Made HDD copy to SSD, but SSD won't boot alone?

[goldhound44]

Hey guys,

     Earlier today I put a new 240Gb SSD into my system that previously only had a 1TB HDD i it (for boot and storage).  I downloaded Acronis's HDD migration tool and coppied the ENTIRE HDD over to the SSD (since this is a newer build and the HDD only had about 140Gb used up).  In the Acronis program I made it see the drive then make the SSD a 'backup' drive so it was supposed to be bootable and have all of my data on it still.  So i finished all of this and went through the whole process, waited for it to copy over, all of that jazz, it seemed to go smoothly enough. 

     After everything had finished, I wanted to test if the SSD worked and everything, so I went into my tower (with thePC turned off and unplugged, of course I wouldn't do something like that whilst the PC is on or even has the PSU turned on). and I disconnected the HDD so the SSD was the only thing pluged into the comp. 

     As I turned the computer back on, everything seemed normal.  I got the normal mobo boot screen, the options to go into bios, all that stuff.  It sent me into the 'starting windwos' screen, and it loaded me right into the 'windows login' screen where you have the option to change your user or not, and enter your password.  This all looked normal, like I said this is a new build, so I haven't gotten around to changing the profile picture of the account of the background or anything off of the default.  It looked 100% fine. 

I typed in my password and it went straight into the 'preparing desktop' loading wheel, but it stayed there.  It wasn't frozen, the wheel was spinning, but it was on that screen for a solid 2 or 3 min before anything came up.  It said 'you must restart your PC for these changes to go into affect' and so I hit accept, but I did notice how the selection box didn't look like that of normal win.7, it looked more akin to that of win.xp or some older version. 

     Anyways, I did the restart, same thing happened.  Everything was normal up to the login screen.  It was on the 'preparing desktop' for a while AGAIN and then it just went to a blue screen that looked like the default desktop of (again) that older version of windows.  It was completely blank save for some small text in the bottom right that said some model number and that "this is not a genuine copy of windows" (which this is, mind you, 100% legit).  The screen was unclickable, nothing came up.  I let it sit for a min or two, and nothing happened.  I couldn't right or left click, nothing came up when I hit the windows button either.      

     I was confused here, so I plugged my HDD back in, (whilst keeping the SSD in as well) and tried to boot up again, and in the bios menu, under the boot options, I chose to boot off of the SSD again, since this time it had the option of either that or the HDD, and when it went through the boot process, it all worked.  It made me do the 'must restart to make cahnges go into affect' but this time it looked like normal win.7.

I am just confused since I would really really like to have everything on my SSD alone so I can reformat and erase the HDD so I can use it for only mass storage and to record gameplay onto, save movies, stuff like that.  The SSD (drive   : D) now has the little win.7 flag next to it under /Computer so i assume that means that it is the boot drive, and the HDD (drive :C) doesn't, but it still has all of it's data in it.  I hope the pictures I provided helped with any confusion there. 

I REALLY appreciate and help with this.  Since this could also be considered a 'storage' problem, I'll posted it under that thread as well. 

Many thanks for any help,

GH4

[S7117]

Did you clone the hdd or back it up... those are two different things?

[Elfuego]

Why not unplug the HDD; install a fresh to the SSD and be happy?

[S7117]

also if you clone the hdd to a ssd make sure that after the cloning process you remove the hdd and then boot into the ssd. then attach the hdd and remove everything from the drive ie the OS. Then you should be good to go.

[S7117]

Why not unplug the HDD; install a fresh to the SSD and be happy?

this is a good idea that I recommend but make sure you have your product key for windows.... if you need to get it download produKey to recover it.

[goldhound44]

Why not unplug the HDD; install a fresh to the SSD and be happy?

If I make a fresh install onto the SSD and get rid of everything, am I still able to use the same Win.7 key that I did before?  Or will i have to buy another one?

Edit; I still have the key that i used for the first install

[S7117]

yes you can use the same key. 

[S7117]

just make sure the version you install is the same that you bought that goes with the key

[goldhound44]

just make sure the version you install is the same that you bought that goes with the key

Alright thanks mate, should I wipe my drives now and just do a fresh install?

[S7117]

Alright thanks mate, should I wipe my drives now and just do a fresh install?

save what files you need if any... photos, documents, etc. then go into google and type in "windows 7 media creation tool" then when you find that on microsoft's website dowload that onto a flash drive if you dont have the windows 7 cd. 

 

Personally to make this proccess as painless as possible I would upgrade windows 7 to windows 10 first. then use produkey to get your windows 10 key.

 

then download the windows ten media creation tool and copy that to a flash drive. then reboot and boot onto the flash drive... follow instructions, enter the windows 10 key. if it works hit custom setup. delete all partitions of all drives. then select the ssd. hit new. this will do everything partition wise. then just hit next and windows 10 should be installed.

 

Ill get the links for you real quick:

[S7117]

Windows 7:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/windows-usb-dvd-download-tool

 

Windows 10:

google produkey and find the program that recovers product keys

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

 

btw please mark this help string solved when you are good

[goldhound44]

Windows 7:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/windows-usb-dvd-download-tool

 

Windows 10:

google produkey and find the program that recovers product keys

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

 

btw please mark this help string solved when you are good

Thanks mate, I just did a fresh boot with teh same flash drive that I sued to put windows on here at first

[EpicAdom]

Windows 7:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/windows-usb-dvd-download-tool

 

Windows 10:

google produkey and find the program that recovers product keys

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

 

btw please mark this help string solved when you are good

Windows 10 doesn't have product keys. Your copy of windows is attached to your hardware (cpu & mobo) and your microsoft account.

 

Thanks mate, I just did a fresh boot with teh same flash drive that I sued to put windows on here at first

Use a microsoft account and you will be fine with upgrading to win10 and reinstalling.

[S7117]

Windows 10 doesn't have product keys. Your copy of windows is attached to your hardware (cpu & mobo) and your microsoft account.

 

Use a microsoft account and you will be fine with upgrading to win10 and reinstalling.

windows 10 does have product keys. I got mine using produKey.