Installing 120 GB SSD to replace 100 GB C drive partition

Here is the procedure:
- Right click on the computer icon on your desktop, choose manage, storage, disk management,
- Print a screenshot of the disk layout. This will be useful later,
- Do a full backup of your current disk (before changing the partition size). Include all partitions, even the hidden ones (no need to use the sector by sector setting). Include your data partition if you can, since you will need a backup before you change the partitions later.
- Uninstall any program you don't want on the SSD (eg: games, ).
- Put your SSD at the same spot at your current disk. Remove your current disk from the computer for the time being.
- Boot the computer on the Windows Installation CD. Choose install, repair, command prompt,
- Using diskpart, recreate the partitions you had on your other disk. See diskpart instructions here http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766465(WS.10).aspx. Be careful to:
+ leave a 1MB offset before the first partition,
+ leave the other partitions at the same size, rounded up to the closest number of whole MB (dell partition, 10GB recovery, OS partition).
+ give them drive letters and labels as they were on the older disk (hence the use of the screenshot)
Note: if you are comfortable with computers, you can try not to restore the dell partitions. This will force you to have to repair your startup later. If you dont' want to take any risk, leave them alone as they were.
- Boot your computer on the Acronis recovery CD
- Restore each partition at a time in the same order they were laid out (use your screen shot).
- Mark the correct partition active
- Leave the drive letter change option alone
- No need to reboot inbetween partition restores
- After the last partition, restore the MBR+track0 and the disk signature

That's it.

Reboot on your new SSD. Repair the startup if needed.

Then, if you want to use your old disk, put it back in the computer, reboot. Delete whatever you want, etc.
You have some tweaks to optimize your SSD:
- disable automatic defragmentation of that disk,
- disable superfetch service, leave prefetch
- leave the page file on the SSD
- verify that TRIM is activated http://www.ghacks.net/2010/09/14/verify-that-trim-is-enabled-in-windows…

Pat, thanks for your response. Just a couple of follow-up questions. The SSD is 120 GB and new, therefore there is no data to backup or delete from the SSD and it is not currntly partitioned. Since my current C drive according to Disk manager is 98.57 GB, the new SSD is a little larger. I was planning to cleanup the existing C drive partition by deleteing data that I did not want to transfer to the new SSD. Once I install the SSD I will recreate the partitions leaving a 1MB offset before the first partition, followed by a 39 MB (FAT16) OEM Partition (I understand I could omit and repair the disk latter), and a 9.98 GB (NTFS) Recovery partiton. Both of these are the exact same size as the current C drive partitions being replaced. The remainder of the drive approximately 110 GB will become my new C drive. Is it ok that it is a little bigger than the current C drive partition which is 98.57 GB?

After the OS is on the SSD and I can boot off of it I will reinstall my original hard drive. I would use Acronis to delete the FAT16 segment, Recovery segment, and all data from the original drive partition and reassign a new drive letter, since I can't have two C drives. I could then use this new partition to install Win 8 as a dual boot option or merge it with my data partition for more storage, in which case I would not have to reassign a new drive letter, correct?

Thanks again for you help

Pat I also just read the reference you cited above for recreating partitions. Since this is a new SSD which has never been formatted why couldn't I use ATIH 2010 and clone my current HD (C partition only)?

John Fisher wrote:

The SSD is 120 GB and new, therefore there is no data to backup or delete from the SSD and it is not currntly partitioned.

Sorry I was talking about backup the current disk.

Since my current C drive according to Disk manager is 98.57 GB, the new SSD is a little larger. I was planning to cleanup the existing C drive partition by deleteing data that I did not want to transfer to the new SSD. Once I install the SSD I will recreate the partitions leaving a 1MB offset before the first partition, followed by a 39 MB (FAT16) OEM Partition (I understand I could omit and repair the disk latter), and a 9.98 GB (NTFS) Recovery partiton. Both of these are the exact same size as the current C drive partitions being replaced. The remainder of the drive approximately 110 GB will become my new C drive. Is it ok that it is a little bigger than the current C drive partition which is 98.57 GB?

Yes. Do not change the size of any partition before the C:\System, that you can change freely to take advantage of the bigger size. THen restore each partition from the backup to each corresponding partition on the newly partitioned SSD, one by one. Remember to mark active the right partition.

