Changing to SSD

I would like to add an SSD and make it C:

Can I just image the C: partition on my HD to it and then install it?

Do I have to change the HD drive letter or will Windows do that for me?

Thanks.

In article , Alek
writes
I would like to add an SSD and make it C:

Can I just image the C: partition on my HD to it and then install it?

Do I have to change the HD drive letter or will Windows do that for me?

In my case as I'd had Windows 7 a few years and then upgraded to 10 I
just did a clean instal of 10 and put the software and personal stuff
back after, a bind but it got rid of all the rubbish that had built up
over time.

Mike

--
Michael Swift We do not regard Englishmen as foreigners.
Kirkheaton We look on them only as rather mad Norwegians.
Yorkshire Halvard Lange

In article , says...

I would like to add an SSD and make it C:

Can I just image the C: partition on my HD to it and then install it?

Do I have to change the HD drive letter or will Windows do that for me?

Thanks.

Yes but I'd suggest to first boot after install without the old drive in
box. After that shut down and put the old drive back in and things
should be fine.

When I did mine what I did was once image had been done I installed the
ssd but using the original cabling the original drive used and instead
put the original drive on another cable. That worked fine for me.

Incidently original drive was a 1Tb spinner, the SSD was a 250Gb. The
spinner had less than 100Gb on it and nothing complained. Other than
speed increase no hitches on first boot. It used the SSD and was
noticably faster and the original 1Tb was assinged a drive letter and
made accessable without issue.

That was on a Dell dualcore 3.0 Gz pc running Win7 with 4Gb ram at the
time using the "branded" version of Reflect came with the SSD.

Alek wrote:
I would like to add an SSD and make it C:

Can I just image the C: partition on my HD to it and then install it?

Do I have to change the HD drive letter or will Windows do that for me?

Thanks.

To clone an OS, first, open Disk Management.

Say you are currently running the OS in question.

While booted, the Disk Management display will show "System"
partition (holds boot files) and "Boot" partition (which
holds all the system files).

If you have two hard drives, and "system" is on one drive
and "boot" is on the other, stop right there. You're in a mess.

If you had a single partition, with the word "system" and "boot"
printed on that partition, that would be an excellent candidate
for cloning.

The new disk should have:

1) MBR
2) If a GPT disk, a small partition with GPT partition table (128MB???).
3) System partition with boot flag set.
4) Boot partition.

*******

If you haven't messed up too badly, you should be able to
use disk backup/clone software, clone "most" of the partitions
to the SSD, and it'll boot. Maybe your C: is too big to fit
the SSD, and "resize-on-the-fly" feature of the backup/clone
tool will fix that for you. If you have a D: partition with
terabytes of movies, maybe not cloning that would be a good idea.

I've marked up the config on the Test Machine, as a worked example.

https://s22.postimg.org/p97zdmpgx/clone_example.gif

Give us a pointer to a picture of your Disk Management screen,
with as many disks showing as you think matters. Try to resize the
display, so we can read the "system" and "boot" stamps in the
picture, and advise you what steps might be good or bad.

Paul

pjp wrote on 5/25/2017 3:18 PM:
In article , says...

I would like to add an SSD and make it C:

Can I just image the C: partition on my HD to it and then install it?

Do I have to change the HD drive letter or will Windows do that for me?

Thanks.

Yes but I'd suggest to first boot after install without the old drive in
box. After that shut down and put the old drive back in and things
should be fine.

When I did mine what I did was once image had been done I installed the
ssd but using the original cabling the original drive used and instead
put the original drive on another cable. That worked fine for me.

Incidently original drive was a 1Tb spinner, the SSD was a 250Gb. The
spinner had less than 100Gb on it and nothing complained. Other than
speed increase no hitches on first boot. It used the SSD and was
noticably faster and the original 1Tb was assinged a drive letter and
made accessable without issue.

That was on a Dell dualcore 3.0 Gz pc running Win7 with 4Gb ram at the
time using the "branded" version of Reflect came with the SSD.


Thank you.

On Thu, 25 May 2017 15:52:46 -0400, Paul
wrote:

Alek wrote:
I would like to add an SSD and make it C:

Can I just image the C: partition on my HD to it and then install it?

Do I have to change the HD drive letter or will Windows do that for me?

Thanks.

To clone an OS, first, open Disk Management.

