I tried copy my old HDD to my new SSD using "Copy my Hard Drive" I have Ghost version 15. I am using windows 7 32bit. When I am trying to boot with my SSD disk I can not go to windows. I think this is because my SSD drive letter is still D and not C as it is supposed to. It is not possible to change the drive letter in BIOS and it is not possible to change boot orders with my internal drives. Only between USB and some other alternatives. If i boot with the old hard drive it is not possible to change the letter in "diskmgmt.msc". It would have been nice if it was a complete guide how to do this, because I have tried to google it, but everything was too advanced.
What partitions are on the source HD? On the source it is one partition C: with windows 7. Active and primary partition. And one partiton with HP recovery primary partition. The destinatin is D: system,boot, page file,active, Crash dump, Primary Partition. From Disk Management.
How was the target SSD connected? The SSD target was connected by sata connection.
Internal or external? Internal
How did you prepare the SSD? I gave it a drive letter in disk management. Did not format it since I thought that Norton did that when I used "Copy My Hard Drive"
Partitioned? No
Did you try to boot with both drives connected? When I was finished copying the drive, I turned off the computer and disconnected the source disk.
What options did you choose in the Copy Drive menu? Set drive active (for booting OS) and Copy MBR.
What error message do you see when the SSD won't boot? I just go into Windows and it was something like updating you desktop. It was just stuck there. After two hours I turned the computer off and connected the source disk.
I tried copy my old HDD to my new SSD using "Copy my Hard Drive" I have Ghost version 15. I am using windows 7 32bit. When I am trying to boot with my SSD disk I can not go to windows. I think this is because my SSD drive letter is still D and not C as it is supposed to. It is not possible to change the drive letter in BIOS and it is not possible to change boot orders with my internal drives. Only between USB and some other alternatives. If i boot with the old hard drive it is not possible to change the letter in "diskmgmt.msc". It would have been nice if it was a complete guide how to do this, because I have tried to google it, but everything was too advanced.
What error message do you see when the SSD won't boot? I just go into Windows and it was something like updating you desktop. It was just stuck there. After two hours I turned the computer off and connected the source disk.
troskjar,
Thanks for answering my questions. I think we can fix it.
So Win7 booted on the SSD, you were able to logon, but then saw "Preparing your desktop" followed by a dull grey blue screen which persisted? Is that correct?
As you know, you have a drive letter issue and Win7 is confused. You made a mistake by creating a partition (unformatted) on the SSD and giving it a drive letter. That partition's signature will be embedded in the Win7 registry and when you copy Win7 to the SSD partition, Win7 will assign the old drive letter of that partition to itself and it won't load correctly.
We now have to make Win7 forget the D: drive letter and let it use the C: drive letter. This is done by zeroing the Disk Signature on the SSD. It will recalculate another signature. Then the BCD store will need to be edited. Both procedures can be done from BootIt NG.
Download BootIt NG. There is a one month trial usage. Unzip the file and make a boot CD.
double click makedisk.exe, next dot in I accept the agreement, next dot in Mouse Support Enabled, next dot in VESA Video, next dot in Partition Work (Don't put a dot in Normal), next don't choose any Default Device Options (if necessary, these can be chosen in BING), next leave Registration strings blank, next select your CD burner drive letter (you can use a CD-RW or a CD-R disc) Finish
Boot from the CD....
the BootIt NG CD boots to the Work with Partitions window
Using the radio buttons on the left side of the Work with Partitions window, select the SSD. (It should be HD 0) click the "View MBR" button. click the "Clear Sig" button. Then click OK on the Notice. click the "Apply" button. click the "View MBR" button again and confirm the number in the left bottom corner is 0x00000000 click Cancel
Follow the procedure on this web page exactly. When finished, close the "Work with Partitions" window, click Reboot and remove the CD. Win7 should load normally. Please let us know the outcome.
I did this step by step (excellent explanation by the way), but it was not possible to boot with just the SSD disk and not the HDD disk either, but it was possible with both disk in the drive. When I tried to boot with just one disk I got the message " no operating system". So it seems like it uses som files from one disk and some from the other disk and one disk cannot boot independent.
Try it again with just the SSD installed. Connect it to the motherboard port that the old HD was previously using. Don't use any other port. Boot from the BootIt NG CD again and click View MBR. Make sure the Win7 partition is Active. Check BCD Edit again to confirm the settings.Then try to boot the SSD.
You actually had 2 problems. Ghost 15 needs the SP1 update for copy disk to work, it corrects an error with windows 7.
Also the drive letter problem, if you had the update and then copied the drive into unallocated space it should have worked the first time.
As for the EEE, a couple minor issues you face.
First, since it only holds the one hard drive you can't have both attached direcly to the motherboard at the same time.
Your going to need either an external case for one of the drives, or (even better in my opinion) an external drive that you can image the system to and then restore the images back onto the new SSD.
Second, if your doing the image and restore you need a way to boot the recovery disk. Either an external CD-Rom, or bootable flash drive or SDHC card.
You also may want to decide about the recovery partition, SSD's are very expensive and I don't know if you want to be wasting all that space on the new drive. Obviously since your using Ghost rather than restoring a factory image you have programs and data you want to keep. I'm not sure if you need the factory image in the future.
It is not any data I want to keep, it is almost in factory condition, but the computer was so slow, so I decided to buy a new SSD disk to it. I will not keep any information on the disk that are important so I don't think I need a recovery partition. I already have an factory image on an external drive (image made by Windows7 backup). How can I make a bootable USB flash drive?
Can the same method of fixing the BCD used on the other system also be used to remove the SRP?
If the SRP is imaged and then the Boot folder and bootmgr extracted onto the C drive. Once that drive is restored on the new SSD as the active primary, can Bootit NG be used to fix it or will a Windows 7 startup repair disk still be needed?
If you restore a Win7 image and forget to restore the SRP you will get a BootMGR is Missing message. This can be fixed with two boots from the Win7 DVD.
I have always done the startup repair and that may be the easiest way.
The reason why I was asking was that with a netbook that would require making 2 bootable flash drives or one that can dual boot. One for Ghost and then one for doing the startup repair. Making the Windows 7 startup repair disk is tough to do on a netbook in the first place, windows does not give an option to make an ISO, it wants to burn it directly to a disk.
So I thought it would be much easier switching between a Ghost and Bootit NG flash drive.
The manual way to remove the SRP in the first link makes a good option but you really wouldn't have a fall back position unless you had a repair disk ready in case it didn't work.
I can't remember how the 1005 EEE is setup in the first place, the one I got a couple months ago I ended up removing everything and installing XP onto it.
We just bought a Dell laptop for our son. The Active partition (containing the booting files) was the 10 GB Recovery Partition. That's how Dell does it. I copied the booting files to the Win7 partition to make backup/restore easier. Only one partition to worry about.
Thats how I like it too, especially if you were moving to a SSD. Not only are they expensive but generally much smaller and it would be a big waste of valuable space to have the resovery partition. Especially if you had Ghost and didn't need to restore it to factory condition.
I thought the EEE had 4 or even 5 partitions. An active one in the front, than C and D, then the recovery partition, and then a little tiny EFI partition used for a "boot booster" BIOS cache.
I think it had a 250GB drive, a SSD that size might cost more than the netbook. (not that I wouldn't want to do it myself)