Problems with cloning HDD with Windows 7 -> SSD

aukikco

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Mar 15, 2014
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I just bought a Samsung 840 SSD. I'm intending to use it as a system drive. My HDD has three partitions: "System reserved", a windows partition and a data partition (which I do not intend to clone).

I downloaded Clonezilla and installed it onto a USB stick. The first problem I had was that the program didn't recognize the SSD at all. I fixed this by rebooting into Windows and created a single partition onto the SSD and formatted it. After this, I succesfully cloned my Windows partition. However, Windows still didn't boot from the SSD (and I did check that the data itself had been cloned)

After a bit of googling I got the impression that the System reserved partition should also be cloned, so I then shrinked my SSD partition with Windows Disk Management and formatted that too. I then cloned the SR partition too...

...to no avail. I removed my HD drive and checked that BIOS has the SSD as a boot drive. Alas, There doesn't seem to be a boot sector on the drive.

I tried running System repair from the Windows 7 installation disc, but it didn't find anything to repair; at this stage the repair software didn't list any operating system.

I saw a guide mention an option in Clonezilla to clone the boot loader, but I didn't see such an option at all.

What's the next step I ought to take? I'm wondering whether it's a problem that my Windows partition is now before the System reserved partition on my SSD?
 


That can create issues, the boot sector will list the partitions and they will not be there. Especially if your page file was not on C:

You can generally only migrate from a smaller HD to an equal or larger HD.
 

Wow, no workaround for this?
 


Not if the page file is not located on C:, the Windows installation is broken in this case. You'll need to boot to the old disk and check.

You could try deleted all the partitions except C: and leave the remaining disk unused, and see if that copy would work.

IMHO, you're better off with a clean install. Less effort, better performance, less problems down the road.
 
Yes there is a fix to make the cloned drive boot.
You have to re create the boot record.

If you want manually recreate the boot manager and it's options, you should set the drive as system, disconnect all other drives in the system, and then run BootRec.EXE from the install disk. Options include /FixMbr to create a new MBR table, /FixBoot to re-write a win7 boot sector, and /RebuildBcd to scan for installed OS's and compile the boot table.

You can do this through the cmd or dos prompt option in repair tools of windows Setup/ install cd/dvd.
 


So which one of those options is the one I want?
 


Those are the instructions to create a new boot sector on the the new disk.

You'll need to follow all of them, in order.
 

/Fixmbr worked fine.
/Fixboot returned an "element not found" error.
/Rebuildbdc got into the "add installation to boot list" query, but after replying, returned the same "element not found" error.

Tried to boot from the SSD after this, got a "Disc read error occurred" error message.

After trying to re-apply the system recovery software. This time the software recognized my Windows installation at this stage, but while trying to proceed , got a "This version of System Recovery Options is not compatible with the version of windows you are trying to repair. Try using a recovery disc that is compatible with this version of windows." error.