Should I make 'an image' of my entire 500Gb Disk1 SSD to this HDD?

 

Yes. And if you have programs installed to that OS on other drives, obviously those drives need to be cloned in the same backup too

 

 

Yes. And if you have programs installed to that OS on other drives, obviously those drives need to be cloned in the same backup too

 

Dazz, is there a good reason why an image should be done instead of a clone?  Does an 'image' appear to the Windows Activation routine differently than a clone would for example?

Dazz, is there a good reason why an image should be done instead of a clone?

Yes, actually I should have not used the term clone cause that's not what you want.

Cloning replicates the contents of a drive to another drive.

An image is a file that contains a copy of a number of drives & partitions in a certain format that you can restore later on.

 

What you need is a system backup, which is an image of all your system drives/partitions.

Can you post a screenshot of your back up wizard?

 

Does an 'image' appear to the Windows Activation routine differently than a clone would for example?

If you clone an OS drive to another, the cloned drive will look exactly the same as the original one.

If you image an OS drive you'll end up with a file that contains a compressed copy of your OS drive, that you can restore at any time to your original drive or any other one.

 

Looks like Windows will probably fail to validate after a clone, since it detects it's running off a different drive.

In the case of an image, it depends. If you restore that image to the same drive(s), there should be no activation issues.

 

Remember to create a Paragon bootable CD or usb instance (I take it can be done), that way you won't need to have Vista installed to a dedicated disk just to have Paragon there

 

If I were you, and considering you have plenty HDD's sitting around, I would try and backup that system to an empty drive, then restore the backup (using the live CD/usb) to another empty drive and see if it works

 

 

An image is a file that contains a copy of a number of drives & partitions in a certain format that you can restore later on.

 

Thank you Dario.  I really only have one drive w/ one partition, though when I look at Disk Management in Win7 I can see there appears to be a partition that the OS created, called 'System Reserved' and is 100mb.  With regard to the activation question:  when I restore an image back to a replacement 500Gb SSD won't the OS evaluate it as a different 500Gb SSD, perhaps even if it is the exact model/size?  I would have to assume the activation routine must be looking at some type of unique identifier, else image restore could go into a multitude of replacement SSDs, no?

 

If I get around to a second OS install (my old Vista 64 Ultimate copy) on a separate disk, I won't really care about backing that up as I will only be for a few games and they are nothing to reinstall.  I'm also a little intrigued by ONLY putting Paragon on this Vista 64 installation should I do this so that perhaps I can keep Win7 completely empty of Paragon components.  I wonder, is that true, if I installed Paragon into Vista then did the image of Win 7 drive only would the Win7 drive remain free of Paragon components?

 

Somehow, I think an image may be better because there will never be a problem w/ booting to it since it's unbootable so there is maybe less risk of a problem.   And since we are back to image only, maybe Win7's built in image creation routine?  Some have said there can be a slower boot up w/ a restored Win7 but I can't imagine why that would be.

I decided to go ahead and use Win 7's backup routine.  As I don't have another 500Gb HDD laying around I won't know how it goes until I have to use it.  But it's better than nothin'!  Why would the image on the empty E: drive have a larger size then the C: from whence it was imaged?  Quite a difference in gigabytes; plus, I thought the image was compressed?  The D: drive is just an old data drive and doesn't need backed up.

 

 

 

I used windows7 backup and used dvd disks - a lot of them but it works - keep in mind when you go to reload that new image from the disks one would think you put disk 1 into the drive but no you need to put the last disk in then it works, why waste those hard drives when you can just put them on disks - also only works on the motherboard and hard drive it came from.

 

 

why waste those hard drives when you can just put them on disks

 

Mainly because I have 5 or 6 of them just sitting there doing nuttin'!

