Thinkpads Forum

I'm about to install an SSD in a T61. I know clean install is best so will go that route. I am in a rush to do it and don't have time to back up the current HDD. So would it be possible for this scenario?

1. Install SDD and then install OS (W7 64bit)

2. Move HDD to Ultrabay with existing OS (W7 64 bit) and files intact.

3. Boot system and then read the files off the HDD and transfer as necessary to the SSD?

I think the basic question is can I have an OS in the Ultrabay and boot the notebook without any problems or potential for corrupting things?

A problem I encountered many years ago which led to the corruption of both bootable disk drives that were connected on the same system (one was the main drive, the other a backup attached to the secondary IDE channel), was due to having the backup being a clone of the main drive. Apparently when booting with this configuration, Windows got confused as to which was the "real" drive and ended up doing something that caused both drives to become unbootable. After that, I learned my lesson.

I believe that as long as the drives are not exact copies of each other, you'll be okay. However, to be entirely safe, I would remove the HDD, install the SSD and load the OS, boot the SSD, then put the system in standby or hibernate mode. Attach the HDD via the Ultrabay HD adapter then continue from standby/hibernate. This way you will avoid cold-booting the system with two similar OSs installed. At least that's what I would do.

edit: One other thing, when the HDD in the Ultrabay adapter is first recognized by the SSD's OS, it may start to "Autorun". I'm not sure if W7 supports this, but if you hold down the Shift key while the SSD's OS is probing the newly connected drive, it will suppress the Autorun function.

Howdy

Although my knowledge on W7 isn't as thorough as prior Win OS's (barely touched a Vista system either),
I would think you're going to have problems with that unless you use a Boot Manager like BootIT Bare Metal.

I doubt W7 would handle the primary active partition(s) on your original install any better than prior win OS's.

You can always edit your boot.ini file and sort it out, but the drive letters on a partitioned system will surely change.
--------------
Wow rkawakami, I didn't even notice you posted a response. and BTW, you're correct about cloned drives.
Even Bare Metal has warnings about that.

So you just want to install a new OS on the SSD (which will be your main drive from now on), and then get files from the old HDD to the SSD?

That's easy. Remove the HDD, install OS on the SSD. Boot the SSD, hotplug the HDD via Ultrabay and transfer whatever you want.

Or did I misunderstand something?

dr_st wrote:So you just want to install a new OS on the SSD (which will be your main drive from now on), and then get files from the old HDD to the SSD?

That's easy. Remove the HDD, install OS on the SSD. Boot the SSD, hotplug the HDD via Ultrabay and transfer whatever you want.

Or did I misunderstand something?

Exactly what I want to do. So the hotswapping will eliminate the corruption problems? And it is possible to do a hotswap?

LemarAntwanJackson wrote:Exactly what I want to do. So the hotswapping will eliminate the corruption problems? And it is possible to do a hotswap?

The OS might not "see" the new drive right away. That's why I'd prefer taking Ray's route with putting the system to sleep and then inserting the HDD, and proceeding to wake it up afterwards.

I have found that as long as you ensure that you are booting from the correct disk in the bios or F12 menu then you will be able to copy everything from the Ultrabay easily with out any issues despite there being two bootable partitions.

However I increasingly use a PCI-Express Card USB3 adapter and an external disk adapter dock as this is extremely easy to use without any rebooting and the transfer speeds are almost identical to the ultrabay. The adapter dock I use is a simple plug in device that takes SATA and IDE disks of all sizes.