Clone XP Professional from HD to SSD
 

Hi,

I upgraded XP Professional to Windows 7 Professional via an upgrade disk
to / on a HD, which was successful, and running for quite some time,
successfully as well.

How can I transfer all of this to a new SSD and continue on?

Thanks.

Don

Clone XP Professional from HD to SSD
 

dont wrote:
Hi,

I upgraded XP Professional to Windows 7 Professional via an upgrade disk
to / on a HD, which was successful, and running for quite some time,
successfully as well.

How can I transfer all of this to a new SSD and continue on?

Thanks.

Don


Bueller?.. Bueller?.. Bueller?.. Anybody?

Clone XP Professional from HD to SSD
 

dont wrote:
dont wrote:
Hi,

I upgraded XP Professional to Windows 7 Professional via an upgrade disk
to / on a HD, which was successful, and running for quite some time,
successfully as well.

How can I transfer all of this to a new SSD and continue on?

Thanks.

Don


Bueller?.. Bueller?.. Bueller?.. Anybody?

I can describe the issues for you, but I don't know the answer.

Hard drives use CHS (cylinder-head-sector) in the MBR primary
partition tables. Disks have long since passed being reasonably
described by this scheme, and they use the (redundant) LBA information
instead.

The CHS uses a bogus sectors per track number, as a kind of flag.
When an installer sets up the disk, it writes in there, that
there are "255 heads" and "63 sectors per track".

If you watch what the WinXP (and earlier) OSes do, they'll align to
a track. That's why, the MBR is at sector 0, then they "skip" 62
sectors, then on the 63rd sector, the first partition begins.
There might be another wasted 63 sectors, between the first partition
and the second partition. The hard drive couldn't give a rat's ass
about this, and the hard drive is blissfully unaware of the silly
game being played. On the one hand, CHS is "bogus" for large disks,
and yet the partitioning process takes it into account and applies
an alignment consistent with the bogus and unused CHS information.

OK, so from that, we might guess (rightly or wrongly), that both
the WinXP and Windows 7 partitions are offset from the beginning
of the disk, by a multiple of 63 sectors. In addition, the partition
size might also be a multiple of 63 sectors (try dividing total sectors
by 63 and see). You can check this all out (and see if the previous
two statements are correct or not), with a utility like this (run
this elevated in Windows 7, or you'll get an "error 5" or the like).

ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/englis...s/PTEDIT32.zip

Now, the SSD on the other hand, from a hardware perspective, has
"flash pages". For performance reasons, it's best to achieve some
kind of alignment between the file system and the flash pages.

If you use the Windows 7 installer on a blank SSD, then chances are,
Windows 7 will use a power_of_two alignment. It's somewhere around
8 or 16 flash pages or so, from the beginning of the disk, to where
the partition starts. Maybe this results in clusters being aligned
to flash pages ? If some "data chunk" spans two flash pages, it means
read-modify-write on some portion of each page. If clusters were
aligned, it might cut down on the fractional writes required. So
that's the big win, if you can manage it.

So offsetting the partitions isn't a problem. I could probably
do that manually with "dd", then go back and doctor the partition
table with PTEDIT32 to account for the change. But chances are,
*some* piece of software isn't going to be too happy, if the length
of the partition isn't also aligned in some way. Maybe it's OK if
the partition is still a multiple of 63, and you pad some amount to
achieve a power_of_two relationship for the second partition.

http://www.chrysocome.net/dd (I use that, when copying sectors)

*******

OK, enough with the nonsense. You need a real utility of some sort.

There is one utility, already in existence. The "WD_Align" utility,
exists to solve the "4KB sector disk problem". The utility is
written by Acronis, the download is pretty big, implying lots
of functions. The same utility is rebranded, and is also available
(plus/minus the same file size in download) from Seagate.

Now, could that utility solve the problem ? That would be
for further research. I don't know if Acronis included
any SSD functions in that utility or not.

A second place to look, is the OCZtechnology forums. There
are plenty of discussions of "SSD polishing" over there. This
should give you a good start.

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/fo...e-working-life.