 

 

If I were you, and considering you have plenty HDD's sitting around, I would try and backup that system to an empty drive, then restore the backup (using the live CD/usb) to another empty drive and see if it works

 

Hi Dario,

 

I did some more research and think I found a good approach.  The Paragon product I bought was way more than I needed and I found this component for half the cost and it comes w/ very good reviews from several users I  have discovered:

 

For $20 you can purchase a license to Paragon Software's excellent "Migrate OS to SSD" product, which is actually a subset (or "component," to use Paragon's own terminology) belonging to its $40 Drive Copy 12 Professional product. It does a quick, easy, and careful job of copying the OS drive on a notebook or desktop PC to a solid state drive (SSD) drive attached to that same machine.

 

I've used the Paragon OS to SSD software about 30 times so far as a system designer. It is VERY flawless in how well it works. After installing it, install any tool that comes with the SSD drive (Intel Toolbox, Samsung SSD Magician, etc.) to optimize the SSD drive.  Paragon Migrate did all the alignment correctly for me. no problem, worked the first time.

 

They credited the overpurchase and sent me a code for the Migration component so I'm good to go!

 

 

Does an 'image' appear to the Windows Activation routine differently than a clone would for example?

 

 

With regard to the activation question: when I restore an image back to a replacement 500Gb SSD won't the OS evaluate it as a different 500Gb SSD, perhaps even if it is the exact model/size? I would have to assume the activation routine must be looking at some type of unique identifier, else image restore could go into a multitude of replacement SSDs, no?

You can restore a Windows7 image on a different drive without the need for re-activation. When I did my testing of different HDDs and SSDs I created an Image of the activated Win7 OS drive with a fully installed and activated copy of FSX on it as well. I restored the image on 2 different SSDs and 2 different HDDs ranging from 32GB to 1TB in size and Windows7 did not require a reactivation. If you restore the image to a drive on another Mobo you'll have to re-activate. That's if you actually manage to boot in to Windows on that new mobo.

Rockliffe: "I hit the big 6 0 this year and I think stupidity is obligatory! Yes, of course I was thinking not to be defragmented... :blush:  Thanks for reminding me of my impending memory loss!"

Well you better get used to it. I hit the big 76 this year. Fortunately I still have a good memory.

Now: You were asking about??

Hey Rick, I've managed to sort out the SSD and everything seems to be OK.

 

 

Did formatting the SSD fix it-  is that all you did to fix it, Howard?

 

Thanks,  Bruce.

Did formatting the SSD fix it-  is that all you did to fix it, Howard?

 

Thanks,  Bruce.

 

Hi Bruce, sure, it all went very well. I just allocated the drive, formatted it,  gave it the same drive letter as a before and then copied back the Acronis backed up version of the previous SSD. Voila!

What is it about SSD drives? There was I purchasing a highly recommended Samsung 840PRO 256Gb SSD drive less than 6 months old which has been working okay as a storage drive after I gave up trying to boot off it despite doing a Clone of the original existing HDD with the OS which has never worked, due to the Windows re-activation  when lo and behold, today, out of the blue it shows I/O errors and refuses to show up in My Computer/Windows Explorer. Yet my Samsung SpinPoint SATA drive more than 4 years old, functions perfectly.

 

I've tried removing it from Device Manager and on re-boot is detected yet still refuses to show up.

 

Is the drive with I/O errors faulty? So soon after purchase?

 

Help, please!

I don't know enough to be able to help Rick I'm afraid. I would have thought it unlikely to be faulty, perhaps someone else can chip in who may be able to help...

Thanks, Howard. I'm so puzzled with this. Have sent Samsung Support an email.

 

It shows up healthy in Device Manager; Samsung's own SSD Magician software shows the drive listed under its drive letter; Disk Management shows the drive to be healthy, and yet I cannot see the drive size, or its contents. When I click on it I just get I/O device error. And to think I used this drive to back-up all my downloads. I feel like chucking this SSD drive and a brand new unfitted supplementary US-bought SSD 256Gb drive, same make and model, into the nearest stream, except I'd get done for pollution, knowing my luck!