Cloned SSD - Failed to boot

wawipack

New Member
Messages
4
I need your help guys.. i've been all over the net trying different methods to clone my Windows 7 to SSD and failed repeatedly.

Here's my setup , I have an HP Envy 14 with a 500GB HDD. I bought an SSD to speed things up . I have 2 OS (dual boot) ,
Win7 & win 8 , on which Win8 is the default OS (as per easyBCD info). I only want to clone the Win7 part of the OS.
(Win7 - Drive C) , (Win8 - Drive F) , and Recovery on Drive D.

I've tried these t hings so far
16x16_smiley-sad.gif
After defragging and backup)


1.while on Win7 , i created an image copy , but strangely thought,after the process is complete it says the image copy is Win8
I used EaseUs to Do Backup and cloned Drive C
Swapped the HDD with the SSD , and got a message could not find a boot drive

2. Since I failed on first try , I formatted the SSD , and opt for a fresh install instead.
-I downloaded the Win7 ISO , swapped the newly formatted SSD(empty)
-booted on the Win7 installer , and have the OS installed on the SSD.
- I thought I was done until I noticed HP assigned keys are not working , USB drivers are not working , I could not toggle wifi. The reason may be the missing drivers(bloatware from the HP recovery disk - since I did not copy that one)

3. After the attempts , I formatted the SSD . I read somewhere to use the HP recovery instead.
- I cloned the HP recovery drive from my HDD to the SSD
- Swapped the HDD with the SSD
- Started my Laptop , and Boot drive not found...(even after pressing F11)

can you tell me a better way to do this? Or if someone could point out what I did wrong , or maybe missed?
I'd Really appreciate your help .. This has been bugging me for the past days..
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    windows 8
Presuming you installed Win8 after already having Win7 on the PC, Win8 wrote its boot loader stuff to the same partition that Win7 uses. So, when you clone the Win7 stuff, it will naturally say Win8 because now, it has the Win8 boot loader present.

Cloning the Recovery partition to another drive is very likely NOT to yield the results you want -- the ability to use it to restore the PC to its original condition. Why? Because, in some cases , the PC restore function expects the Recovery partition to be in the original location on the drive.

I "migrated" my Windows setup from a HDD to an SDD and this is how I did it:
1) I installed EasyBCD in my Win8 on the HDD
2) I used EasyBCD to migrate the boot loader files from my Win7 OS partition to my Win8 OS partition.
3) To test out the migration, I did an image backup of Win7 to an external drive (using Macrium Reflect) and then erased that partition from the HDD. I rebooted, and since the Win8 boot loader started, that confirmed it had been moved to the Win8 OS partition.
4) Using MR, I made an image backup of Win8 to an external drive
5) I hooked up the blank SSD
6) I used MR to "restore" the Win8 image to the SSD.
7) I shutdown the PC, replaced the HDD with the SSD and rebooted.
8) Sorry, I don't remember if it booted at that point, but I have had problems with restores in the past, so I have a WinPE USB that I made using MR, and when this happens, I boot from that and use the option to repair the boot process.
 

My Computer

Thanks Mark for sharing your thoughts. Yes , Win8 was installed after Win 7.
I just saw some options in easyBCD and just had this thought ,


Make Win7 my default Boot , remove win8 Boot , and skip the waiting time? Im sorry , I could not try this one now , probably later in the evening.
Would this make any difference? Or would it still recognize the Win8 boot?

Will try the steps later..
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    windows 8
If you already have Win7 alone on the SSD, since you have install media, you simply boot from that, run Startup Repair three times -- and that should insert all the boot loader stuff needed for Win7. Once that is done, you should be able to reboot from the SSD directly into Win7. But, if you do that, it will not have entries for both Win7 and Win8.
 

My Computer

Back
Top