How to move windows 8.1 to an ssd from a hard drive.

[Maximus III]

I recently bought a laptop and installed windows as well as the usual stuff, but later bought an ssd which i am currently having trouble with. I wanted to clone my current os drive onto my ssd(which i tried) but realized after doing so that my other drive still had a windows symbol and was still realized as the os drive. I than removed the harddrive from my computer and tried to boot from my ssd but of cours it did not work. i also used a program to help clone the os towards the ssd. Does anyone know the problem? thanks in advance

 

[clutchc]

It sounds like your cloning pgm did not clone the boot sector. Some cloning pgms. require you to specify that be done; they don't do it automatically. Which cloning pgm. did you use?

 

[Maximus III]

easeus todo backup free

 

[clutchc]

easeus todo backup free

Yep. I use that too. There's a spot in the EaseUS interface you need to look for that allows it to include the boot sector.

Another thing that is often overlooked, is that one has to sometimes increase the space on the larger drive to include all of it. Otherwise the clone will be the same size as the original... leaving you with two partitions.

 

[Maximus III]

well i couldnt find the boot sector but i was however able to shrink my hdd partition to make it smaller so i could fit it. im going to move all my user files into my d: drive to restore them later after the clone but before i clone i would like to know if deleting my current os after cloning will cause any problems i recently remember trying but it said that i cannot format my os even though i moved it into my ssd. where should i select my ssd as the boot option in my bios.(mine might be different then other bios's

 

[Maximus III]

there wasnt an option that said to include the boot sector however there is one that says sector by sector clone and an option that says optimize for ssd.

 

[clutchc]

there wasnt an option that said to include the boot sector however there is one that says sector by sector clone and an option that says optimize for ssd.

Optimizing for the SSD is advisable.
I don't have EaseUS open right now. And I don't want to clone anything. But I remember having to select to have the boot sector (MBR) cloned or the result was a drive that wouldn't boot. It might be worded differently, like 'make bootable' or something.

Or maybe they did away with having to manually select that in the new version: http://www.todo-backup.com/support/tutorial/clone-hard-drive.htm
Maybe the sector by sector clone is the item to check with the new version. I can't remember exactly, because it's been awhile since I've cloned a drive.
But you'll want to remove the orig. drive and plug the new drive into its SATA header when done.