Cloning HDD to SSD - What am i doing wrong?

[pauloforte]

Hi everyone,

 

I bought a SSD (Sandisk 128 GB) and a HDD caddy with the intent of cloning my HDD, then placing the SSD where the HDD is originally installed, and the HDD in the HDD caddy in the place of the DVD drive to use as storage. Normal laptop upgrade, thus.

 

I have a HP laptop (pavillion DV6) and the HDD is divided in the following partitions:

• "System" partition (no letter as far as I can tell)
• OS (C:, 70 GB, Windows 7 Home, no DVD present - no I didn't pirate it, it came like this from the store in the UK, they said they didn't supply any Disc since HP has the Recovery functions...)
• Recovery partition (some 14 GB, D:)
• Programs (E:, 70 GB)
• Junk (F:, documents, personal files, etc...)

So, I removed the DVD Drive, and installed the caddy with the SSD inside. Turned on the laptop and installed AOMEI Backupper.

In AOMEI Backupper, I chose partition cloning and proceeded to clone all partitions C: to E: (after some cleanup...), making the C: clone as the Primary partition.

I then rebooted and changed the boot order in the BIOS to the SSD. This resulted in message "Active partition not found! Any key to continue...", which then loaded the OS from the HDD (which was still in the laptop).

After some research, I found out that the bootloader had to be changed to the SSD and that I could do this via the Recovery software of HP. But, not wanting to go to the trouble of buying a DVD just for this, and not having a 13 GB flash drive at home, I followed the instructions below to create a USB which would allow me to repair the boot on the SSD:

http://www.7tutorials.com/create-usb-memory-stick-system-recovery-tools

I created the USB, shutdown, removed the HDD from the laptop, place the SSD in the HDD bay and left the HDD caddy out, rebooting thus only with the SSD and the USB flash key in the computer and changed the boot order to the USB flash key.

It started doing its thing but couldn't find any OS installation in the SSD (which now has partitions C:, D: and E:, made through AOMEI Backupper). I tried to do a Startup Repair, as the USB key suggested, but no luck... Its like the SSD has no OS installed.....

 

EDIT: forgot to add, I also tried EasyBCD to solve the whole bootloader issue but that didn't work either...

 

What am I doing wrong?

Is it worth to go buy an actual DVD or a USB drive bigger than 13 GB and make a full-on recovery media just for this, since the OS isn't even recognised in the SSD?

Do I need another cloning software that does all the steps and leaves me with a ready-to-use SSD? Does that even exist (preferably as freeware...)?

 

Thanks in advance, guys, this is stressing me out. I thought that upgrading to a SSD was gonna pretty easy and fast, this is already taking up WAY more than the time that I'm prepared to give a 4 year-old slow laptop....

[Kameegaming]

Save your data to HDD, Clean install to SSD.

Copy your data to SSD, Format HDD.

Copy back to HDD.

[pauloforte]

Save your data to HDD, Clean install to SSD.

Copy your data to SSD, Format HDD.

Copy back to HDD.

I would rather not do a clean install, since reinstalling all those programs, plus: doing the partitions from the single partition that the PC came with, while still keeping the HP recovery options was A LOT of work. Work that I had to do, since that laptop was, at the time, my only PC. Now i just can't be bothered anymore... but thanks anyway for the suggestion.

[mluton]

Just use: http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

 

Attach new drive, run Macrium, don't bother will recovery partitions, Click clone, Finish, Swap drives.

 

Then turn off Defrag.

 

[pauloforte]

Just use: http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

 

Attach new drive, run Macrium, don't bother will recovery partitions, Click clone, Finish, Swap drives.

 

Then turn off Defrag.

 

-snip-

Thanks! Can't watch the video right now, I'm at work, but will this keep my partitions if I just "clone"?

[pauloforte]

Just use: http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

 

Attach new drive, run Macrium, don't bother will recovery partitions, Click clone, Finish, Swap drives.

 

Then turn off Defrag.

My drive is a Dynamic Disk and is not supported by this version of Macrium Reflect...