Say you are currently running the OS in question.

While booted, the Disk Management display will show "System"
partition (holds boot files) and "Boot" partition (which
holds all the system files).

If you have two hard drives, and "system" is on one drive
and "boot" is on the other, stop right there. You're in a mess.

If you had a single partition, with the word "system" and "boot"
printed on that partition, that would be an excellent candidate
for cloning.

The new disk should have:

1) MBR
2) If a GPT disk, a small partition with GPT partition table (128MB???).
3) System partition with boot flag set.
4) Boot partition.

*******

If you haven't messed up too badly, you should be able to
use disk backup/clone software, clone "most" of the partitions
to the SSD, and it'll boot. Maybe your C: is too big to fit
the SSD, and "resize-on-the-fly" feature of the backup/clone
tool will fix that for you. If you have a D: partition with
terabytes of movies, maybe not cloning that would be a good idea.

I've marked up the config on the Test Machine, as a worked example.

https://s22.postimg.org/p97zdmpgx/clone_example.gif

Give us a pointer to a picture of your Disk Management screen,
with as many disks showing as you think matters. Try to resize the
display, so we can read the "system" and "boot" stamps in the
picture, and advise you what steps might be good or bad.

Paul

I would use Macrium Reflect (free) for cloning the C drive to the new
SSD. It is easier and faster than Disk Management IMO. The boot
partition should be on the C drive unless you have a non standard
install. Your source partition is C, your destination is your new
drive. Click 'Clone this Disk' and select your destinination drive. It
is quite easy.
--
JT

Justin Tyme wrote on 5/25/2017 8:06 PM:
On Thu, 25 May 2017 15:52:46 -0400, Paul
wrote:

Alek wrote:
I would like to add an SSD and make it C:

Can I just image the C: partition on my HD to it and then install it?

Do I have to change the HD drive letter or will Windows do that for me?

Thanks.

To clone an OS, first, open Disk Management.

Say you are currently running the OS in question.

While booted, the Disk Management display will show "System"
partition (holds boot files) and "Boot" partition (which
holds all the system files).

If you have two hard drives, and "system" is on one drive
and "boot" is on the other, stop right there. You're in a mess.

If you had a single partition, with the word "system" and "boot"
printed on that partition, that would be an excellent candidate
for cloning.

The new disk should have:

1) MBR
2) If a GPT disk, a small partition with GPT partition table (128MB???).
3) System partition with boot flag set.
4) Boot partition.

*******

If you haven't messed up too badly, you should be able to
use disk backup/clone software, clone "most" of the partitions
to the SSD, and it'll boot. Maybe your C: is too big to fit
the SSD, and "resize-on-the-fly" feature of the backup/clone
tool will fix that for you. If you have a D: partition with
terabytes of movies, maybe not cloning that would be a good idea.

I've marked up the config on the Test Machine, as a worked example.

https://s22.postimg.org/p97zdmpgx/clone_example.gif

Give us a pointer to a picture of your Disk Management screen,
with as many disks showing as you think matters. Try to resize the
display, so we can read the "system" and "boot" stamps in the
picture, and advise you what steps might be good or bad.

Paul

I would use Macrium Reflect (free) for cloning the C drive to the new
SSD. It is easier and faster than Disk Management IMO. The boot
partition should be on the C drive unless you have a non standard
install. Your source partition is C, your destination is your new
drive. Click 'Clone this Disk' and select your destinination drive. It
is quite easy.


And then?

On Thu, 25 May 2017 17:06:48 -0700, Justin Tyme
wrote:

On Thu, 25 May 2017 15:52:46 -0400, Paul
wrote:

Alek wrote:
I would like to add an SSD and make it C:

Can I just image the C: partition on my HD to it and then install it?

Do I have to change the HD drive letter or will Windows do that for me?

Thanks.

To clone an OS, first, open Disk Management.

Say you are currently running the OS in question.

While booted, the Disk Management display will show "System"
partition (holds boot files) and "Boot" partition (which
holds all the system files).

If you have two hard drives, and "system" is on one drive
and "boot" is on the other, stop right there. You're in a mess.

If you had a single partition, with the word "system" and "boot"
printed on that partition, that would be an excellent candidate
for cloning.

