HP recovery won't launch on cloned SSD, impossible to install the win7 on the SSD.

[CompaqMiniMe]

Hi,

I've recently bought an SSD drive to speed up my HP DV7. So I tried to clone my previous 1To hdd to my 250Go SSD but it seems that it's not that straightforward at all. :-(.

What I did is creating on the SSD the exact same partitions(with the exact same size,orders, type  except for my main Windows partition of course given that my SSD is far smaller) as on my old Hdd. After that I made an exact copy of each 3 partitions (HP Recovery, System and Hp Tools partition) but rather than copying the windows partition, I let that one empty on the SSD because the size of the Windows partition on the old Hdd is bigger (on data) than the available size on the remaining partition on the SSD. I thought that like that I could boot on the SSD and trigger the restore process to install the Win7 on the empty partition. But when I reboot the pc it doesn't seem to recognize the SSD boot partition, it rather say "No operating system found".

I also tried to activate the partition 3 directly (which is the Recovery partition) to boot directly on that partition but it didn't worked either. The activate partition before that was the 1st partition (which is the SYSTEM partition) but it didn't worked either.

Can someone help me to make that cloning to work? 

For info, I did the cloning and the partition creation using fdisk and dd command under ubuntu.

Thanks.

[WAWood]

As you discovered, you can't "clone" a partition to a device too small to hold it; instead, what you will need to do is migrate stuff out of your OS partition until it the used space is small enough to fit onto the SSD -- with some space to spare. I would allow at least 10% extra space -- as Windows needs space for buffers and temp files, and if there is too little free space, you'll start getting "out of space" error messages and Windows crashes.

Sorry, but there is no way around that -- cloning apps simply won't let you shrink the source partition down small enough to fit on to the target drive.

Personally, for Linux utilities, I prefer Clonezilla.  It's a little clumsy to use, as the order of source and destination are reversed from what you expect (it asks for the destination first), but it allows you to clone partitions and/or entire drives.

Good Luck

[Mista B]

The recovery partition will be useless because it will never restore to a drive smaller than original so you best deleting that from SSD to create more space for C drive.

With windows you don't really need a big C drive & it far easier for migration & backup to keep C drive sensible size & keep data in other drive/partition .

If you move personal data from C & unwanted software you should be able produce a clone effort to your SSD.

I like minitool partiton wizard as easy use & quite fast & the bootable cd/usb version is free.

You may also want review second drive option in your notebook so use ssd for operating system & often accessed personal data & second drive for larger data storage & backup.

once you up & running & organised you can make your own recovery cd's or partition copies as a future recovery tool seems the oem recovery not workable.

[CompaqMiniMe · Accepted solution]

Hi Wawood and Mista B,

Thanks for your comments, I send a previous message but strangely I didn't found any trace of that previous message, maybe I forgot to press the 'POST' button :-s .

Anyway I was telling that I was understanding your remarks Wawood but my goal is not specially to get the windows partition back on my new SSD (not interested in shrinking the windows partition, it was just a statement), It was ok for me to just re-install from the recovery partition a windows 7 from scratch.

And I was answering Mista B by saying that it would have been dumb from HP to not allow someone to use the recovery partition on the same pc just because he has a different hdd.

Finally, I succeeded to do what I wanted so for those who are interested (so HP is not that dumb after all 😛 ), Here is the method I used to clone My 1To hdd to my 250 Go SSD and keeping all the native HP partitions (recovery, hp_tools, system) with a 1To hdd working correctly.

So What I did is :

-I put the SSD as second drive on my laptop (I suppose that it should work the same way if connected with USB)

-I started my pc and downloaded EaseUs partition master

-I ran the program and started by doing a complete cleanup of the SSD

-I did a copy one by one of the System partition from my 1To hdd to my SSD

-I did a copy one by one of the HP_TOOLS partition from my 1To hdd to my SSD

-I did a copy one by one of the Recovery partition from my 1To hdd to my SSD

-I created a new empty NTFS partition in the remaining partition

I ended with the exact same partition order than in my 1To hdd.

1.SYSTEM

2.Empty NTFS

3.Recovery

4.HP_TOOLS

After that my SSD was not bootable because the MBR was not yet copied.

Then I started a Ubuntu live CD and I installed boot-repair and ran it.

I choosed the advanced options and set fix the mbr and boot on the 3 partition.

I then put the Recovery partition(the partition 3) as ACTIVE.

I removed the 1To hdd from the laptop (to avoid any mistake when running the recovery ending with the 1To beeing recovered 😛 ) and replaced it by the SSD.

I then restarted the laptop and it booted directly on the Recovery partition. I ended in the recovery program (I couldn't choose the recovery from a previous point in time given that the windows partition was empty (no windows backup)).

I choosed rather than the full recovery, the light recovery with  only OS and drivers and it did the Job of recovery. Now that's from it that I'm writing this solved thread :-).

Hope it helps some people out there with the same issues.