrecrupeslapuswosluprothethibakaslechurathikucli
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Posts: 2
Comments: 7

I am thinking through how best to clone the boot partition from a brand new Thinkpad T420s HDD to an SSD using Acronis True Image Home 10.

I had only recently discovered the whole sector alignment issue. On previous Thinkpads I have successfully used Acronis True Image Home 10 to clone/upgrade to new drives. I love this software (But it did create a misaligned clone from a HDD to an SSD under Windows XP.)

I plan to use my copy of Acronis True Image Home 10 instead of the Intel supplied Acronis Data Migration Tool. Any thoughts on this?

So what I want to do with the new machine before I install anything on it is as follows. Based on post 2 from this thread http://forum.acronis.com/forum/23774

1. Turn the new machine on and boot from the Recovery partition (Thinkpads come with a hidden Recovery partition which you can boot from in the event the main partition becomes corrupted), to create the recovery DVDs. This way Windows 7 Pro 64 bit remains untouched (ie not going through the first run setup process). Having the DVDs means I no longer need to replicate the Recovery partition on the SSD, so I get more usable space!

2. Attach a temporary USB HDD. Boot from the Acronis boot CD. Backup the entire (factory) source HDD (C: and hidden recovery partition) to the USB HDD. Validate this backup.

3. Replace the source HDD with the SSD. Source HDD and Recovery DVDs now set aside for posterity.

4. Boot from the Acronis boot CD again and restore the C: partition from the USB HDD to the SSD.

5. Leave a 1Mb space before this restored C: partition. Mark the restored C:
as active. Resize this partition to fill the remainder of the SSD.

6. So I now have a hidden 1Mb partition at the start of the SSD and the C: partition. I wont restore the Recovery partition.

7. Restore the MBR+track0 and the disk signature. Reboot.

8. Set up Windows etc. The SSD should now behave as if it came fresh from the factory install right?

9. I then do the tweaks as per post 2 of the thread linked above - turning off SuperFetch etc.

The rationale behind this approach as far as my understanding took me:
- Backup/Restore instead of Clone because Clone will override the SSD's partition tables with the HDD's, while Backup/Restore won't.
- The 1Mb hidden partition at the start of the SSD is what will shift the sectors to correct the alignment for the rest of the SSD.

Have I missed/misunderstood anything?
Has anyone done this before?
I will happily upgrade to the latest version of True Image Home if this makes the process easier and guarantees a successful "clone".

Thank you in advance for all your input!

:)

Sun, 09/04/2011 - 16:22
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truwrikodrorowrelupicugojestutroclulachosaswunuhospikigawakijosaswenomaruclojeueclikaspedrubewidebrisubrohutrurifruuagothunugekedrumucisiuobrobrecrupeslapuswosluprothethibakaslechurathikucli
Forum Hero
Posts: 87
Comments: 9259
mvp

With versions before 2011, it might be hard to specify the 1MB (needs to be exact) offset before the first partition. No risk with trying. If you cannot get to exactly 1MB, boot on a Window recovery CD and use disk part to create the first partition. Let's imagine this is a system reserved partition of exactly 100MB. You would do:
- diskpart
- list disk
- select disk X (where X is the number for your SSD, probably 0)
- clean
- create partition primary offset=1024 size=100 (see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766465(WS.10).aspx)
- list partition (verify the partition is created)
- exit

Now restore the backed up system reserved onto that new partition.

Sun, 09/04/2011 - 17:29
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