The new disk should have:

1) MBR
2) If a GPT disk, a small partition with GPT partition table (128MB???).
3) System partition with boot flag set.
4) Boot partition.

*******

If you haven't messed up too badly, you should be able to
use disk backup/clone software, clone "most" of the partitions
to the SSD, and it'll boot. Maybe your C: is too big to fit
the SSD, and "resize-on-the-fly" feature of the backup/clone
tool will fix that for you. If you have a D: partition with
terabytes of movies, maybe not cloning that would be a good idea.

I've marked up the config on the Test Machine, as a worked example.

https://s22.postimg.org/p97zdmpgx/clone_example.gif

Give us a pointer to a picture of your Disk Management screen,
with as many disks showing as you think matters. Try to resize the
display, so we can read the "system" and "boot" stamps in the
picture, and advise you what steps might be good or bad.

Paul

I would use Macrium Reflect (free) for cloning the C drive to the new
SSD. It is easier and faster than Disk Management IMO. The boot
partition should be on the C drive unless you have a non standard
install. Your source partition is C, your destination is your new
drive. Click 'Clone this Disk' and select your destinination drive. It
is quite easy.

I wrote the above when I was busy so disregard:
It is easier and faster than Disk Management IMO.

I rarely use Disk Management. Easeus Partition Master is my main tool
for disk related tasks.

When you clone you will get an exact copy, you don't have to worry
about drive letter etc., so if it boots on the old C drive then your
new SSD should boot after cloning. Your SSD will now be the C drive
after you remove the old drive and reboot.

I am assuming your SSD has enough space to fit all the data from your
old C drive. Computers usually come with a huge C drive with all the
pictures, music and other data on it. I like to have data on a
separate drive or partition and C to have system and programs only.
This setup makes it easier to do backups of your C drive. You could
use your old drive as a data drive after you format it.
--
JT

Justin Tyme wrote:
On Thu, 25 May 2017 17:06:48 -0700, Justin Tyme
wrote:

On Thu, 25 May 2017 15:52:46 -0400, Paul
wrote:

Alek wrote:
I would like to add an SSD and make it C:

Can I just image the C: partition on my HD to it and then install it?

Do I have to change the HD drive letter or will Windows do that for me?

Thanks.
To clone an OS, first, open Disk Management.

Say you are currently running the OS in question.

While booted, the Disk Management display will show "System"
partition (holds boot files) and "Boot" partition (which
holds all the system files).

If you have two hard drives, and "system" is on one drive
and "boot" is on the other, stop right there. You're in a mess.

If you had a single partition, with the word "system" and "boot"
printed on that partition, that would be an excellent candidate
for cloning.

The new disk should have:

1) MBR
2) If a GPT disk, a small partition with GPT partition table (128MB???).
3) System partition with boot flag set.
4) Boot partition.

*******

If you haven't messed up too badly, you should be able to
use disk backup/clone software, clone "most" of the partitions
to the SSD, and it'll boot. Maybe your C: is too big to fit
the SSD, and "resize-on-the-fly" feature of the backup/clone
tool will fix that for you. If you have a D: partition with
terabytes of movies, maybe not cloning that would be a good idea.

I've marked up the config on the Test Machine, as a worked example.

https://s22.postimg.org/p97zdmpgx/clone_example.gif

Give us a pointer to a picture of your Disk Management screen,
with as many disks showing as you think matters. Try to resize the
display, so we can read the "system" and "boot" stamps in the
picture, and advise you what steps might be good or bad.

Paul
I would use Macrium Reflect (free) for cloning the C drive to the new
SSD. It is easier and faster than Disk Management IMO. The boot
partition should be on the C drive unless you have a non standard
install. Your source partition is C, your destination is your new
drive. Click 'Clone this Disk' and select your destinination drive. It
is quite easy.

I wrote the above when I was busy so disregard:
It is easier and faster than Disk Management IMO.

I rarely use Disk Management. Easeus Partition Master is my main tool
for disk related tasks.

The purpose of Disk Management, is an easy tool to
use for surveying the situation. I'm not proposing doing
some entire operation, using on the Disk Management.
Using the SnippingTool, you can take easy pictures of
your Disk Management screen, for sharing with others.

Macrium Reflect Free can be installed on the current
hard drive (the one with Windows on it). Make the Macrium
boot CD, just in case (for all your random backup or
cloning needs). I have three Macrium CDs here, made at
different times. And at least one of those will be suited
to my two most frequently used computers in the room.

