The use of mSATA

[whs]

a) You can take the whole partition. Now you have acres of space, LOL

b) I assume a partition on the HDD (you did not yet mention the size of the HDD - I assume it is also 1TB). For very large programs it may be advisable to move them to the HDD. You'll have to see because the 256GB SSD is pretty big itself.

c) Technically you can. You may get an activation problem though. The EULA says one unique product key for each OS. I would protect myself with frequent images of the SSD system. This 'old' system on the HDD is not worth much in 3 months from now. It will be really backlevel.

 

[hummer7]

Thanks. Please see the attachment.
The size of the C-hard disk is 2tb (as before). Right now, there are 4 partitions (1,2,3 and4) which were created automatically. and related to windows recovery.

In addition, C-partition (195 gb) is for windows 8 and the other one (1.66tb) is to be formatted.

My question is when I restore win 8 on SSD drive, should I include 4 other partitions (1,2, 3, and 4 in the pictures). Once I hear from you I will try to do it tomorrow or Sunday.

 

[whs]

You only want the C partition on the SSD. Since this is a Dell, there is, however, a little problem. They might have put the bootmgr on the recovery partition (check that in disk management - the bootmgr is on the Active partition).

Best is probably to first copy the bootmgr to C. Bootmgr - Move to C:\ with EasyBCD - Windows 7 Help Forums

PS: I will be out for the rest of the day. Talk to you tomorrow.

 

[hummer7]

I will read your article on Easy BCD.
I attached the detailed C-drive partition.
I wonder 500 mb EFI system partition includes Bootmgr or not.
When you are back, please advise me.
Once that is moved, I will move the c-windows partition.

 

[whs]

I am back early. This is really not clear because some partitions truncated the text. Please make another snip with the Status field fully expanded like this:

 

[whs]

Hmm, looks like you will have acres of disk space.

For a working OS I think you have to transfer the C partition and the 500MB EFI partition.

I am not yet up to speed on this EFI stuff but I know that the EFI partition is the one that contains the bootloader. So you absolutely need that.

Why don't you image those 2 partitions and dump them on the SSD. Then change the BIOS to boot from the SSD and see what happens.

 

[hummer7]

I had other problems. My brain is exhausted now. I will transfer the two partitions tomorrow.
From the previous XPS computer, booting was OK from F12>SSD. Then, later I tried to boot Windows Boot Manager (or UEFI boot something like that) hoping to boot from SATA drive. It continuously boot from SSD. I had problem with booting from SATA. I will let you know how it goes tomorrow. BTW, Drive is now cheap. I found that two more hard drives can fit to the computer. So I ordered 4tb hitachi drive from B&H bot right next day. That is how I got it. I also have Seagate 4tb HD on my office windows 7 computer. I found that a lot easier to work with Seagate drive. The reason is that Hitachi drive was not detected by windows 8. So I got RMA from B&H. When win 8.1 updated was completed, then the computer detected Hitachi drive.

 

[whs]

OK, I will await to see how you make out.

 

[hummer7]

I am working in my office for this computer. Once configuration is completed, I will bring it home.
It looks I might not work on this computer tomorrow (Sun).
I will do on Monday.

 

[whs]

No problem. I'll be around.

 

[hummer7]

whs,

I cleaned the 238gb SSD disk by following your script described in your earlier post. Then, the whole C-partition (56gb) and EFI (500mb) was restored on the SSD using Acronis. It look OK but I want to watch more often. So far, I found three subtle differences:
a) Response to mouse cursor is slower
b) There is a warning on McAfee antivirus which stopped scanning and working. There seems to be a problem with McAfee.
c) Background color of desktop is often changed into purples color for a just moment. That happens quite frequently.

I thought that it may take a few days to stabilize the Windows system in SSD disk. These problems seem to be subtle, though.
I will let you know how it goes.

 

[whs]

a) The mouse speed you can adjust.
b) McAfee is not my favorite. That I uninstall always as first - but if you do, use the mcpr.exe
c) that's strange. No idea what the SSD could have to do with that

How fast does it boot. Have a look into Event100 in Event Viewer. Drill down this chain:

Eventvwr
Applications and Service Logs
Microsoft
Windows
Diagnostics - performance
Operational
Event ID 100

 

[hummer7]

WHS,

whs,
I left the SSD_win 8.1 running overnight, hoping that could stabilize the SSD system.
It seems there are many problem. I attached the screenshot of the Event 100. In this dialog box, the number of events listed is 1157. All of them have warnings or errors.

The problem I see is that the wallpaper turns into purple screen frequently.
McAfee stopped working. I have an unopened NOD32 (2014) for three computer. I could install it. Antivirus program is no big deal. The major problem is Adobe Photoshop is not working. The error has to do with scratch file which could not be opened.

My feeling is that restoring Windows with Acronis could be the problem. I wonder I should install Widows directly on SSD.

I might try re-install windows on SSD later. Once you viewed the attachment, I will delete it.

 

[hummer7]

I am going to repeating the similar process on SSD.
I will let you know how it goes.

 

[hummer7]

I repeated again. The same results. I cleaned the SSD disk now.
I recall that when a backup file is restored with Acronis, it increases the size of file.
That implies that Acronis adds up a considerable amount of files on SSD, which might have caused all these problems.
I might re-visit Macrium. Macrium is the way to go.
Hope that works.

 

[whs]

There is definitely something wrong. Acronis might have done that. Unfortunately I cannot help you there because I have not used Acronis in years. I use free Macrium which never gave me a problem.

The long boot time could have many cause. One of them is a bad SSD alignment. No idea what Acronis does in that respect.

As you know, I run systems on 7 SSDs and never had any of those problems. Maybe a fresh install is the best. Then the instller will make all the relevant settings.

The purple problem cannot be the SSD. That may be a problem with the GPU driver.

If you use a Macrium image, make sure you first align the SSD. And don't forget the system partition.

SSD Alignment - Windows 7 Help Forums

SSD - Install and Transfer the Operating System - Windows 7 Help Forums

 

[adamf]

make sure you first align the SSD.

Sorry to jump in here but are you sure this is still required?

 

[hummer7]

whs,
Before restore on SSD, this is what I did:

Diskpart
List disk
Select disk n (where n is the number that was given for your SSD in List disk)
Clean
Create partition primary align=1024
Format fs=ntfs quick
Active (assuming you want to install an OS)
Exit

I used the same 1024.
I wonder the align number should be changed because the size of SSD is 238GB.
If so, what number should I use?

 

[whs]

1024 is fine. I have even aligned SSDs with 64, Some people recommend 4096 although I see no reason why that should be better.

 

[whs]

make sure you first align the SSD.

Sorry to jump in here but are you sure this is still required?

Depends, if you install Windows 7 or 8 with an installation disc, the installer will do the alignment. But if you restore an image coming from a HDD, it is required. For an image coming from an aligned SSD, it is not required because the imaging program maintains the alignment - at least Macrium does.