Cloned my HDD to my SSD, how do I make my SSD my boot drive?

[Qurtson]

So hello guys, I'm a total noob at these computer stuff. Anyway, I'm having problems setting my new SSD as my boot drive. I have successfully cloned my HDD onto my SSD but I don't know how to set it as my boot drive, I have set it so that the SSD will run before the HDD in bios.

I'm not really sure if this matters or not but for my SSD it says that AHCI mode is activated.

And I actually tried to format my HDD but it didn't recommend me that since my "real" windows is on that disk (no problem formatting the SSD tho).

I also tried to temporarily remove the HDD so that it would only be one drive, but it didn't work. Got a black screen with a white text.

Here's a screenshot from my Disk Management:

EDIT: Check my last post to see my solution.

 

[CountMike]

It doesn't look like cloning succeeded. If it did, both drives would be same. Your HDD is double the size of your SSD so it wouldn't fit anyway.

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hey there, Qurtson.

Well usually when you clone the your OS from the HDD to the SSD the only thing you might need to do is to set the boot priority from your BIOS/UEFI, which from what I understand you've already done.
However, it doesn't seem like you've cloned the OS as the SSD (F: ) does not have any of the partitions related to an OS drive (boot, page file, system, etc.).

I'd suggest that you check out this tutorial and try again to see if everything is OK afterwards: http://lifehacker.com/5837543/how-to-migrate-to-a-solid-state-drive-without-reinstalling-windows.

If your system was running with the IDE SATA mode you should change it to AHCI, but not only by changing the SATA controller's mode to AHCI via your BIOS, you should also make a registry change: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-2347183/change-ide-ahci-reinstall-windows.html. You should do that before you clone the OS, so that you have it with the new settings on the SSD and so that you don't have to change it again.

Hope that helps.
Boogieman_WD

 

[ArtPog]

So hello guys, I'm a total noob at these computer stuff. Anyway, I'm having problems setting my new SSD as my boot drive. I have successfully cloned my HDD onto my SSD but I don't know how to set it as my boot drive, I have set it so that the SSD will run before the HDD in bios.

I'm not really sure if this matters or not but for my SSD it says that AHCI mode is activated.

And I actually tried to format my HDD but it didn't recommend me that since my "real" windows is on that disk (no problem formatting the SSD tho).

I also tried to temporarily remove the HDD so that it would only be one drive, but it didn't work. Got a black screen with a white text.

Here's a screenshot from my Disk Management:

For a moment forget about the BIOS setting re the boot priority order, OK?

1. Disconnect the SSD from the system.

2. Boot to your 1 TB HDD to determine it boots to your Desktop and functions without problems. Assuming it does, shut down the PC.

3. If you can't boot into your system with the 1 TB HDD connected, access the boot menu when you begin the boot procedure. (You access the boot menu by pressing the required F key (or another key such as the Esc key). Each motherboard system requires the appropriate key for this process).

4. So if no problems arise re booting to the system via your 1 TB HDD, repeat the disk-cloning operation. (If it's not inconvenient at this point connect the SSD to your motherboard's first SATA connector (port) usually designated SATA 0 or SATA 1, and the HDD to a following SATA connector).

5. After the disk-cloning operation completes and you've shut down the PC, DISCONNECT THE HDD from the system. Boot only with the SSD connected, capiche?

6. Assuming all is well, i.e., the SSD boots & functions without problems, you can then reconnect the HDD after shutting down the PC.

 

[Qurtson]

It doesn't look like cloning succeeded. If it did, both drives would be same. Your HDD is double the size of your SSD so it wouldn't fit anyway.

My HDD isn't full, 210gb is being used of 931. (But I'm guessing you're right about the cloning part.)

Hey there, Qurtson.

Well usually when you clone the your OS from the HDD to the SSD the only thing you might need to do is to set the boot priority from your BIOS/UEFI, which from what I understand you've already done.
However, it doesn't seem like you've cloned the OS as the SSD (F: ) does not have any of the partitions related to an OS drive (boot, page file, system, etc.).

I'd suggest that you check out this tutorial and try again to see if everything is OK afterwards: http://lifehacker.com/5837543/how-to-migrate-to-a-solid-state-drive-without-reinstalling-windows.

If your system was running with the IDE SATA mode you should change it to AHCI, but not only by changing the SATA controller's mode to AHCI via your BIOS, you should also make a registry change: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-2347183/change-ide-ahci-reinstall-windows.html. You should do that before you clone the OS, so that you have it with the new settings on the SSD and so that you don't have to change it again.

Hope that helps.
Boogieman_WD

I was actually following that guide, and my HDD is currently using 210gb, same with my SSD, 210gb. So I'm guessing that everything got cloned correctly? I had already done that registry change, but I retried and did as you told me just to be sure, didn't succeed tho.

So hello guys, I'm a total noob at these computer stuff. Anyway, I'm having problems setting my new SSD as my boot drive. I have successfully cloned my HDD onto my SSD but I don't know how to set it as my boot drive, I have set it so that the SSD will run before the HDD in bios.

