I just configured a new system (X99 MSI Raider with 5820K) and I am planning to install Windows 7 Pro on an M.2 SSD. This is the plan for the new computer, but I am concerned about the portability (being able to move/clone this installation from the SSD to another drive in the future if necessary, like a regular HDD) because I in the meantime been trying to swap HDD in my laptop and have been having difficulty doing this with Windows 7 Home Premium (e.g., when trying to clone the drive on Ubuntu system, I get I/O errors) and I am wondering if the AF might be an issue for Windows 7 (I have read some posts that claim Win 7 does not support AF).
So, back to the issue: Why am I having a hard time cloning a Win 7 OS from the old HDD to the new HDD?
In the past, I have had no problem copying an OS from one drive to another. I just boot to a separate drive (in the past this was under XP), and copy say, drive e: to drive f:, no problem. I can now boot to drive f: (change boot device from BIOS).
To clarify exactly what I am trying that is not working: I have the new computer (X99 Raider with 5820K running Ubuntu 14.04) as the boot OS, connecting the old laptop drive with working Windows 7 Home Premium and the new laptop drive (actually an old good drive from another laptop) that I want to move the Win 7 Home Premium to. The reason is that I got a SMART warning that the old drive is failing, so I am trying to copy over the OS to the new HDD before it fails so I can still use that laptop (yes, it is a Dell XPS 501X).
I have tried just copying the files. I have tried imaging the drive and copying the image to the other drive. I have tried imaging each partition separately and then using gparted to copy each partition over. I have tried using a Windows 7 iso booting from USB and I have tried a Win7 DVD boot to do either restore/recover/fix boot/clean install/etc. Nothing seems to work. Either I get an I/O error (usually as part of the attempted transfer under Ubuntu), or I get to a point (with the USB/DVD boot install attempt) that it asks for "driver media" -- which doesn't make sense if the DVD is in the drive! (yes, I have tried the useless Dell media to no avail).
When I got the laptop, Dell did not send a restore DVD -- at that time the Recovery partition was supposed to be sufficient. But I cannot seem to get the OS to the new drive.
So, now I am thinking either the drive has already passed the point of recovery (though, why can I still boot and use the laptop with the old drive with no problem -- other than the warning the "hard drive failure is imminent"?), OR I am running up against a problem with the AF (Advanced Formatting). Apparently Ubuntu uses AF, so maybe when I copy the partitions, it is not set up for use with Win 7 (assuming Win 7 cannot handle AF)?
I think I will next try doing the transfer using my old XP machine (it worked in the past), but if anybody can suggest a better route, please let me know how I can do this. Thanks so much (and sorry for the book!).
P.S. I should also mention that, yes, the ISO and DVD I have include SP1. Also, I am trying to move from larger drive to smaller...
So, back to the issue: Why am I having a hard time cloning a Win 7 OS from the old HDD to the new HDD?
In the past, I have had no problem copying an OS from one drive to another. I just boot to a separate drive (in the past this was under XP), and copy say, drive e: to drive f:, no problem. I can now boot to drive f: (change boot device from BIOS).
To clarify exactly what I am trying that is not working: I have the new computer (X99 Raider with 5820K running Ubuntu 14.04) as the boot OS, connecting the old laptop drive with working Windows 7 Home Premium and the new laptop drive (actually an old good drive from another laptop) that I want to move the Win 7 Home Premium to. The reason is that I got a SMART warning that the old drive is failing, so I am trying to copy over the OS to the new HDD before it fails so I can still use that laptop (yes, it is a Dell XPS 501X).
I have tried just copying the files. I have tried imaging the drive and copying the image to the other drive. I have tried imaging each partition separately and then using gparted to copy each partition over. I have tried using a Windows 7 iso booting from USB and I have tried a Win7 DVD boot to do either restore/recover/fix boot/clean install/etc. Nothing seems to work. Either I get an I/O error (usually as part of the attempted transfer under Ubuntu), or I get to a point (with the USB/DVD boot install attempt) that it asks for "driver media" -- which doesn't make sense if the DVD is in the drive! (yes, I have tried the useless Dell media to no avail).
When I got the laptop, Dell did not send a restore DVD -- at that time the Recovery partition was supposed to be sufficient. But I cannot seem to get the OS to the new drive.
So, now I am thinking either the drive has already passed the point of recovery (though, why can I still boot and use the laptop with the old drive with no problem -- other than the warning the "hard drive failure is imminent"?), OR I am running up against a problem with the AF (Advanced Formatting). Apparently Ubuntu uses AF, so maybe when I copy the partitions, it is not set up for use with Win 7 (assuming Win 7 cannot handle AF)?
I think I will next try doing the transfer using my old XP machine (it worked in the past), but if anybody can suggest a better route, please let me know how I can do this. Thanks so much (and sorry for the book!).
P.S. I should also mention that, yes, the ISO and DVD I have include SP1. Also, I am trying to move from larger drive to smaller...
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