Tips for cloning Win8.1 to SSD?

I'm getting ready to clone a Win 8.1 PC (including rescue partitions and such) from spinning rust to SSD. (The SSD is slightly larger than the spinning rust.) The SSD (Crucial MX-100) comes with a certificate for Acronis. I thought I'd use that. As a lazy bastage not in any particularly hurry, I'll probably put the SSD on a SATA to USB 2.0 adapter. I can let it run overnight. I just need to have the system working Monday morning.

Any last minute tips?

Thanks!

*mumbles something about ssd alignment* I don't remember if acronis knows how to align a clone properly or not. Its worth double checking first, and I'm too sleepy right now. Somebody else gets to google it, while I sleep.

Disk alignment seems to the least of my issues right now. I did use the Windows disk utility to partition the disk, choosing GPT (perhaps a mistake) with the expectation that it would align properly. (IIRC it offered options to align at 1MB ore no alignment and I chose 1MB.)

I installed Acronis using the license keys provided with the SSD. No Joy. It left the destination disk grayed out w no hint as to why.

Next step was to download and install Clonezilla on a USB stick and give that a shot. It copied all partitions except the second one (/dev/sda.) I could not get this disk to boot. Back to booting the original drive. Disk management shows it grayed out due to a signature collision. I found a fix for that and got the drive on line ( using diskpart.)

Back to Acronis. I start up the clone operation and now it shows the SSD as a destination (not grayed out.) Disk Management also shows all partitions on the drive as healthy including the second one (a 500MB EFI System Partition.) I start the clone operation and Acronis shortly exits. A few moments later it pops up a message telling me to restart to complete the clone. I hit the power switch and after shutdown, hit it again. System comes back up to the login screen. I repeat the operation except this time I restart. Same result. I tried it a couple more times paying attention to every Acronis Clone message and nothing seems amiss.

<sigh>

Maybe I'll try partitioning it using the MBR scheme. GPT is probably not beneficial on a 512GB drive. No, check that Diskpart reports both drives as GPT. I noticed that after I tried the 'convert mbr' command and it reported that the drive could not be modified, telling me thet CDROMs and DVDs could not be converted. I guess I need to check the BIOS and see if the drive is marked as read only.

Edit: Maybe a rescue disk is the way to go. Fsck me! This is a Dell PC and they have their own rescue disk creator. It wants a USB drive with 7+ GB space. It recognizes a 4GB USB drive and refuses to proceed. It doesn't see a 16 and 64 GB USB key though Windows sees them with no difficulty.

<double sigh>

Maybe I should just install the SSD as a second drive and move important stiff over (VM images.)

The alignment I think is 4096k

If you use GPT instead of MBR on mech drivve then you should be fine, I think it defaults to 4096k

I cloned from old hard drive over to an SSD using Paragon Migrate OS to SSD about 6 months ago. It was smooth with no hiccups

I wouldn't use USB to clone system. It's much better and faster to connect both drives to SATA. Recently I was cloning couple of systems and all failed when one of the drives was connected to USB. I'm mainly using Macrium Reflect as Acronis has sometimes problems for some reason.
I was cloning my MX100 with Macrium Reflect couple of times without issues. It's also free as a trial but all is working. You can also resize partitions and it's setting correct alignment ( which you can also change manually if you want ).

GPT is for drives over 2TB.
Good ol' MBR is what should be used.

Though, you shouldn't have to format the drive at all - the cloned copy of the original disk should contain the partitions anyway.


Perhaps give Macrium Reflect a shot - easy to use and has it's own bootable recovery suite to restore from a partition.
Takes my rig ~1.5 hours to re-image my RAID array (about 1TB of crap )

Silver_Pharaoh said:

GPT is for drives over 2TB.

Click to expand...

If you want SSD with secure boot you need GPT as well dude

Used macrium reflect tonight, worked very well and was very intuitive and easy to use. Took me "2.17.09" hours (super oddly specific time haha). An image = backup =/= clone

Thanks for all of the tips. It was important (last weekend) that I have a working PC come Monday morning so I backed off on my attempt to clone. I did wind up with a copy of my boot drive on the SSD and left it as a second drive in the PC. Turns out it has three SATA connectors on the motherboard.. I tied it out, running a VMware guest from the SSD. Whew! Win7 comes up in 15 seconds off the SSD vs. 1:35 from spinning rust. Unfortunately the tools I'm using detected the change and refused to run. It's an eval copy and the vendor did not seem interested in helping with the license issue. When we purchase a license I'll be able to run off the SSD and gain most of the benefit I was seeking.

If I get particularly aggressive I may try one of those other cloning options.

thanks again,
hank

HankB said:

Thanks for all of the tips. It was important (last weekend) that I have a working PC come Monday morning so I backed off on my attempt to clone. I did wind up with a copy of my boot drive on the SSD and left it as a second drive in the PC. Turns out it has three SATA connectors on the motherboard.. I tied it out, running a VMware guest from the SSD. Whew! Win7 comes up in 15 seconds off the SSD vs. 1:35 from spinning rust. Unfortunately the tools I'm using detected the change and refused to run. It's an eval copy and the vendor did not seem interested in helping with the license issue. When we purchase a license I'll be able to run off the SSD and gain most of the benefit I was seeking.