To clone, needs a means of connecting the SSD to the computer
in question. In some cases, it might even require moving
the source drive and the destination drive, to a "technician"
desktop machine with SATA disk trays.

When I cloned my laptop, my Test Machine has trays in a side
mounted stack. I put the old 2.5" HDD in one tray. I put the
new SSD in a second tray. The third tray had a Windows OS in
it for running the machine. Then I could clone the old laptop
drive to the new SSD drive. When done, I shut down the desktop,
and moved the SSD into the laptop. (Since the company making the
SSD drive, neglected to include the plastic adapter ring in the
box, installing the screws was needlessly painful.)

So the most likely "difficult" step in cloning, is
the physical part, of getting the two disks in a
situation where they could be accessed for the transfer.

*******

As an alternative, a person can do "backup and restore".
For example, a laptop can have the 2.5 inch hard drive,
backed up via Macrium, to a file share on a second computer.
Then, the laptop drive can be removed and replaced with a
blank SSD. Using the Macrium boot CD you made for the laptop
after installing Macrium, you can do a restore from the file
share, to the empty SSD. To do that with guaranteed success,
requires testing the Macrium boot CD, and making sure that
the file share of the other machine is visible. Using the
WinPE5 or WinPE10 option while making the boot CD, helps
ensure a selection of drivers will be included on the newly
minted boot CD.

*******

Those are some examples of setups to use, for the actual transfer.

It still pays to use Disk Management, look at the "labels"
used, and conclude that you can in fact clone the setup you've
got. More than one poster has come here, with two disk drives,
and OS components split between drives. And that mess has to
be resolved before any other work will succeed. Windows doesn't
usually mess this up, and it takes a fair bit of user meddling
to bust it like that.

Paul

On Thu, 25 May 2017 19:56:08 -0700, Justin Tyme
wrote:

On Thu, 25 May 2017 17:06:48 -0700, Justin Tyme
wrote:

On Thu, 25 May 2017 15:52:46 -0400, Paul
wrote:

Alek wrote:
I would like to add an SSD and make it C:

Can I just image the C: partition on my HD to it and then install it?

Do I have to change the HD drive letter or will Windows do that for me?

Thanks.

To clone an OS, first, open Disk Management.

Say you are currently running the OS in question.

While booted, the Disk Management display will show "System"
partition (holds boot files) and "Boot" partition (which
holds all the system files).

If you have two hard drives, and "system" is on one drive
and "boot" is on the other, stop right there. You're in a mess.

If you had a single partition, with the word "system" and "boot"
printed on that partition, that would be an excellent candidate
for cloning.

The new disk should have:

1) MBR
2) If a GPT disk, a small partition with GPT partition table (128MB???).
3) System partition with boot flag set.
4) Boot partition.

*******

If you haven't messed up too badly, you should be able to
use disk backup/clone software, clone "most" of the partitions
to the SSD, and it'll boot. Maybe your C: is too big to fit
the SSD, and "resize-on-the-fly" feature of the backup/clone
tool will fix that for you. If you have a D: partition with
terabytes of movies, maybe not cloning that would be a good idea.

I've marked up the config on the Test Machine, as a worked example.

https://s22.postimg.org/p97zdmpgx/clone_example.gif

Give us a pointer to a picture of your Disk Management screen,
with as many disks showing as you think matters. Try to resize the
display, so we can read the "system" and "boot" stamps in the
picture, and advise you what steps might be good or bad.

Paul

I would use Macrium Reflect (free) for cloning the C drive to the new
SSD. It is easier and faster than Disk Management IMO. The boot
partition should be on the C drive unless you have a non standard
install. Your source partition is C, your destination is your new
drive. Click 'Clone this Disk' and select your destinination drive. It
is quite easy.

I wrote the above when I was busy so disregard:
It is easier and faster than Disk Management IMO.

I rarely use Disk Management. Easeus Partition Master is my main tool
for disk related tasks.

When you clone you will get an exact copy, you don't have to worry
about drive letter etc., so if it boots on the old C drive then your
new SSD should boot after cloning. Your SSD will now be the C drive
after you remove the old drive and reboot.

