SSD DATA MIGRATION. Before Starting. What size SSD? Partitioning

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1 SSD DATA MIGRATION This is obviously not the only way to migrate your HDD to a SSD. There is lots of different cloning or migration software available. However Macrium Reflect is a nice piece of software. It works and it is free. I suspect that there are some superfluous steps in the migration section of this guide but what is in here does work. Thanks to everyone who posted bits and pieces on the internet so I could figure this out. The complete Appendix A is not my work at all. I was going to link to the original web site but it seems to have disappeared. Before Starting You will need: SSD USB HDD Enclosure AS SSD benchmark software Macrium Reflect imaging software External hard drive for personal data and/or a system image You may need: PerfectDisk 12 software Easeus Partition Master software What size SSD? (If your HDD is smaller than the SSD or if your operating system resides on its own partition and that partition is smaller than the SSD then you can skip the following and scroll down to the Migration Section having just saved yourself a lot of time.) You may have to move ALL your personal crap data off the original HDD 1. At the very least your OS and software will be on the SSD. The SSD will obviously need to be larger than this. SSD manufacturers kind of fudge capacity figure. SSD's reserve some capacity for future use so that the formatted capacity of a 64 GB SSD will be on the order of GB. Another consideration is that you do not want fill them more than 80% full. So now your 64 GB drive has only about 45 GB available. However, unless you are an avid video gamer or want to put more than 15 or 20 GB of personal data on the drive a 64 GB SSD should be adequate. If you have a lot of personal data consider installing it on a second internal or external drive. A bare Windows 7 OS uses about GB. Plan accordingly. Partitioning If you end up needing to change partition sizes now would be good time to make a system image. Use Macrium Reflect to make one just in case. You can make another image for the SSD when partitioning is completed. The data remaining on the HDD is now less than the size of the SSD. To migrate the OS to the SSD requires that the OS partition on the HDD must be smaller than the SSD (not entirely true; not a requirement for some migration software). This may be a problem as Windows tends to scatter files all over the HDD. You may have only 20 GB on a 500 GB HDD but Windows will not partition the drive smaller than, say 200GB because some unmoveable files are inconveniently located in the middle of the disk. To find out how far you can shrink your drive enter PARTITION in the start menu search bar and click on Create and Format Hard Disk Partitions. This will open the Disk Management window:

2 You may have a third partition on the right. If so it may be the computer manufacturer s recovery partition. I consider these useless and delete them 2 however be sure of what it is before deleting anything. The first partition is required by Windows. It will be migrated to the SSD. Right click on the Windows 7 partition and click on shrink volume. Windows will think about it then report on how far the partition can be reduced. If you are lucky or the computer is new the partition will be able to be made smaller than your SSD. Read Shrink a Basic Volume for instructions on how to do it. If you are not lucky read Appendix A. It is for Vista but Windows 7 is similar. Try rebooting after step 5. Steps 9 & 10 are different for Windows 7. See above to get to Disk Management (the partitioning window). Hopefully you will now be able to shrink the partition to the size required. If not it is time to get a copy of Easeus Partition Master. Read the Easeus help files on how to resize a partition. Select Windows 7 partition. Click on Resize/Move Partition.

3 Drag the dot (red arrow) to the left until the partition size is smaller than the SSD. Don t forget to include the first partition (here it is 1.1 GB) in the space calculations. You do not have to be precise. Any leftover space you will get back later. This should get you a partition of the proper size. Migration Install Macrium software if you haven t already. Run Macrium to make a system image on to an external drive and also make a boot cd. Clicking on Create an image of partition(s) required to backup and restore Windows will select the appropiate partitions or you can checkmark the ones you want. You will need the boot cd to restore the image onto the SSD. Insert the SSD into the USB/HDD enclosure and plug into computer s USB port. On the start menu search bar type DISKPART then click on diskpart at the top left. Type: list disk (press enter) select disk X (where X is the disk number of the SSD NOT NOT C: drive) (enter) create partition primary align=1024 (enter) format quick FS=NTFS (enter) active (enter) exit (enter) Remove SSD from enclosure. Remove HDD from computer and replace with SSD. Boot into Macrium from boot CD. Restore system image. Boot up the computer. Run WEI (Control Panel/Performance Information and Tools/Re-run the assessment). Windows will detect the SSD and make internal changes for best performance. Run AS SSD. It should say OK if the alignment is correct. If it says BAD you need to fix it (start Googling) as it will slow the drive down and speed is the whole point of SSD s. These speeds are for a Sata lll (6Gb/s). Use Easeus Partition Master to recover any unallocated space on the SSD.