I'm not really sure if this matters or not but for my SSD it says that AHCI mode is activated.

And I actually tried to format my HDD but it didn't recommend me that since my "real" windows is on that disk (no problem formatting the SSD tho).

I also tried to temporarily remove the HDD so that it would only be one drive, but it didn't work. Got a black screen with a white text.

Here's a screenshot from my Disk Management:

For a moment forget about the BIOS setting re the boot priority order, OK?

1. Disconnect the SSD from the system.

2. Boot to your 1 TB HDD to determine it boots to your Desktop and functions without problems. Assuming it does, shut down the PC.

3. If you can't boot into your system with the 1 TB HDD connected, access the boot menu when you begin the boot procedure. (You access the boot menu by pressing the required F key (or another key such as the Esc key). Each motherboard system requires the appropriate key for this process).

4. So if no problems arise re booting to the system via your 1 TB HDD, repeat the disk-cloning operation. (If it's not inconvenient at this point connect the SSD to your motherboard's first SATA connector (port) usually designated SATA 0 or SATA 1, and the HDD to a following SATA connector).

5. After the disk-cloning operation completes and you've shut down the PC, DISCONNECT THE HDD from the system. Boot only with the SSD connected, capiche?

6. Assuming all is well, i.e., the SSD boots & functions without problems, you can then reconnect the HDD after shutting down the PC.

Everything worked out well until step 5, when I disconnected the HDD I started up the PC and I got this message: Reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media in selected boot device and press a key.

 

[CountMike]

If it was successfully cloned, SSD would show same partitions and same descriptions as HDD had. Without them being like that, there will be no booting from it.

 

[ArtPog]

It's conceivable something went amiss with the disk-cloning operation. Are you reasonably certain you correctly used the program? What program did you use?

Also, try this...
As you boot up, access the boot menu following the procedure in 3. above. Is the SSD listed there and if you select that disk to boot do you still get the error message?

IT JUST DAWNED ON ME that you were attempting to clone the contents of a 1 TB HDD to a 500 GB SSD. That won't work since the disk-space capacity of the destination disk is insufficient to contain the contents of the larger disk. On the other hand if you were only cloning a partition of your source drive that contained the OS and that partition was less than 500 GB, it would work.

 

[Qurtson]

I succeeded, I'm leaving my solution here so that if someone has the same problem they'll know what to do.

Basically like you can see if you read all the posts in this thread, I didn't get my cloning to work. And the way I got it to work was to use Samsung's Data Migration software, worked flawless, it cloned the whole drive. Works like a charm. (Almost too easy lol.)

And thank you everyone that tried to help me, appreciate it.

 

[ArtPog]

Just out of curiosity so that it may benefit other users...
How were you able to clone the contents of your 1 TB HDD to your 500 GB SSD?
Were you just able to clone the OS installed on the 1 TB HDD because it resided on a partition on that disk?
So now when you boot your system you're able to boot to the 500 GB SSD that is now designated the C: drive. Is that right?
And your 1 TB HDD bears another drive letter assignment (other than C. Is that right?
Or what?

 

[Qurtson]

Just out of curiosity so that it may benefit other users...
How were you able to clone the contents of your 1 TB HDD to your 500 GB SSD?
Were you just able to clone the OS installed on the 1 TB HDD because it resided on a partition on that disk?
So now when you boot your system you're able to boot to the 500 GB SSD that is now designated the C: drive. Is that right?
And your 1 TB HDD bears another drive letter assignment (other than C. Is that right?
Or what?

Well, my HDD isn't full, only 210gb is being used. (I just used Samsung migration software, I don't know all the technicals.) And yes, my SSD is now my C: drive. And after it migrated I shutdown my PC and then disconnected the HDD and then started up the SSD. Worked like a charm. I'm guessing that the previous clone didn't clone the OS.

Screenshot from my disk management now:

 

[ArtPog]

Just out of curiosity so that it may benefit other users...
How were you able to clone the contents of your 1 TB HDD to your 500 GB SSD?
Were you just able to clone the OS installed on the 1 TB HDD because it resided on a partition on that disk?
So now when you boot your system you're able to boot to the 500 GB SSD that is now designated the C: drive. Is that right?
And your 1 TB HDD bears another drive letter assignment (other than C. Is that right?
Or what?

Well, my HDD isn't full, only 210gb is being used. (I just used Samsung migration software, I don't know all the technicals.) And yes, my SSD is now my C: drive. And after it migrated I shutdown my PC and then disconnected the HDD and then started up the SSD. Worked like a charm. I'm guessing that the previous clone didn't clone the OS.

Screenshot from my disk management now:

Well, that explains it. It's too bad you didn't indicate the total amount of the data residing on your "source" disk - the 1 TB HDD in your opening query. On the other hand we (or, at least I!) were remiss in not originally obtaining that info from you at the beginning of this thread.

As you indicated probably something went amiss during the original disk-cloning operation. It's quite common. The Samsung Data Migration program you finally used is a fine program based on our experience. We've used it dozens of times with various systems and never encountered a problem due to that program.