This is a second page of some use, but you have to wade
through this and toss out the nonsense. Windows 7 already
knows about some of these issues - for example, Windows 7
should not run the defragmenter on your SSD. WinXP though,
if you were to attempt to run defrag, is just going to do
as you instruct. Windows 7 is at least slightly SSD aware,
so it knows better.

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/fo...o-SSD-friendly

Depending on the brand of your SSD, it's possible the manufacturer
offers some kind of utility. It's the least they could do.

Another aspect of SSD operation, is support for the TRIM
command. On Windows 7, the "msahci" driver and placing the
disk interface in the BIOS in AHCI mode, might be sufficient
to get TRIM support. On WinXP, it might require an AHCI driver
added via pressing F6 when the OS was installed. It's not
going to be a lot of fun fixing that now. Depending on your
motherboard chipset, you'll find some discussions about
TRIM, over here.

http://communities.intel.com/thread/11845

One of the reasons I didn't attempt an answer before, is
I don't own an SSD, and have no first hand experience with
how these things go. I usually forget all I've read, by the
time a question like this comes up again.

There is some info out there, which can give you some guidance.
But it might not be written in "easy recipe form" though.

Have fun,
Paul

Clone XP Professional from HD to SSD
 

Paul wrote:
dont wrote:
dont wrote:
Hi,

I upgraded XP Professional to Windows 7 Professional via an upgrade disk
to / on a HD, which was successful, and running for quite some time,
successfully as well.

How can I transfer all of this to a new SSD and continue on?

Thanks.

Don


Bueller?.. Bueller?.. Bueller?.. Anybody?

I can describe the issues for you, but I don't know the answer.

Hard drives use CHS (cylinder-head-sector) in the MBR primary
partition tables. Disks have long since passed being reasonably
described by this scheme, and they use the (redundant) LBA information
instead.

The CHS uses a bogus sectors per track number, as a kind of flag.
When an installer sets up the disk, it writes in there, that
there are "255 heads" and "63 sectors per track".

If you watch what the WinXP (and earlier) OSes do, they'll align to
a track. That's why, the MBR is at sector 0, then they "skip" 62
sectors, then on the 63rd sector, the first partition begins.
There might be another wasted 63 sectors, between the first partition
and the second partition. The hard drive couldn't give a rat's ass
about this, and the hard drive is blissfully unaware of the silly
game being played. On the one hand, CHS is "bogus" for large disks,
and yet the partitioning process takes it into account and applies
an alignment consistent with the bogus and unused CHS information.

OK, so from that, we might guess (rightly or wrongly), that both
the WinXP and Windows 7 partitions are offset from the beginning
of the disk, by a multiple of 63 sectors. In addition, the partition
size might also be a multiple of 63 sectors (try dividing total sectors
by 63 and see). You can check this all out (and see if the previous
two statements are correct or not), with a utility like this (run
this elevated in Windows 7, or you'll get an "error 5" or the like).

ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/englis...s/PTEDIT32.zip


Now, the SSD on the other hand, from a hardware perspective, has
"flash pages". For performance reasons, it's best to achieve some
kind of alignment between the file system and the flash pages.

If you use the Windows 7 installer on a blank SSD, then chances are,
Windows 7 will use a power_of_two alignment. It's somewhere around
8 or 16 flash pages or so, from the beginning of the disk, to where
the partition starts. Maybe this results in clusters being aligned
to flash pages ? If some "data chunk" spans two flash pages, it means
read-modify-write on some portion of each page. If clusters were
aligned, it might cut down on the fractional writes required. So
that's the big win, if you can manage it.

So offsetting the partitions isn't a problem. I could probably
do that manually with "dd", then go back and doctor the partition
table with PTEDIT32 to account for the change. But chances are,
*some* piece of software isn't going to be too happy, if the length
of the partition isn't also aligned in some way. Maybe it's OK if
the partition is still a multiple of 63, and you pad some amount to
achieve a power_of_two relationship for the second partition.

http://www.chrysocome.net/dd (I use that, when copying sectors)

*******

OK, enough with the nonsense. You need a real utility of some sort.

There is one utility, already in existence. The "WD_Align" utility,
exists to solve the "4KB sector disk problem". The utility is
written by Acronis, the download is pretty big, implying lots
of functions. The same utility is rebranded, and is also available
(plus/minus the same file size in download) from Seagate.

