Upgrading Parent's Computer to an SSD this Weekend--A few questions...

[cbuchach]

Well, since I didn't know what else to purchase my dad for Christmas and I had no interest in going to a mall to look for a nice shirt, I purchased a 120GB intel SSD to upgrade their computer which I put together for them a few years ago. They currently have I believe a ~500 GB hard disk with a single partition containing their Windows 7 install. My plan is to use a copy of Norton Ghost I puchased about 10 months ago to image the SSD with their current system. It has been a few years since I last used Ghost and I hope this is a good solution. My plan is to hook up the SSD and have Ghost copy and shrink the active Windows partition from the hard disk to the SSD. Then set as active, unplug the hard disk, and boot up. I hope it is this easy, but usually as we all know never is.

I have a few questions, the first obviously does anyone see any major issues with this plan?

The second, I know if you clean install windows 7 on a sdd it will properly align the sectors and allocation unit size to allow for maximum performance of the sdd. I will be lacking this--will it cause any major performance issues? And to those who encourage a clean install (which I know is best)--there is no way I will have time for that this weekend.

Alos, I am fairly certain (well at least hope) that I enabled AHCI on the system. And, my parents live about 5 hours away, so it needs to be completed over the weekend.

Thanks for any help which I hopefully will make the trip a success!

 

[postmortemIA]

even if AHCI is disabled, Win 7 won't BSOD like XP does when you turn it on.

Second, and more important issue is misaligned partitions. Latest Ghost might align them, it might not - it is worth researching. It does have huge performance hit.

 

[GoSharks]

The Intel SSD should come with software that will do the imaging for you. I imagine that it would align properly.

 

[cbuchach]

The Intel SSD should come with software that will do the imaging for you. I imagine that it would align properly.

That's a good thought, I have purchased a few retail intel SSDs before but never bothered to load the included CD. Does anyone else have experience using the intel software and will it allow a partition to be shrunk (keeping in mind that the total data size on the source drive is less than the capacity of the SSD?

 

[Hellhammer]

That's a good thought, I have purchased a few retail intel SSDs before but never bothered to load the included CD. Does anyone else have experience using the intel software and will it allow a partition to be shrunk (keeping in mind that the total data size on the source drive is less than the capacity of the SSD?

As long as the source drive has less than 120GB of data, it will work. I haven't tried the Intel one but not all cloning apps even require the partition to be shrunk. I clone my drives back and forth and have never had a problem, unless I'm trying to fit 200GB of data in a 120GB SSD.

 

[cbuchach]

That's a good thought, I have purchased a few retail intel SSDs before but never bothered to load the included CD. Does anyone else have experience using the intel software and will it allow a partition to be shrunk (keeping in mind that the total data size on the source drive is less than the capacity of the SSD?

I downloaded the Intel software and read through the manual (if you can believe that) and no where does it say if it will allow or will not allow the sources partition to be shrunk to fit the smaller SSD. Does anyone have experience with the software and doing this? I would prefer to use the simpler intel/acronis software if possible (also I haven't found the Ghost CD yet)?

 

[kleinkinstein]

Here are all your do's and dont's!

 

[cbuchach]

Here are all your do's and dont's!

I looked through the listing of topics on that page twice and couldn't find a link to address my specific question--can you provide a more direct link?

 

[cbuchach]

To answer any unanswered questions here--I was succussful in the upgrade. The supplied Intel Data Migaration software is more than sufficient. It can decrease and allows manual resizing of various source partitions. It worked well. The only hiccup was a Bootmgr missing error on initial restart. This was fixed by inserting the Windows install disc and performing two consequetive startup repairs. My parents are up and running; thanks for all the help.

 

[docp]

parents must be happy with the perf.boost and faster computer?
well done.