160GB Spinning drive Vista Cloning to Intel X25-M 80GB SSD

[demossmd]

What's the best software to use to clone my 160GB spinning drive to this smaller 80GB SSD drive? I am doing this with a T61p. I've read some of the posts here about cloning, and appears Acronis has problems. Is it the best? I may just reinstall Vista Business and my software and go from scratch (i.e. go through the updates horror show).

I got this laptop "new", i.e. a fresh install and after a few weeks (after the 160 MS/lenovo updates), the drive seemed to be above 80GB then it started going down, which I assume must be system restore. If I turn system restore off, will it significantly lower the number of GB on the drive? All I have on the machine is Vista Business 64 bit and Office Enterprise and a few small applications not worth mentioning.

I've got a 64bit Vista Business retail disc, so if it's a horror show to clone then let me know. I hate going through the updates (restart, restart, restart........) but clone hell sounds worse. Is there a good program out there for this?

[spwhiting@]

I just went from a 60 GB, 5400 RPM disk drive, (using Vista Home Premium) to a X25-M 80GB SSD using Apricon's EZ Gig II Upgrade Suite in a T60. I also made a backup of the 60 GB drive to an external USB 150 GB drivebefore the cloning started. After talking with Apricon's Tech service it was recomended that the SSD be installed in the T60 and the old 60 GB drive installed in the external Apricorn USB 2.0 case. Then use the Apricorn CD to boot without going in to Vista- the bios was not changed to 'boot' from the CD drive. During the cloning there were errors on the 60 GB drive, I "ignored all errors" during the cloning. After the clone was completed "Congratulations..." appears on the screen. I then turned off the computer uisng the power ON/OFF silver button. The Apricorn usb cable was removed from the T60. Remove the Apricorn CD- had to use a paper clip in the small hole on the CD drive. Bios (F1) was changed to boot from SSD. I then turned on the computer but got a black screen with boot error "Press CTRL ALT DELETE" to restart. This was done about three times with no luck. I attached the backup USB 150 GB backup drive, turned the T60 on, update the BIOS to boot from "USB HDD", which it did. A system restore using Rescue + Recovery was done- took about ten minutes to restore 49 GB to the SSD. Restarted, and all worked well. What a difference between the SSD and the 60 GB 5400 RPM disk drive - much faster than the 5400 RPM disk drive.


After about aq week of using all on the T60, i decided to clone the R51, using a 40 GB 4200 RPM drive running XP was updated with the 60 GB, 5400 RPM drive taken out of the T60. Somewhat of an improvement - not as much as the SSD in the T60. The R51 was backed up on the 150 GB USB 7200RPM external drive before the cloning was started. The 40 GB 4200 RPM drive was put in the external Apricorn holder and the 60 GB 5400 RPM drive was put in the R51. No problems were encountered, but Vista was extremely slow on the R51. The 60 GB 5400 drive was restored from the external backup since the R51 needed Windows XP. The 40 GB 4200 RPM was left in the external Apricorn holder and will be used as a backup for the R51.

Apricorn technicians were extremely helpful. The website http://www.apricorn.com has some FAQ that were helpful.

[Marin85]

@OP: Please also keep in mind that the clone image should be of such a size that would fit onto that SSD (since you area about to clone to a drive smaller in capacity than the original one).

[dsvochak]

To be safe I would reduce the partition size to 80gb before doing the clone (Computer management->Disk Management->Right click->shrink volume).

In theory the cloning procedure might adjust the sizes, but I wouldn't count on it.

[SafeHarbor]

The problem with shrinking a Vista drive is that Vista likes to stick a lot of files near the end of the partition. You can use the trial version of Partition Magic, which is a defragmenter, to move the system file inward to increase the amount you can shrink.

Lamar

[demossmd]

Thanks for the information. I went to the website and it states the software isn't for sale.

http://www.apricorn.com/product_detail. ... eg&id=1180

I have a regular 2.5" external USB enclosure, but I also own an old Apricorn 60GB external mini USB drive. The same product as their website except their previous version which is black rather than silver and slightly different USB dongle.

http://www.apricorn.com/products.php?cat_id=51

I'm going to go up into the Attic and find the Apricorn box to see if the disc is in there and see if it'll upgrade to the lastest version. I checked out both Ghost 14 and Acronis True Image and neither speak of cloning, however I've read some confusing posts about how people do it through the CD drive...why can't this be easy? I'll pay for any program if it works. Sigh (end brief rant)

I vaguely recall the box had some kind of cloning and backup software come with it, but I suspect it's a very old version (i.e. before Vista).

