Ok so I have a 120GB OCZ Vertex 3 as the boot drive in my main rig at the moment but I picked up a 256GB and a 512GB Samsung 830 Drive on sale to install with the smaller one being for my boot drive, the larger one for FSX and the Vertex 3 going into my other PC.

 

I know I saw a thread on here somewhere about cloning drives but for the life of me I can't find it.

 

Can anyone point me in the right direction of the existing thread or the best way to clone my boot drive onto the new SSD?

 

Or will I actually be better off doing a clean install?

 

Thanks

Hi Anthony, The thread you may have been thinking about was "SSD for FSX: which?", started by Word Not Allowed. I did clone my 240GB SSD to a Samsung 512GB 840, all went well PC-wise, except none of my payware aircraft in FSX would work, they caused a CTD, an anti-piracy measure due to the hard disk ID changing. I only bought the 512GB as I was running out of space on the 240GB, someone suggested that I move my scenery files to the 512 SSD and leave Win7 and FSX on the 240 SSD, which I've done, that's freed up enough space not to need to move FSX, I'll use the 512 SSD for scenery add-ons from now on. Re-downloading all my payware aircraft and possiblt a stack of FSX utilities would have been a tad tedious,So cloning your vertex to your 256 SSD should be fine, but moving FSX can cause the problem I've mentioned. I used Acronis true image, I know you can get cheaper or free alternatives, but that software has saved my bacon so many times, when either windows updates or my tinkering has messed things up, I've always got a good copy of my Boot SSD and FSX ready to re-install. I make an image every week or whenever I'm doing anything slightly scary on FSX, it can save you a lost weekend!

I make an image every week or whenever I'm doing anything slightly scary on FSX, it can save you a lost weekend!

 

I do this too. My system is not dedicated to FSX or gaming. I use it for general purpose. I am not into the super high spec hard drives. Instead I have (3) extra Seagate Barracuda 1.5 TB hard drives with the same Seagate spec # ST31500341AS. These are exact matches for the hard drive that came in my system. The drives come with Seagate Disc Wizard, which I believe licenses technology from Acronis. One of the tools included is a cloning feature, and it works flawlessly. I have not had any trouble with software license keys. That may be due to the drives all being one spec.

 

My Gateway FX6860 system has two slide-in bays accessible through a sliding front panel. These drives just snap into a plastic cradle, and then slide into and dock into edge connectors. It's slick. The drives cannot be hot-swapped. System must be powered off before docking or undocking. I have one drive as a clone of my system before I swapped the OE video card (AMD Radeon 6750) for an nVidia. That way if anything in the system fails during the warranty I can swap it and the card back in and get service. I rotate the other two drives making at least one fresh clone a week, or as Overload says before I make any significant change, such as allowing a Windows Update (I have those on an "ask me first" setting).

 

This saved my FSX once last week. I was checking through my FSX downloads folders and came across an update to UTX 1.4. I was not sure I had run that update. I started it, then allowed it to proceed, then I found a note that said I had already run it. I foolishly hit "Cancel". The next time I went to start FAX I got a fatal error. My most recent clone was from a day earlier. I lost a couple of updates to some spreadsheets, a handful of entries into my finance tracking program, and had to sift through some email I had sifted through already, but my FSX ran fine. Lesson learned.

The thread you may have been thinking about was "SSD for FSX: which?", started by Word Not Allowed

 

Thanks, I'd looked through that thread but must have missed your post. It's really just the boot drives I'm looking to clone at the moment. My FSX doesn't have too much time invested into it as far as payware goes so I'm not fussed reinstalling. About the only thing I'll keep will be my fsx.cfg since it's working great for me. Would you recommend Acronis True Image?

 

I make an image every week or whenever I'm doing anything slightly scary on FSX, it can save you a lost weekend!

 

I've never really done this myself but perhaps making backups is something I should get in the habit of doing. I'll have a couple of drives freed up which I could use for this, so I might as well put them to good use. Do you just make an image of your drive using the same Acronis Software?

 

Oh, and Happy Holidays! Christmas Day already here in Australia, I better go check on the Turkey!

 

Anthony

Yep, would definitely recommend acronis, easy to use, only takes me about 40 mins to back up c drive and fsx, lets you make a bootable usb stick which you then use to recover drive to a previous image, the more add ons, utilities, hardware, you put on fsx as you go along, the more important to be able to get back to square one if it all goes pear shaped, plus recovering the c drive protects you against windows malfunctions and virus's, well worth the money,

Just turned midnight here, happy christmas!

Eugene

 

ps, you need to make the image to a drive other than the c drive, any other internal, or external drive fine, recovery file is compressed, my nearly full 240GB ssd only needs an acronis image of around 100gb......