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How to Copy Windows XP Installation to an SSD


Greyfox77

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I want to change the disk on my Elitebook 8540p from an HDD to an SSD drive.

Firstly, are there any free drive-cloning tools that work on XP? I have two partitions one XP one 7. Do those programs just clone the whole drive or one partition only?

And secondly, which SSD works better with XP. I read that when an ssd has garbage collection, TRIM is not necessary. Is that true and if not are there any programs that do it for XP since it does not support it natively?.

 

Thanks a lot!

Edited by Greyfox77
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We use Acronis at work.

I think they have a free version but I admit it's been a few years since I did any cloning - nowadays I have fully unattended installations that install "everything" so I just install from scratch in 40 minutes versus a cloning process taking 140 minutes.

 

edit - I didn't see any free version of Acronis, I'll have to dig through some of my archived disks to find what I used to use, I know it was free and I know I used it from XP to back up a laptop with XP, 7, and 10 partitions.

Edited by ArcticFoxie
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Clonedisk:

https://labalec.fr/erwan/?page_id=42

http://reboot.pro/index.php?showtopic=8480&page=1

is free and works under XP, but to clone a boot/system disk you will better boot to *something else* like a PE (this latter can be both XP based - like a BartPE - or based on later Windows OS).

Cloning the disk where the OS is running is possible, but not recommended/failproof, there is however at least one freeware (for home use) tool that should be able to do that:

http://www.minitool-drivecopy.com/drivecopy.html

If you can boot two different OS, you can use one of them to copy the "other" partition and then the other OS to copy the first, without risks, the only issue may be the conflict with Disk Signature, but this can be worked around booting *any* Linux distro or possibly even (on 7) putting the cloned disk "offline".

If the SSD is exactly the same size as the old hard disk is one thing, as a "perfect clone" would do and you could get away with a simple dd or dd-like tool running under *any* OS, but if the SSD is smaller or larger you will likely need to additionally resize (either reducing or enlarging) the partitions, in this latter case Linux based tools like Clonezilla may (or may not) be suitable, or you may need additionally something that includes gparted.

 Post more info:
1) exact size of the old disk
2) exact size of the new disk
3) how the disk is partitioned currently
4) it is a laptop/notebook, isn't it? How can you connect the source disk and the target SSD concurrently?

About trim under XP, see:

jaclaz
 

 

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The minitool drivecopy download page only shows an ancient version of PartitionWizard?

Just in case it was only renamed: I've checked out MiniTool PartitionWizard some weeks back, needed something for partitioning new USB-disks, and remembered "MiniTool" as quite popular and recommended (here and perhaps elsewhere too). "Mini" always sounds good to me ;-) The only prob, it wasn't available anymore for my old browser, and the web says that after version9 there were less and less features FREE, and each later version allowed yet less. Additionally there was (is?) meanwhile a prob with bundled malware.

Finally found this solution, thanks wayback: last free version 9.1 still contained all features free, and the download link was still local not some shady 3rd-party hoster, so hopefully clean. Mighty glad someone had archived it! :-)
Acc page last UPDATE from 2015-01-14.

https://web.archive.org/web/20161102215857/http://www.partitionwizard.com/download.html
. Edited by siria
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Yes, like *everywhere else* on the internet they make multi-mega-para-ultimate-cms_enabled-ML_ready-AI_enabled STUPIDLY complex sites and routinely change contents ruining half or more links, besides removing products/tools.

The tool (the simpler drive copy) can also be downloaded via Wayback machine:

https://web.archive.org/web/20150302054110/http://www.minitool-drivecopy.com:80/download.html

jaclaz

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8 hours ago, jaclaz said:

Clonedisk:

https://labalec.fr/erwan/?page_id=42

http://reboot.pro/index.php?showtopic=8480&page=1

is free and works under XP, but to clone a boot/system disk you will better boot to *something else* like a PE (this latter can be both XP based - like a BartPE - or based on later Windows OS).

Cloning the disk where the OS is running is possible, but not recommended/failproof, there is however at least one freeware (for home use) tool that should be able to do that:

http://www.minitool-drivecopy.com/drivecopy.html

If you can boot two different OS, you can use one of them to copy the "other" partition and then the other OS to copy the first, without risks, the only issue may be the conflict with Disk Signature, but this can be worked around booting *any* Linux distro or possibly even (on 7) putting the cloned disk "offline".

If the SSD is exactly the same size as the old hard disk is one thing, as a "perfect clone" would do and you could get away with a simple dd or dd-like tool running under *any* OS, but if the SSD is smaller or larger you will likely need to additionally resize (either reducing or enlarging) the partitions, in this latter case Linux based tools like Clonezilla may (or may not) be suitable, or you may need additionally something that includes gparted.

 Post more info:
1) exact size of the old disk
2) exact size of the new disk
3) how the disk is partitioned currently
4) it is a laptop/notebook, isn't it? How can you connect the source disk and the target SSD concurrently?

About trim under XP, see:

jaclaz
 

 

Do you know if any of those trim pprograms work today ?

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23 minutes ago, Greyfox77 said:

Do you know if any of those trim pprograms work today ?

Sure they do, the point might be that they cannot be found anymore in the version that works under XP.

BUT, you seem to be running a dual boot XP/7, in this case you should do ALL the disk management under 7 anyway, alternatively you'd better use a Linux bootCD/USB for that (as a side note modern SSD's should not/need not be TRIMmed too often)

XP Disk Manager has a nasty bug with volumes in extended partitions if the disk alignment is (as it MUST be on SSD) to the MB (as opposed to cylinder), briefly, the default in XP is aligning to the Cylinder, which means that your first partition will start at LBA offset 63, while Vista onwards defaults to MB alignment which means that your first  partition will start at LBA offset 2048, the disk manager in XP may - at any change, even unrelated, such as changing the active/boot status of a partition, delete the references in the EPBR's to the logical volumes inside extended :ph34r::

.http://reboot.pro/topic/9897-vistawin7-versus-xp-partitioning-issue/

The 63 before is DEFINITELY NOT recommended for SSD, though 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024 are all valid values on a SSD (multiples of 4KB), the 2048 default one is the most common and recommended.

jaclaz

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22 hours ago, Greyfox77 said:

And secondly, which SSD works better with XP. I read that when an ssd has garbage collection, TRIM is not necessary.

do not trust on everything you read, some people just post nonsense without any previous experience

https://msfn.org/board/topic/182703-can-my-2006-laptop-use-samsung-860-evo-500gb-ssd/?do=findComment&comment=1199797

 

 

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21 hours ago, Greyfox77 said:

@jaclazso if I have a dual boot system can I just do the trim there. Is there a specific command on windows 7for that ?

Yes and no.

TRIM in Windows 7 is a sort of "background activity" but *any* manufacturer's tool should work under 7 even if it does not work under XP, and you can try using ForceTrim on 7:

http://ticksontech.blogspot.com/2011/12/trim-for-masses_10.html

The tool is (was) here:

http://web.archive.org/web/20120530102049/http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?73888-Here-s-a-tool-to-force-TRIM-your-entire-drive

Can still be got from here:

http://www.mediafire.com/download/1cd8dh0msw2jq1w/ForceTrim.zip

I am attaching a copy, just in case.

Some more info:

http://web.archive.org/web/20160714163804/http://www.thessdreview.com/forums/threads/forcetrim-an-excellent-little-proggie-that-works.2647/

As always, YMMV.

jaclaz

 

ForceTrim.zip

Edited by jaclaz
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