I'm thinking about going either with Ghost or Acronis. I've used Acronis Migrate Easy with XP which worked flawlessly, yet when I tried Acronis Migrate Easy 7.0 shortly after Vista was released, it failed every time but back then the user guide didn't say it worked with Vista, just XP. Now the user guide says it works with Vista, which is weird...I mean, why wouldn't they call it 8.0. Strange. The last time I tried cloning with Vista (which was right when Vista was released, both Ghost and Acronis wouldn't do it correctly). I kinda thought the bugs would be worked out by now. hmmm

Well, I have the pretty Intel SSD sitting here...I guess I'll any mini miney moe it, cuz I don't feel like doing a fresh install of Windows, Office, etc and going through update hell and calling up Microsoft to get permission to reinstall Office with 21 questions like I had to do on this computer. Microsoft and all the other companies should have an option on their software to deactivate it so that you can reactivate it on a different computer. Can't be that hard to add such a feature.

Currently, according to disk management, I have two partitians 8.1GB called SERVICEV002 which I believe is the system backup/recovery and then the main partitian of 141GB

I just went from a 60 GB, 5400 RPM disk drive, (using Vista Home Premium) to a X25-M 80GB SSD using Apricon's EZ Gig II Upgrade Suite in a T60. ..... Then use the Apricorn CD to boot without going in to Vista- the bios was not changed to 'boot' from the CD drive. .

[demossmd]

I just went from a 60 GB, 5400 RPM disk drive, (using Vista Home Premium) to a X25-M 80GB SSD using Apricon's EZ Gig II Upgrade Suite in a T60.

Ah, I found the Apricorn box and the EX Gig II disc is in the box. It says it's version 8.1.9. It says on the disc "EZ Gig II provides a simple way to upgrade or back up hard drives. With just a few clicks, users can Clone their existing hard drive, or create a compressed image of a drive or partition."

My only concern is the version. I paid like $300 for this 1.8" 60GB portable USB mini (spinning) drive, so that tells you how old this is. The manual is copyrighted 2005. I guess I'll install it on a different computer and see if it works with that computer first. I'd rather mess up one of my secondary computers than this one.

Has anybody else used other programs successfully? I'm trying to transfer about 40GB of Vista 64 bit Business Ed. OS from a 160GB spinning disc onto an 80GB SSD drive.

[demossmd]

The problem with shrinking a Vista drive is that Vista likes to stick a lot of files near the end of the partition. You can use the trial version of Partition Magic, which is a defragmenter, to move the system file inward to increase the amount you can shrink.

Lamar

Apparently my computer came with Diskeeper Home version 9 (which is an older version, seems there are several newer versions out there.) So I'm defragmenting it now using that software. I've already done a disc cleanup, Norton 360 3.0 system backup (I've read that you need to turn Norton OFF in order for EZ Gig II to work) and I deleted my Vista System Restore files which were taking up 19GB. I probably still need to do some kind of backup before I attempt this.

[demossmd]

UGH, I just read that Apricorn's Universal Upgrade Kit with EZ Gig II states:

"NOTE: EZ Gig II is currently not compatible with 64-bit Windows systems"

So looks like I'm back to square one.

Anyone know of a cloning system that works with 64 bit vista?

ACRONIS TRUE IMAGE 2009's product manual states it'll work with Windows XP SP3, Windows XP Professional 64 bit and Windows Vista (all editions). I guess I am suppose to assume that all edition includes 64 bit?

I'm going to buy Acronis True Image 2009 (it's only $39.99 at Bestbuy which is $10 less expensive than Acronis has it for...seems rare for BestBuy to actually provide a substantial discount on software). There's a review on Bestbuy's site that states it worked on their 64bit Vista system. Appears Ghost 14 doesn't do imaging of disk well, the reviews are horrible, only thing it does well is a backup.

Fingers crossed that it will work.

[demossmd]

Success. I have successfully installed my SSD drive using Acronis True Image 2009. I didn't have to do anything special either. I read some reviews about people having to do reverse cloning (i.e. putting the source hard drive into an enclosure and having the destination hard drive in the computer). I just put the blank hard drive in a USB enclosure, followed the few simple cloning procedure from Acronis and then after it was over I restarted the computer with the spinning drive first, then turned it off and put in my SSD drive. Some people also reported that they had to get the system to recognize the new drive with the Vista disc and something about 240 versus 255...anyway, none of that was necessary with Acronis True Image 2009. $39.99 at Best Buy (they have it behind the Geek Squad counter rather than in the software aisle, strange location considering Ghost 14 and far more expensive software is in the software aisle...I almost walked out of the store thinking they didn't have it in stock). It worked great with Vista Business 64 bit. I used a Black Widow external USB SATA docking station device. Very easy!!!!

I did the Vista Windows Experience Index rescoring with the new drive. The old drive (160GB 7200RPM) had a hard disk data transfer rate score of 5.2 and this SSD drive scored 5.9. All the other scores stayed the same except Gaming graphics actually decreased from 5.1 with the 160GB spinning drive to 5.0 with this SSD drive. Which is weird.

The computer has the Intel 1GB mini-PCI chip, which I assume is pointless to keep since it now has the SSD. Right?

[Greg Gebhardt]

I am going to use the same software but will use the Apricorn USB drive adapter instead of an enclosure.

Glad I read this,