If I get particularly aggressive I may try one of those other cloning options.

thanks again,
hank

Click to expand...

Jeez how many start up proggys you got? over a min with a mech drive?
I dont even have my SSD installed right now and with this WD blue I boot Win 8.1 in 29 sec according to Qihoo 360 AV, heh this thing pwnz it tell you everything boot time, protects your computer and will patch windows update with updates that even built in win update wont find

Zakarro said:

If you want SSD with secure boot you need GPT as well dude

Click to expand...

Meh, secure boot crap
'Tis why I stick with Win 7
Didn't know that though thanks.

bob4933 said:

Used macrium reflect tonight, worked very well and was very intuitive and easy to use. Took me "2.17.09" hours (super oddly specific time haha). An image = backup =/= clone

Click to expand...

Macrium is awesome, by far the best tool I've used

Zakarro said:

Jeez how many start up proggys you got? over a min with a mech drive?
I dont even have my SSD installed right now and with this WD blue I boot Win 8.1 in 29 sec according to Qihoo 360 AV, heh this thing pwnz it tell you everything boot time, protects your computer and will patch windows update with updates that even built in win update wont find

Click to expand...

This is Win7 in a VM so VMware might be additional overhead as a well. I should look at what's running in the background nevertheless.

Silver_Pharaoh said:

Meh, secure boot crap
'Tis why I stick with Win 7
Didn't know that though thanks.


Macrium is awesome, by far the best tool I've used

Click to expand...

You dont like secure boot? Hey, while I see what you mean at least Bill decided to protects our bios.... although yes back in the day write protect jumpers were a more practical solution and didnt require video card or OS compatibility for it

Zakarro said:

You dont like secure boot? Hey, while I see what you mean at least Bill decided to protects our bios.... although yes back in the day write protect jumpers were a more practical solution and didnt require video card or OS compatibility for it

Click to expand...

Secure Boot is a security standard developed by members of the PC industry to help make sure that your PC boots using only software that is trusted by the PC manufacturer.
When the PC starts, the firmware checks the signature of each piece of boot software, including firmware drivers (Option ROMs) and the operating system. If the signatures are good, the PC boots, and the firmware gives control to the operating system.

Click to expand...

I just see it as an annoying "security feature" that would cause me headaches if something gets screwed up.
TBH, this secure boot sounds like a feature meant for folks who don't know about computers much. I don't need and don't want that feature.
I struggled for 5 hours to install Windows 7 on my laptop because of secure boot. It really pissed me off
It's my computer, I'll run whatever ROM and software I want. I don't need a "PC manufacture" to tell me what's safe and trusted.

/rant
That's how I see it, just my reasoning on why I hate this "feature"

Silver_Pharaoh said:

feature meant for folks who don't know about computers much.

Click to expand...

Secure boot is due to UEFI bs. Has nothing to do with pc knowledge. In fact it protects you from the most nasty rootkits, hardware based UEFI ones that infect EPPROM

Zakarro said:

Secure boot is due to UEFI bs. Has nothing to do with pc knowledge. In fact it protects you from the most nasty rootkits, hardware based UEFI ones that infect EPPROM

Click to expand...

Browse responsibly, and don't run unknown crap programs.

I see it's uses, but it's just not for me.

Silver_Pharaoh said:

Browse responsibly, and don't run unknown crap programs.

I see it's uses, but it's just not for me.

Click to expand...

You know just cause I registered here last week doesnt mean Im a n00b...

What you explain gives baby viruses anyways. You think your gonna get dropped a hardware rootkit bomb from some script on a website?

Hardware rootkits are usually dropped if you are targeted or very very stupid.

Saying its not for me is like saying no Im not gonna bolt lock my door.

Zakarro said:

You know just cause I registered here last week doesnt mean Im a n00b...

What you explain gives baby viruses anyways. You think your gonna get dropped a hardware rootkit bomb from some script on a website?

Hardware rootkits are usually dropped if you are targeted or very very stupid.

Saying its not for me is like saying no Im not gonna bolt lock my door.

Click to expand...

I didn't say you were a noob did I?
And TBH, I don't lock my car at all.

So what you are saying is hardware rootkits don't come from shady websites?
Then what is the other way they get onto your rig? Someone physically inserts an infected USB stick or physically installs the rootkit onto your rig or you get a shady email. (Which you wouldn't open if you don;t know where it's from and it looks suspicious.)

Why would one let someone install a rootkit physically if these malwares don't come from the internet?


Anything and everything is on the internet.

Silver_Pharaoh said:

I didn't say you were a noob did I?
And TBH, I don't lock my car at all.

So what you are saying is hardware rootkits don't come from shady websites?
Then what is the other way they get onto your rig? Someone physically inserts an infected USB stick or physically installs the rootkit onto your rig or you get a shady email. (Which you wouldn't open if you don;t know where it's from and it looks suspicious.)

Why would one let someone install a rootkit physically if these malwares don't come from the internet?


Anything and everything is on the internet.

Click to expand...

Of course they can come from interweb but not some pr0n or t0rrent site for example, they will just drop something on your HDD which can we wiped easily or AV will catch.

The USB infection you talk about is like stuxnet and can also come online, if they hax0r you and control remotely well then

As for your car, lol never mind I see your canadian, you guys dont lock your doors up there.