I am assuming your SSD has enough space to fit all the data from your
old C drive. Computers usually come with a huge C drive with all the
pictures, music and other data on it. I like to have data on a
separate drive or partition and C to have system and programs only.
This setup makes it easier to do backups of your C drive. You could
use your old drive as a data drive after you format it.

More thoughts:
If by chance your C drive is actually 'smaller' than your
(unformatted) SSD then you may end up with some unformatted space
after you clone. For example you clone 128GBs to a 256GB drive, you
may have 1/2 the drive unformatted after the cloning. You can easily
fix this with Easeus Partition Master (Free) which lets you resize the
partition without harming any data. In EPM you just drag the
partition to fill the unformatted space and click the 'Apply' arrow at
the top of the EPM window.

The other option would be to format the SSD before you clone then any
extra space is already formatted. Easeus Partition Master is a good
tool for this too. I think it is easiest to drag the smaller partition
to fill the unformated space as described above then you don't have to
worry about MBR or GPT. I am on an old computer and the hard drives
are under 1GB so I still use basic MBR not GPT. I don't know if you
have an old computer that was updated or a new computer with GPT.
My new gaming computer I just built is another story.
--
JT

On 26/5/2017 2:06 AM, Alek wrote:
I would like to add an SSD and make it C:

Can I just image the C: partition on my HD to it and then install it?

Take it as a chance to reinstall everything. That could remove a lot of
junk and ensure that your OS would be clean.


--
@~@ Remain silent! Drink, Blink, Stretch! Live long and prosper!!
/ v \ Simplicity is Beauty!
/( _ )\ May the Force and farces be with you!
^ ^ (x86_64 Ubuntu 9.10) Linux 2.6.39.3
�借貸! ��騙! ��交! �打交! �打劫! �自殺! 請考慮綜� (CSSA):
http://www.swd.gov.hk/tc/index/site_...sub_addressesa

On Thu, 25 May 2017 23:21:18 -0400, Paul
wrote:

Justin Tyme wrote:
On Thu, 25 May 2017 17:06:48 -0700, Justin Tyme
wrote:

On Thu, 25 May 2017 15:52:46 -0400, Paul
wrote:

Alek wrote:
I would like to add an SSD and make it C:

Can I just image the C: partition on my HD to it and then install it?

Do I have to change the HD drive letter or will Windows do that for me?

Thanks.
To clone an OS, first, open Disk Management.

Say you are currently running the OS in question.

While booted, the Disk Management display will show "System"
partition (holds boot files) and "Boot" partition (which
holds all the system files).

If you have two hard drives, and "system" is on one drive
and "boot" is on the other, stop right there. You're in a mess.

If you had a single partition, with the word "system" and "boot"
printed on that partition, that would be an excellent candidate
for cloning.

The new disk should have:

1) MBR
2) If a GPT disk, a small partition with GPT partition table (128MB???).
3) System partition with boot flag set.
4) Boot partition.

*******

If you haven't messed up too badly, you should be able to
use disk backup/clone software, clone "most" of the partitions
to the SSD, and it'll boot. Maybe your C: is too big to fit
the SSD, and "resize-on-the-fly" feature of the backup/clone
tool will fix that for you. If you have a D: partition with
terabytes of movies, maybe not cloning that would be a good idea.

I've marked up the config on the Test Machine, as a worked example.

https://s22.postimg.org/p97zdmpgx/clone_example.gif

Give us a pointer to a picture of your Disk Management screen,
with as many disks showing as you think matters. Try to resize the
display, so we can read the "system" and "boot" stamps in the
picture, and advise you what steps might be good or bad.

Paul
I would use Macrium Reflect (free) for cloning the C drive to the new
SSD. It is easier and faster than Disk Management IMO. The boot
partition should be on the C drive unless you have a non standard
install. Your source partition is C, your destination is your new
drive. Click 'Clone this Disk' and select your destinination drive. It
is quite easy.

I wrote the above when I was busy so disregard:
It is easier and faster than Disk Management IMO.

I rarely use Disk Management. Easeus Partition Master is my main tool
for disk related tasks.

The purpose of Disk Management, is an easy tool to
use for surveying the situation. I'm not proposing doing
some entire operation, using on the Disk Management.
Using the SnippingTool, you can take easy pictures of
your Disk Management screen, for sharing with others.

