Thirith on 24/10/2011 at 08:19
I've got a pre-built computer that uses a 40GB SSD drive as its root drive. While I've taken care not to install things on C, the drive is pretty full, with only 6-7GB still free, so I was thinking about getting a new drive to serve as C.
How does this work on Windows 7? Can I just use Window's backup function to copy everything onto a new drive (larger SSD - I've grown used to the fast startup) and then replace the 40GB drive with the new, bigger one? Is there anything to keep in mind that will save me trouble down the road?
Matthew on 24/10/2011 at 09:52
Argh, there was a fantastic migration guide that I looked at when I was thinking of upgrading my primary drive to an SSD, but now I can't find it. I think it was from an Australian website - I will search for it.
Thirith on 24/10/2011 at 10:12
Cool, thanks!
gunsmoke on 25/10/2011 at 00:04
I have a similar problem on Vista. I am running out of space on C: and I have ~ 10 gigs to allocate to it on the other partition. The in-OS tool says I can only re-allocate like 20 megabytes from the D: partition to C: no matter how much space I make on D:.
Any suggestions?
Nathan on 25/10/2011 at 23:38
I don't believe Windows backup will allow you to just copy files over and have it work like that but...
There are a couple of free programs which may help you with this.
1. Easeus Partition Manager (for gunsmoke)
and
2. Macrium Reflect
Easeus will let you create/modify existing partitions. Macrium Reflect will let you make an image of the drive so you can quickly and easily restore it or clone it to a new drive like what you want to do.
Before you do anything you should check the inside of your computer to see if you have an open bay for the SSD and an empty SATA port and power cord from the power supply. The empty bays will probably be the 3.5" size.
Here are the steps to clone your drive:
1. Download Macrium Reflect Free edition and install it on your current drive.
2. Get the new SSD drive and hook it up to your computer. You probably have a few SATA ports in there so this shouldn't be a problem. Just plug it into an empty one (hopefully the SSD came with a SATA cable if not you will need one). Don't forget to plug in the power also. There should be an unused cable coming from the power supply.
3. Now that your new SSD is installed go into go into Macrium and select clone drive. Select your 40 GB drive as the source and the new SSD as the destination and follow the instructions.
4. Once the cloning is complete switch the physical connections of the drives around. Plug your new drive into the port your old drive was in and plug the old drive into the next SATA port. This will help you avoid having to go into the BIOS if you don't know how. Or, if you don't want to do that you can just go into the BIOS and change the default boot order so that the larger SSD comes before the older one.
After all that is done you can just reformat your old drive and everything should be good to go.
Thirith on 26/10/2011 at 05:24
Thanks for those comprehensive instructions!
Thirith on 2/11/2011 at 18:04
Just finished installing the new SSD and letting Macrium Reflect do its magic. Everything seems to have worked okay - except my Drive 0 (the new HD) is assigned to E, with the previous boot disk (the SSD that was running out of space) still has the letter C. E is the boot drive, so that's okay - but ideally I'd want to run the new, larger drive as C. Any tips on how I'd go about doing this? I can't seem to change it from inside Windows 7; I get a message saying that the "parameter is incorrect" if I change C to anything and then try to change E to C.
Nathan on 4/11/2011 at 14:04
Try unplugging your old drive and only try and boot from the new one and check what letter is assigned to it. If it is not C:\ then try and change it to C:\. If that works then plug in the old drive again and see what happens.
Thirith on 4/11/2011 at 14:07
Thanks, will try that!