After the OS is on the SSD and I can boot off of it I will reinstall my original hard drive. I would use Acronis to delete the FAT16 segment, Recovery segment, and all data from the original drive partition and reassign a new drive letter, since I can't have two C drives. I could then use this new partition to install Win 8 as a dual boot option or merge it with my data partition for more storage, in which case I would not have to reassign a new drive letter, correct?

After your SSD is operational, put your old disk back, boot your computer on your favorite partition manager, adjust the partitioning on your old disk, the way you want. ALternatively, if you backed up your data partition or just copied it to some other temporary risk, simply erase the old disk, let the Win 8 installer prep it for you then restore the data.

John Fisher wrote:

Pat I also just read the reference you cited above for recreating partitions. Since this is a new SSD which has never been formatted why couldn't I use ATIH 2010 and clone my current HD (C partition only)?

First, you cannot "clone" only certain partitions. You clone an entire disk. You can, as described above, create a disk and aprtition backup that you restore selectively from.

Second, 2010 is not good with ensure proper SSD alignment. You wouldn't need to use diskpart with the recovery CD of 2011 or 2012, but you need for 2010.

Pat, if I upgrade to ATIH 2012 and then create a backup of my existing hard drive along with creating a recovery disk can I then follow the steps in your original instructions eliminating step 6 (boot computer on windows installation CD...) & 7 (using diskpart recreate the partitions...). Resuming where I boot on the Acronis recovery CD and then restore only the OEM Partition, recovery image and C: drive Image (OS)? Or is the whole approach different with ATIH 2012. I would prefer to upgrade to 2012 and not use diskpart since I am not familiar with it.

John,

Using diskpart is not very complicated, and if you do something wrong you can easily start over:
DISKPART
LIST DISK
SELECT DISK X where X is the number corresponding to your new SSD
CLEAN (that is not needed the first time, but this cleans everything on the disk)
CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY SIZE=39 OFFSET=1024
CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY SIZE=10,240
CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
LIST PARTITION
SELECT PARTITION 2 (I think the second one has the number 2, anyway that should be the 10GB partition)
FORMAT LABEL=RECOVERY
SELECT PARTITION 3
FORMAT LABEL=SYSTEM
ASSIGN LETTER=C
LIST PARTITION
Check that everything is right. You are done with the partitioning.

If you upgrade to 2012, you don't need to do the partitioning, but I recommend you restore each partition manually, one after the other, in the same order they were. This will allow you to verify that ATI 2012 is creating the 1mb offset for the unnamed partition.

Ok Pat I will try this using what I have - ATIH 2010 and DiskPart. From your directions it looks like I don't have to identify partition types FAT16 or NTFS using DiskPart. When I restore each partition using ATIH I assume this will be taken care of. I have also attached a screen shot of the disk layout which I should have done earlier which would have made it easier to see what I was trying to do.

Thanks,

John

Correct you don't need to pre-format the partitions.

When you recover the "recovery" partition, don't forget to mark it active.

I have also edited the previous post to reflect your layout

Also, for the unnamed partition and the recovery partition, you can replicate the exact size by first getting the size in bytes, then rounding *up* to the closest number of whole MB (=1024bytes) to keep the disk aligned.

To get the size in bytes, use msinfo32.exe, look under storage, disks (not drives). Then divide by 1024 and round up if necessary. Use that result to specify the size of in the CREATE PARTITION operation

Pat, I followed your Diskpart instruction and everything went well until the last step of assigning drive letter C. I get a message back that the specified drive letter is not free. The hard drive with the C drive on it is removed from the computer and the other drive in the computer does not contain a C Drive. Any idea why I can not assign C as the Drive Letter? Could I assign a random letter and then go in and change the letter latter? When I do a list partition command I don't see where it shows me any assigned letters, it just lists them as Partitions 1, 2, and 3.

Pat, hopefully I figured it out. Using DiskPart, I renamed all the drive letters to what they were before.

John,

When using DISKPART you can use list vol to list the partitions and their assigned drive letters.