Yes. correct of course. I was busy when I wrote that so I was not
thinking clearly about what you were saying.

Macrium Reflect Free can be installed on the current
hard drive (the one with Windows on it). Make the Macrium
boot CD, just in case (for all your random backup or
cloning needs). I have three Macrium CDs here, made at
different times. And at least one of those will be suited
to my two most frequently used computers in the room.

To clone, needs a means of connecting the SSD to the computer
in question. In some cases, it might even require moving
the source drive and the destination drive, to a "technician"
desktop machine with SATA disk trays.

When I cloned my laptop, my Test Machine has trays in a side
mounted stack. I put the old 2.5" HDD in one tray. I put the
new SSD in a second tray. The third tray had a Windows OS in
it for running the machine. Then I could clone the old laptop
drive to the new SSD drive. When done, I shut down the desktop,
and moved the SSD into the laptop. (Since the company making the
SSD drive, neglected to include the plastic adapter ring in the
box, installing the screws was needlessly painful.)

So the most likely "difficult" step in cloning, is
the physical part, of getting the two disks in a
situation where they could be accessed for the transfer.

*******

As an alternative, a person can do "backup and restore".
For example, a laptop can have the 2.5 inch hard drive,
backed up via Macrium, to a file share on a second computer.
Then, the laptop drive can be removed and replaced with a
blank SSD. Using the Macrium boot CD you made for the laptop
after installing Macrium, you can do a restore from the file
share, to the empty SSD. To do that with guaranteed success,
requires testing the Macrium boot CD, and making sure that
the file share of the other machine is visible. Using the
WinPE5 or WinPE10 option while making the boot CD, helps
ensure a selection of drivers will be included on the newly
minted boot CD.

*******

Those are some examples of setups to use, for the actual transfer.

It still pays to use Disk Management, look at the "labels"
used, and conclude that you can in fact clone the setup you've
got. More than one poster has come here, with two disk drives,
and OS components split between drives. And that mess has to
be resolved before any other work will succeed. Windows doesn't
usually mess this up, and it takes a fair bit of user meddling
to bust it like that.

Paul
--
JT

On Thu, 25 May 2017 21:24:07 -0700, Justin Tyme
wrote:

On Thu, 25 May 2017 19:56:08 -0700, Justin Tyme
wrote:

On Thu, 25 May 2017 17:06:48 -0700, Justin Tyme
wrote:

On Thu, 25 May 2017 15:52:46 -0400, Paul
wrote:

Alek wrote:
I would like to add an SSD and make it C:

Can I just image the C: partition on my HD to it and then install it?

Do I have to change the HD drive letter or will Windows do that for me?

Thanks.

To clone an OS, first, open Disk Management.

Say you are currently running the OS in question.

While booted, the Disk Management display will show "System"
partition (holds boot files) and "Boot" partition (which
holds all the system files).

If you have two hard drives, and "system" is on one drive
and "boot" is on the other, stop right there. You're in a mess.

If you had a single partition, with the word "system" and "boot"
printed on that partition, that would be an excellent candidate
for cloning.

The new disk should have:

1) MBR
2) If a GPT disk, a small partition with GPT partition table (128MB???).
3) System partition with boot flag set.
4) Boot partition.

*******

If you haven't messed up too badly, you should be able to
use disk backup/clone software, clone "most" of the partitions
to the SSD, and it'll boot. Maybe your C: is too big to fit
the SSD, and "resize-on-the-fly" feature of the backup/clone
tool will fix that for you. If you have a D: partition with
terabytes of movies, maybe not cloning that would be a good idea.

I've marked up the config on the Test Machine, as a worked example.

https://s22.postimg.org/p97zdmpgx/clone_example.gif

Give us a pointer to a picture of your Disk Management screen,
with as many disks showing as you think matters. Try to resize the
display, so we can read the "system" and "boot" stamps in the
picture, and advise you what steps might be good or bad.

Paul

I would use Macrium Reflect (free) for cloning the C drive to the new
SSD. It is easier and faster than Disk Management IMO. The boot
partition should be on the C drive unless you have a non standard
install. Your source partition is C, your destination is your new
drive. Click 'Clone this Disk' and select your destinination drive. It
is quite easy.

I wrote the above when I was busy so disregard:
It is easier and faster than Disk Management IMO.

