Cloning Win XP to SSD

[Streetrace Djuka]

I have a lot of old programs that I use on my Win XP and which I want to keep. Some of them don't run on newer OS like Win 7 or later. Also some programs are not available and I'm in no mood to do an upgrade since the cost would be astronomical. Since I'm using an older PC the only way to get better results is to use an SSD. On my PC I have a seperate SSD on which a Win 7 is installed and the Win XP runs from a partitioned SATA2 HDD (C: 400GB, D: 400GB, E: 1200GB) as a dual boot. I have read a lot of pros and cons for XP on SSD and I want to do it since this is the only upgrade available for me for my needs. A member on this forum has already helped me with the dual boot MBR issue I had when I installed the SSD for the Win 7.

THE PROBLEM: If I clone the Win XP now running from my HDD to the new SSD will the MBR be cloned too? I'm not sure where the MBR is.

 

[reedo_43]

yes it will be cloned.

 

[RaDiKaL_]

Depending which program you use to clone, Acronis for example gives you the option to not clone the MBR.

One thing to consider, make sure you set your mobo SATA mode to the one your HDD is currently operating, if it's IDE you'll have to set your SSD to IDE as well otherwise the cloned OS won't properly boot, hopefully though you have that HDD set as AHCI so you won't lose any performance in your SSD.

 

[reedo_43]

Good point!

 

[ex_bubblehead]

Be advised that Windows XP does not support the TRIM function, which may impact performance and life of the SSD.

 

[Streetrace Djuka]

Depending which program you use to clone, Acronis for example gives you the option to not clone the MBR.

One thing to consider, make sure you set your mobo SATA mode to the one your HDD is currently operating, if it's IDE you'll have to set your SSD to IDE as well otherwise the cloned OS won't properly boot, hopefully though you have that HDD set as AHCI so you won't lose any performance in your SSD.

I have no idea how its configured so where do I look for it? BIOS setup? I will be using Acronis Migrate Easy v7.0 for the clone process.

 

[RaDiKaL_]

Yeah the SATA mode is set in BIOS, usually under advanced chipset options -> Storage though of course it varies from bios to bios, you just need to look around for it.

 

[Paul NZ]

But, if it was on IDE originally and if you change it to AHCI now it'll probably crash on you with a 0x7b stop error

You would have to find / run an XP SATA reg hack first before changing it to AHCI