Advice needed for Win7 SSD clone/migration

J

Jumbolyah

New Member
Good day all!

My custom-built PC's drive C is 98% full and I need to migrate my system data from a 240GB SSD to a 1TB SSD.

I believe that I can use EasyBCD's "Change the boot drive" to make my new drive the "boot source," but I wanted to seek advice on a few questions before I commit to anything.

First, I do not have my Win 7 install DVD, and MS says my Win 7 product key does not allow me to download an image... so I'm stuck with what I have.

I normally use AOMEI Backupper to maintain my backups, including a "System backup." My page file is on a separate disk, along with my Temp storage.

I've attached a screenshot of my Disk Management view and my EasyBCD view, in case that might help gauge how I have things set up.

I've restored my newest system backup to my new SSD and I have the 100MB letter-less partition and a healthy sized new "W" partition waiting to go. (AOMEI actually gave that small partition a drive letter, but I removed it and made the partition 'active' using Disk Management.)

Eventually, I would like my new SSD to become "C:" and my old SSD to stay in place for 'extra data storage.'
  • If I do change the drive letters (the current "W:" to "C:", and the current "C:" to "W:" or to something else), would I have to modify anything in the Windows Boot Manager or Windows Boot Loader?
  • Would it be safer to first add my current "W:" as a second boot option and then try to boot from that drive and look for any glitches? (Later removing "C:" as a boot option and then perhaps swapping drive letters as I don't need to dual boot.)
  • If I use "Change the boot drive" will EasyBCD account for the existing 100MB letter-less partition, or will EasyBCD try to create one of its own??
  • Should I disconnect the page file before changing the boot drive, or does it matter since it's on another disk?
  • Should I swap the drive letters before or after changing the boot drive?
  • And finally, is there a better backup/cloning tool than AOMEI?
Thanks for any guidance!

Disk Management.png

EasyBCD details.png
 
Firstly, don't go changing any letters.
Disk letters aren't "real". They only exist as virtual labels in the mind (registry) of the running OS.
There are no letters in the BCD at all.
EasyBCD translates the unintelligible UID hash which actually describes locations into letters using the above mentioned registry map so that you can easily understand what it's talking about and just as easily tell it what you want.
Changing "a letter" in the BCD just means you're pointing the BCD to the wrong place.

Depending on how the particular cloning/copying command you used in your partition manager works, you might just need to edit your BIOS to place the bigger SSD higher in the boot priority than the smaller, and reboot.
If W suddenly becomes C and is flagged "boot", and the accompanying Sys Res partition becomes "system" then you're home and dry.

If the boot fails, then you need to repair it
Fixing the Windows Bootloader via the setup DVD
In the absence of your Installation DVD
Control Panel > Backup & Restore > Create repair disc
will create a substitute which you can use (just for the repair, not to reinstall W7)

Burn a disc on your old OS before you start.
 
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