I rarely use Disk Management. Easeus Partition Master is my main tool
for disk related tasks.

When you clone you will get an exact copy, you don't have to worry
about drive letter etc., so if it boots on the old C drive then your
new SSD should boot after cloning. Your SSD will now be the C drive
after you remove the old drive and reboot.

I am assuming your SSD has enough space to fit all the data from your
old C drive. Computers usually come with a huge C drive with all the
pictures, music and other data on it. I like to have data on a
separate drive or partition and C to have system and programs only.
This setup makes it easier to do backups of your C drive. You could
use your old drive as a data drive after you format it.

More thoughts:
If by chance your C drive is actually 'smaller' than your
(unformatted) SSD then you may end up with some unformatted space
after you clone. For example you clone 128GBs to a 256GB drive, you
may have 1/2 the drive unformatted after the cloning. You can easily
fix this with Easeus Partition Master (Free) which lets you resize the
partition without harming any data. In EPM you just drag the
partition to fill the unformatted space and click the 'Apply' arrow at
the top of the EPM window.

The other option would be to format the SSD before you clone then any
extra space is already formatted. Easeus Partition Master is a good
tool for this too. I think it is easiest to drag the smaller partition
to fill the unformated space as described above then you don't have to
worry about MBR or GPT. I am on an old computer and the hard drives
are under 1GB so I still use basic MBR not GPT. I don't know if you
have an old computer that was updated or a new computer with GPT.
My new gaming computer I just built is another story.

Thinking more about the above advice. If your original C is 'smaller'
than the target SSD then it is best to format the SSD before you
clone. I once had a problem with messed up disk geometry after making
the partition fill the unformatted space. It only happened once out of
the many times I did it but I would not want it to happen to you.
Murphys Law is always present.
--
JT

Justin Tyme wrote:
On Thu, 25 May 2017 21:24:07 -0700, Justin Tyme
wrote:

On Thu, 25 May 2017 19:56:08 -0700, Justin Tyme
wrote:

On Thu, 25 May 2017 17:06:48 -0700, Justin Tyme
wrote:

On Thu, 25 May 2017 15:52:46 -0400, Paul
wrote:

Alek wrote:
I would like to add an SSD and make it C:

Can I just image the C: partition on my HD to it and then install it?

Do I have to change the HD drive letter or will Windows do that for me?

Thanks.
To clone an OS, first, open Disk Management.

Say you are currently running the OS in question.

While booted, the Disk Management display will show "System"
partition (holds boot files) and "Boot" partition (which
holds all the system files).

If you have two hard drives, and "system" is on one drive
and "boot" is on the other, stop right there. You're in a mess.

If you had a single partition, with the word "system" and "boot"
printed on that partition, that would be an excellent candidate
for cloning.

The new disk should have:

1) MBR
2) If a GPT disk, a small partition with GPT partition table (128MB???).
3) System partition with boot flag set.
4) Boot partition.

*******

If you haven't messed up too badly, you should be able to
use disk backup/clone software, clone "most" of the partitions
to the SSD, and it'll boot. Maybe your C: is too big to fit
the SSD, and "resize-on-the-fly" feature of the backup/clone
tool will fix that for you. If you have a D: partition with
terabytes of movies, maybe not cloning that would be a good idea.

I've marked up the config on the Test Machine, as a worked example.

https://s22.postimg.org/p97zdmpgx/clone_example.gif

Give us a pointer to a picture of your Disk Management screen,
with as many disks showing as you think matters. Try to resize the
display, so we can read the "system" and "boot" stamps in the
picture, and advise you what steps might be good or bad.

Paul
I would use Macrium Reflect (free) for cloning the C drive to the new
SSD. It is easier and faster than Disk Management IMO. The boot
partition should be on the C drive unless you have a non standard
install. Your source partition is C, your destination is your new
drive. Click 'Clone this Disk' and select your destinination drive. It
is quite easy.
I wrote the above when I was busy so disregard:
It is easier and faster than Disk Management IMO.
I rarely use Disk Management. Easeus Partition Master is my main tool
for disk related tasks.

When you clone you will get an exact copy, you don't have to worry
about drive letter etc., so if it boots on the old C drive then your
new SSD should boot after cloning. Your SSD will now be the C drive
after you remove the old drive and reboot.