4 This is a 7200 RPM HDD and the reason you bought an SSD. Lew January 2013 freddy_delgado@aol.com 1 If you partitioned your HDD, as you should have, so that the OS resides on it's own partition you can skip this step. 2 Manufacturers include this so you can recover the OS in case of disaster. I prefer to configure the computer exactly the way I want then create a system image to recover from. Why start back at square one?

5 1 of 5 1/12/2013 9:10 PM APPENDIX A Original Source How to resize a Windows Vista Partition Unfortunately, resizing your Windows Vista partition isn t particularly easy. That fact is regardless of the presence of Vista s drive management tool, the piece of Windows functionality that should make it easy to shrink or extend your drive partitions. So, while I ve been preparing to install Ylmf OS Jaunty Jackalope I ve had to learn how to get around this problem. I thought I d share the process with you and add some value to this forum post by testing the process and simplifying it with screenshots and a step by step guide. The problem with Windows Vista drive management Does this screen look familiar? The total available shrink space on your C: drive is zero or very low: The reason why you can t just shrink a Windows Vista partition is largely due to the existence of files that can t be moved through conventional means (or even standard defragmentation) such as the Master File Table, Pagefiles and Hibernation data. To actually make some free space available to the drive management tool, you ve got to get your sleeves rolled up. How to shrink your Windows Vista Partition 1) Disable hibernation To disable hibernation, open up a command prompt window as administrator and key in the following command: powercfg -h off 2) Disable system restore Right click on your My Computer icon and click properties. Click the System Protection tab and uncheck the drive you want to disable hibernation for, and confirm your choice.

6 2 of 5 1/12/2013 9:10 PM 3) Disable the pagefile In the same system properties dialogue, go to the Advanced tab and click the Performance button. Under Advanced, click Change and select No Paging File 4) Disable the kernel memory dump Once again, return to the Advanced System Settings dialogue and go to the Advanced tab and click the Settings button under Startup and Recovery. Under System Failure, change the drop-down menu to (none).

7 3 of 5 1/12/2013 9:10 PM 5) Clean your disk Now, Run the disk cleanup wizard and be sure to delete all of your previous restore points and hibernation files. 6) Download and install the 30-day free trial of PerfectDisk 10 Professional This is the software I used to complete the defragmentation process and it worked. While there are a number of other advanced partitioning tools out there, I cannot recommend any until I ve tried them. If you have a recomendation, please leave your comments below. I downloaded the free trial for the professional version. 7) Start the defragmentation process In the PerfectDisk interface, select your drive and run a SMARTPlacement defragmentation click the image to enlarge. The SMARTplacement defrag option is the radio button in the top left hand corner. Click Start to get going the whole process could take a while so be prepared to wait an hour or so.

8 4 of 5 1/12/2013 9:10 PM 8) Nearly finished Finally, do a consolidate free space defrag. This will further maximise your available free space and completes the process. When all of this is complete you ll see results that look a little similar to this: 9) Shrink your volume You should be ready to shrink your system volume, so, click manage with a right mouse button click on the My Computer icon:

9 5 of 5 1/12/2013 9:10 PM 10) Manage your disk In the Computer Management Dialogue, double click Disk Management and right mouse click on your C: drive to begin the volume shrinking process. When you re done, you ll see a new, unallocated space like this: That s it! Remember to return the settings you changed earlier on in the process back to their original values, and if you re not sure about carrying out any of the instructions in this post you d be well advised to back up a copy of your hard drive first. Copyright YLMF Computer Technology Co., Ltd. All rights reserved. Feedback About Us Join Us Contact Us