Windows 7 installer won't see SSD.

Ostriig on 2/12/2010 at 23:52

I've got a new laptop on the way, with a little bit of luck it may even get delivered tomorrow, and I've already got an SSD waiting to be picked up at the Royal Mail depot, and I understand it would be possible to clone the existing HDD (a 320GB, mostly empty naturally) onto the new one (120GB, presumably unformatted) directly. Can anyone offer any advice on this, utilities to use and any tips, specifics to pay attention to?

Nevermind, bigger problem, see (http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=134047&p=2034339&viewfull=1#post2034339) below.

Renzatic on 3/12/2010 at 00:32

Best free option: (http://gparted.sourceforge.net/screenshots.php) Gparted.

You can get it as a standalone boot CD, or if you want to go a slight bit fancier, by running it through a Ubuntu Live CD session (or run Ubuntu off a thumb drive, which is what I really recommend). I've done plenty of splits and resizes on NTFS formatted drives using Gparted. It's quick, efficient, and dead simple to use.

But if you want something more Windows specific, and don't mind paying a bit of money, then get...

(http://www.fssdev.com/products/casper/) Casper 6.0.

It uses a wizard interface, and will have you up and cloning within a few clicks. For $50, it's not a bad deal, and definitely easier to use than most other cloning tools I've tried. If you want to try it out for free, I believe the trial version will clone a partition, but won't allow you to resize it to fill a bigger HDD. So if, for example, you're wanting to move the contents from a 120Gb drive to a 320Gb drive, it'll copy the 120Gb onto the 320, but only as a separate 120Gb partition.

In my opinion, these are your two best options. Read up on em, and see what you think.

Edit: One thing to keep in mind with Gparted is that I haven't used it clone a Windows partition before. You'll more than likely be able to use it and keep the partition bootable, but it might require you to flip a few switches I'm not immediately aware of to make it do so. Casper is the only one I've used to clone a Windows partition, and it has that the bootable option right up front.

Ostriig on 3/12/2010 at 03:14

Thanks, Renz! I'll check these out tomorrow after I hopefully get my hands on the laptop, gotta hit the sack.

Um... one more thing, and this will be an intensely stupid question, but better safe than sorry - I don't need to "deactivate" a Windows license key on its original hard drive before copying the OS or restoring it from a service disc to a new hard drive, do I? See, I've only started dealing with Windows keys proper in the past four years or so, and since then it's only happened to be when slapping on a new OS altogether, license key and all. Even more iffy since this would be an OEM license.

Renzatic on 3/12/2010 at 03:54

No, you won't have to do much of anything regarding your key. You'll just move your stuff to the new drive and things will go on as usual. At worst (and this is very unlikely to happen), it might bother you to into doing the Windows genuine certification thing again. But that's about it.

lost_soul on 3/12/2010 at 19:35

I usually use dd for Linux to backup my installs. I created a small 10 GB partition when I installed the OS, set it up exactly how I want it, and backed it up to a 1.6 GB compressed archive. Now I can blast that image on any machine I've got and use resize2fs (I think that is the command) to grow the file system to fit the larger partition size. Just be careful when using DD. If you accidently type of=/dev/sda instead of of=/dev/sda2, it will start writing at the beginning of the disk and not partition 2, destroying ALL data on the drive!

Ostriig on 4/12/2010 at 22:07

Thanks for the info, guys, but for the time being I seem to have run into another problem. I got the machine yesterday and I booted it up, completed Windows' first setup, and as soon as I logged on I got prompted by the pre-installed solution AI Recovery to make myself recovery discs (sorry, lost_soul, looks like Asus have also stopped shipping with them already made). So I figured what the hell, might as well do this backup right away, and then I can use the discs to restore the OS and sidetrack the need to clone the HDD. So I did, burned 5 DVDs, then swapped out the HDD for the SSD, and closed the laptop back up. And then... let me copy paste from another forum where I've also asked for help, this is driving me nuts.

Quote:

I swapped out the HDD on an N43JM with a 120GB Patriot Inferno SSD (BIOS sees it), put in the recovery DVDs made right after Windows finished setting up, and they restored the hidden service partition (checked with the aid of a Windows 7 boot disc for a different license I have). Now I'm trying to follow the manual's instructions, I press F9 during boot-up, select Windows Setup, then a Loading Windows screen appears, followed by the same grey-white desktop that AI Recovery showed when I was making the restore DVDs, but as soon as the loading circle just off the cursor disappears the laptop resets itself and goes right back to boot, after which I get a standard "Missing Operating System" message.

What's going on, this thing's seriously starting to give me a headache? Has anyone encountered this, is there any way to fix it? Alternatively, if there is no way to fix it, is there any other way that I can restore the OS image off the old HDD back to this new drive?

Edit: I've had another look at that hidden partition through the Windows 7 Repair tools on the installation disc, Boot [noparse](X:)[/noparse], and it features the following:
Program Files (229 KB)
sources (37.2 MB)
Users (1.33 MB)
Windows (977 MB)
setup.exe (104 KB)

Oddly enough, despite its contents, the partition reports having 2.43 MB occupied out of a total 33.7 MB size. I don't know if this is relevant.

Anyone know anything about this? I'd prefer it if it were possible to restore the image off the backup partition, if for nothing else than avoiding opening up the laptop again as that involves taking off two rubber feet and that sticky tape will probably only take some much abuse, though I suppose if it just doesn't work I may have to go back to cloning. Or retrieving the license key and installing a fresh copy of Windows 7 without any of the bundled utilities, valued or bloatware, but either way it means opening it up again. I mean, I don't suppose this could be indicative of some sort of obscure incompatibility or damage to the drive, right?

CaptSyn on 5/12/2010 at 02:54

You can't take a Windows install from one computer and expect it to work on a completely different computer with completely different hardware.

You need to do a clean install on the new machine.

Ostriig on 5/12/2010 at 03:08

The image I'm trying to restore isn't from a different machine, it's backed up from the same laptop, only the HDD has changed. And it's not the OS that is crashing or failing to boot, it's the recovery software, the one that would restore the image of the OS from the hidden service partition back to the main partition, that's failing and resetting the laptop at execution.

CaptSyn on 5/12/2010 at 03:49

If the recovery app doesn't work, then a clean install from disc is your only other option.

You could've done a clean install in less time than you've spent messing with that faulty recovery app.

Ostriig on 5/12/2010 at 17:25

Yeah, the install itself, but the problem was tracking down all the utilities and crap.

Regardless, I did try a clean install and now I have a bigger problem:

Quote:

Okay, nevermind the above, more serious problem and this time I'm completely stumped - got a clean installer of Win7 and tried to do that, but it won't see the SSD. BIOS sees it, 120 GB Patriot Inferno, I've stuck it in an external rack and hooked it up to my desktop, it saw it and I did a quick NTFS format, the Windows 7 installer just won't see it, despite the fact that it still sees both the hidden Boot X: partition and the standard C: partition if I go through the Repair option and click to Load Drivers.

Okay, does anyone have any clue as to what the fuck is going on? This is just fucking pushing it. There was no drivers disc with the SSD, and the Installer does fucking see it under explorer, but not for installation purposes.