I am assuming your SSD has enough space to fit all the data from your
old C drive. Computers usually come with a huge C drive with all the
pictures, music and other data on it. I like to have data on a
separate drive or partition and C to have system and programs only.
This setup makes it easier to do backups of your C drive. You could
use your old drive as a data drive after you format it.
More thoughts:
If by chance your C drive is actually 'smaller' than your
(unformatted) SSD then you may end up with some unformatted space
after you clone. For example you clone 128GBs to a 256GB drive, you
may have 1/2 the drive unformatted after the cloning. You can easily
fix this with Easeus Partition Master (Free) which lets you resize the
partition without harming any data. In EPM you just drag the
partition to fill the unformatted space and click the 'Apply' arrow at
the top of the EPM window.

The other option would be to format the SSD before you clone then any
extra space is already formatted. Easeus Partition Master is a good
tool for this too. I think it is easiest to drag the smaller partition
to fill the unformated space as described above then you don't have to
worry about MBR or GPT. I am on an old computer and the hard drives
are under 1GB so I still use basic MBR not GPT. I don't know if you
have an old computer that was updated or a new computer with GPT.
My new gaming computer I just built is another story.

Thinking more about the above advice. If your original C is 'smaller'
than the target SSD then it is best to format the SSD before you
clone. I once had a problem with messed up disk geometry after making
the partition fill the unformatted space. It only happened once out of
the many times I did it but I would not want it to happen to you.
Murphys Law is always present.

Macrium can shrink or expand.

However, this works "best" if the last partition on
the right, is the one to be used for "filling" the
target device. In the example postimg photo I provided,
my partitions are in the wrong order for doing this (easily).

+-----+----------------+--------------+
| MBR | 450MB Recovery | C: partition { --- big partition is on the end
+-----+----------------+--------------+

.... Expand-on-clone

+-----+----------------+-----------------------+
| MBR | 450MB Recovery | C: partition {
+-----+----------------+-----------------------+

Macrium can be used in combination with a traditional
Partition Management application.

In the example picture I provided, perhaps I could move the
450MB Recovery Partition, to be to the left of the main partition.
Then, after doing that, I would find that Macrium can now "magically"
meet my every wish during the clone, no muss or fuss. It may either
take prep-work before the clone, or after the clone. That's why,
if the OP provides a picture, that makes it easier to comment
on options to get it done.

I've resized *every* partition during a Macrium Clone.

When I cloned my Test Machine Win7, from an old flaky drive
to a new WDC drive, I changed the size of *every* partition
during the operation. However, the drive ended up "gap-toothed",
because Macrium lacks the ability to move the origin of a partition.
Later, I could use a regular partition manager, to move the
partitions to the left and snug them up.

The trick is, to recognize tool limits, and augment
them with a second (free) tool.

I'm not really all that impressed with modern Partition
Manager applications. I still find there are times I
resort to Partition Magic (paid) tool. As some partition
applications today border on "clueless". Some of these
modern companies, could learn a thing or two by looking
at some of those old versions of Partition Magic. It may
have had some pretty corny handling methods, the status
indicator could freeze (but the operation would still complete),
but it always managed to finish the job you gave it, successfully.
One of the modern freebies, when I did a search on "failures",
the tool couldn't even resize a FAT32 successfully :-\ There
was a report of a failure while doing that. One of the reasons
Partition Magic was so successful at what it did, is it
absolutely refuses to touch anything "non-standard". If even
one parameter is a bit abnormal on a partition, it throws
an error code and exits. "Learn to run away, live to
play another day."

Paul

On Fri, 26 May 2017 02:20:32 -0400, Paul
wrote:

Justin Tyme wrote:
On Thu, 25 May 2017 21:24:07 -0700, Justin Tyme
wrote:

On Thu, 25 May 2017 19:56:08 -0700, Justin Tyme
wrote:

On Thu, 25 May 2017 17:06:48 -0700, Justin Tyme
wrote:

On Thu, 25 May 2017 15:52:46 -0400, Paul
wrote:

Alek wrote:
I would like to add an SSD and make it C:

Can I just image the C: partition on my HD to it and then install it?

Do I have to change the HD drive letter or will Windows do that for me?

Thanks.

Macrium can shrink or expand.

Right. I mistakenly thought that was one of the limitations of the
free version. I use the paid version of Macrium.
--
JT