Pat,

I read the thread with interest. My task is simpler, but it's similar enough that I thought I'd ask here rather than start a new thread. I simply want to clone my C: drive, a 60 GB SSD, to a new 120 GB SSD, using True Image Home 2011.
1 -- May I simply attach the new drive to a free SATA port and use the cloning function in Acronis from within Windows 7?
OR
2 -- Is it necessary to back up C:, remove the old SSD, install the new 120 GB SSD, and restore the C: image using the Acronis recovery CD?
OR
3 -- Are both of these approaches wrong? From what you said earlier, I assume that TIH 2011 CAN actually get the alingment right on cloning and restoring withOUT having to manually set offsets.

Thanks
Ron

Approach 2 will give you more control and more safety than cloning.
When you restore with 2011, follow these instructions (slightly modified from the case with 2010):

Here is the procedure:
- Right click on the computer icon on your desktop, choose manage, storage, disk management,
- Print a screenshot of the disk layout. This will be useful later,
- Do a full backup of your current disk (before changing the partition size). Include all partitions, even the hidden ones (no need to use the sector by sector setting).
- Uninstall any program you don't want on the SSD (eg: games, ).
- Put your SSD at the same spot at your current disk. Remove your current disk from the computer for the time being.
- Boot your computer on the Acronis recovery CD
- Restore each partition at a time in the same order they were laid out (use your screen shot).
- leave a 1MB offset before the first partition (ATI2011 should propose this by default)
- do not resize any hidden partition (ie System reserved, DELL, Recovery, etc.). Each partition should have a size as a whole number of MB. Let us know if this not the case. Restoring a partition that doesn't fit that criteria would unalign the disk. Your options will be to round up the size, or to avoid restoring the partition. We can help you decide before proceeding with the restore.
- You can resize the C:\system partition and any other user created partition (the size should still be a whole number of MB. It doesn't matter for the last partition).
- Mark the correct partition active
- Leave the drive letters unchanged
- No need to reboot inbetween partition restores
- After the last partition, restore the MBR+track0 and the disk signature

That's it.

Reboot on your new SSD. Repair the startup if needed using the Windows installation DVD.

Run msconfig32.exe, go to hardware, components, disks. Look at the offset of each partition. Each offset number should be divisible by 4096 when expressed in bytes. This will confirmed your disk is aligned.

Then, if you want to use your old disk, put it back in the computer, reboot. Delete whatever you want, etc.
You have some tweaks to optimize your SSD:
- disable automatic defragmentation of that disk,
- disable superfetch service, leave prefetch
- leave the page file on the SSD
- verify that TRIM is activated http://www.ghacks.net/2010/09/14/verify-that-trim-is-enabled-in-windows…

Thanks a million, Pat.

Since posting my question, I've read on another forum that ATI 2011 is among the many cloning programs that cannot, in fact, be relied on to get alignment right on SSDs. Clearly, my "option 1" should not be tried.  The IT person who wrote that post claimed to have tried many such programs, and he found that only Clonezilla was able to do it correctly. That's freeware, and the process would be slightly less involved than using ATI 2011. However, being unfamiliar with Linux, it doesn't excite or entice me much. I'll follow your steps this weekend and post the results then.

What one would like to do is to install the new SSD, fire up ATI in Windows 7, simply clone C: to the new drive, then give the original SSD a new drive letter, and make sure the BIOS has the new drive in its boot listing.  Does anyone know if ATIH 2012 can do that?  (If not, one wonders why not and probably decides not to upgrade just yet.)

Thanks again,

Ron

Even for cloning, you will want to still make sure that the new disk is in its place, that the original disk is in some USB adapter, then you would clone the old disk to the new disk from the Acronis recovery CD.

It is highly recommended to do system disk cloning and restore operations from the recovery CD anyway.

Since cloning is still an operation that presents risks for the data on the original disk, it is safer to do a backup and then a recovery.

All these recommendations are not specific to Acronis, by the way. You should follow them as well if you use some other cloning/imaging tool.

Hi Mill,

Clonezilla runs on hard metal. You can download the ".iso" file from http://clonezilla.org/downloads.php , burn it to a disc and boot from that disc.
Because it is debian based, doesn't mean that you got to install/run Linux on your machine.
And I hope you would agree with the fact that its always better to perform partition modifying actions without logging on to the actual system.

- Rajesh T