I got a SSD for christmas and need help with transfering programs and OS from my HDD

[deastman]

Personally, I think have two bootable system drives installed at the same time is just asking for trouble. Yes, you can do it in theory, but you're already experiencing some of the headaches.

As we speak, I'm using Seagate/Acronis DiskWizard to clone my system to a new drive. Its quite painless, but I certainly won't keep both of those drives installed at the same time.

[bensw]

I can't use CMD because the ssd doesn't remember the settings i apply.
and i can't just back up and restore because i can't shrink the c partition due to unmovable files.

You don't need to shrink the partition manually. The shrinking is done more or less automatically at the restore process. That is, as long as you use a system backup program that has that capability. Windows Backup doesn't. Nether does Clonezilla. But several others do. You pretty much have to use a dedicated 3rd party tool to move the system partition to a new drive, you cannot just copy stuff.

I also recommend to do the system backup from a bootable tool (Windows PE, if possible). It should work either way, but it just seems a bit more "tidy" that way.

[G.hostLA]

I am going to try using the bootable seagate discwizard to clone the hard drives.
if that doesnt work where can i find the ISO for an installation disc for Windows7 Home Edition(doesnt make sense that i would have to pay for an installation disc to upgrade my Hard Drive).
Also do i have to back up my hard drive to my external or could i just copy from internal HDD to my Soon to be internal SSD?

[ford442]

i see your dilemma. i don't like it that some laptops have no install DVD. if the ISO that you download is valid, then you should be able to activate legally and everything. i highly recommend doing a fresh install of 7 and then reinstalling your apps. you will have a better time i think. having multiple OS drives is not a big deal - i have had Win 7 and Ubuntu on one drive and XP on the other for a while with no issues. besides, once this is over you can backup your HDD and reformat it removing all reference to the old install.

hope you have a fun holiday!

[bensw]

if that doesnt work where can i find the ISO for an installation disc for Windows7 Home Edition(doesnt make sense that i would have to pay for an installation disc to upgrade my Hard Drive).

A well known tech site has posted direct links to Windows 7 ISOs, so I'm assuming Microsoft is ok with it and it's ok to mention it here. (Mind you, those still need to be activated, as usual.)

[G.hostLA]

Thanks for everyones help.
I am now on my SSD as an internal HDD.
I just copied the disk with easeUS and it worked great.
And i did download the OS from that blog. I was unsure if it was legit but it seems like it is so i will keep it in my cd collection just incase i want to change SSD again. Not likely though as my new one boasts a 500+mbps read and write speed.

Anyways after trying all these programs i think i like EaseUS best for overall functionality.
but partition wizard is an excellent program as well. clonezilla doesnt seem that great and the seagate discwizard couldnt clone the disk.

back to whatever it is i want to do now.

[sOktay]

I just caved in a few weeks ago and moved to an SSD, and these programs made it pretty easy for me: Paragon Hard Disk Suite, EasyBCD and PerfectDisk. I split the SSD into 3, did a fresh win 7 install on the first partition, shrank+backed up my original xp partition to a third drive, then restored it to the second partition on the SSD. I then used EasyBCD to figure out and include both the HDD and SSD versions of my xp install in the boot menu. There was some head scratching after some drive letter reassignments, but labeling volumes made that go away. Also, I used PerfectDisk to defragment my orignal xp partition before shrinking. Overall, it went suspiciously smoothly. Oh and the 3rd partition is for samples, haven't done that yet!

Here are the apps I used, plus some performance guides I found:

http://neosmart.net/EasyBCD/
http://www.raxco.com/home/home-premium.aspx
http://www.paragon-software.com/home/hdm-personal/
http://forums.pureoverclock.com/drives- ... mance.html
http://searchsolidstatestorage.techtarg ... technology
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum ... -ABC-Guide

Sorry this comes too late to be useful but I figured I'd share. Just saw this thread, I was too busy to come here for a while :)