Now, could that utility solve the problem ? That would be
for further research. I don't know if Acronis included
any SSD functions in that utility or not.

A second place to look, is the OCZtechnology forums. There
are plenty of discussions of "SSD polishing" over there. This
should give you a good start.

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/fo...e-working-life.


This is a second page of some use, but you have to wade
through this and toss out the nonsense. Windows 7 already
knows about some of these issues - for example, Windows 7
should not run the defragmenter on your SSD. WinXP though,
if you were to attempt to run defrag, is just going to do
as you instruct. Windows 7 is at least slightly SSD aware,
so it knows better.

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/fo...o-SSD-friendly


Depending on the brand of your SSD, it's possible the manufacturer
offers some kind of utility. It's the least they could do.

Another aspect of SSD operation, is support for the TRIM
command. On Windows 7, the "msahci" driver and placing the
disk interface in the BIOS in AHCI mode, might be sufficient
to get TRIM support. On WinXP, it might require an AHCI driver
added via pressing F6 when the OS was installed. It's not
going to be a lot of fun fixing that now. Depending on your
motherboard chipset, you'll find some discussions about
TRIM, over here.

http://communities.intel.com/thread/11845

One of the reasons I didn't attempt an answer before, is
I don't own an SSD, and have no first hand experience with
how these things go. I usually forget all I've read, by the
time a question like this comes up again.

There is some info out there, which can give you some guidance.
But it might not be written in "easy recipe form" though.

Have fun,
Paul


Thanks Paul,

A lot to chew on ...

Don

Clone XP Professional from HD to SSD
 

dont wrote:



Thanks Paul,

A lot to chew on ...

Don


You can just copy the contents of the hard drive, to the SSD.
That will work. Bottom line, the SSD still respects 512 byte sectors,
and is a block oriented device. It'll do, whatever you tell it to do.

It's the performance level that's an issue. The SSD will
still be fast. But not as fast, as if you do the job right.

If you're in a hurry, you can ignore everything I wrote in the
other post, and just copy it over. GParted or some free partition
utility (like Easeus) can probably do that for you.

Some examples of partition managers are here. Who knows,
maybe one of them already knows what to do with an SSD :-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_manager

Paul

Clone XP Professional from HD to SSD
 

Paul wrote:
dont wrote:



Thanks Paul,

A lot to chew on ...

Don


You can just copy the contents of the hard drive, to the SSD.
That will work. Bottom line, the SSD still respects 512 byte sectors,
and is a block oriented device. It'll do, whatever you tell it to do.

It's the performance level that's an issue. The SSD will
still be fast. But not as fast, as if you do the job right.

If you're in a hurry, you can ignore everything I wrote in the
other post, and just copy it over. GParted or some free partition
utility (like Easeus) can probably do that for you.

Some examples of partition managers are here. Who knows,
maybe one of them already knows what to do with an SSD :-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_manager

Paul



Paul,

Thank you for all of the pointers and links. It is very helpful and
useful information.

Don

Clone XP Professional from HD to SSD
 

On 2011-07-19, Paul wrote:

Now, the SSD on the other hand, from a hardware perspective, has
"flash pages". For performance reasons, it's best to achieve some
kind of alignment between the file system and the flash pages.

If you use the Windows 7 installer on a blank SSD, then chances are,
Windows 7 will use a power_of_two alignment. It's somewhere around
8 or 16 flash pages or so, from the beginning of the disk, to where
the partition starts. Maybe this results in clusters being aligned
to flash pages ? If some "data chunk" spans two flash pages, it means
read-modify-write on some portion of each page. If clusters were
aligned, it might cut down on the fractional writes required. So
that's the big win, if you can manage it.

As I understand things, a SSD has to delete a whole block and then write
back the new file. If another file spans across the blocks then then
this does not work as another file, or part there of will be wiped.
After some time the disk fills up with junk unless it has the junk
blocks deleted.

SSD's are worn out by writes, but not reads, so best use is the OS and
programmes where all that reading goes on.

Put the data on a mechanical drive.

Start your first partition on 2048 to align things.