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How to transfer the operating system and programs from HDD to SSD. Who is a Sysadmin? Transferring the system to ssd windows 8.1

Many people have probably wondered how to transfer Windows OS to a computer from another computer whose hardware is radically different from the hardware of the old computer.

An example is given for transferring Windows 8, and the same can be done with others Windows versions starting from Windows 7.

And so, we will transfer using a utility from Microsoft called sysprep.

This utility allows you to create a customized image of Windows along with installed programs, which can then be deployed on another computer, preferably with a similar architecture, but very often I had to deploy such an image on a computer with completely different components and everything was successful. And in our situation, although the motherboards were from different manufacturers, the processors were both from INTEL.

After the system is successfully deployed on another machine, you will only need to enter the activation key (that is, as during a normal system installation), otherwise Windows 8 will install, but will only work for 30 days. If activation fails, activate Windows 8 by phone, see the link to our article above.

Extensive information about the sysprep utility is available on the official Microsoft website.

Run the command line as administrator

and enter the command:

A window opens in which you can see the limit on the number of Windows transfers to other computers. In our case, 1000.

Then enter the command

C:\Windows\System32\Sysprep\Sysprep.exe

In the window that appears with parameters, set everything as in the screenshot and click OK.

Transferring the system to OOBE mode - the operating system transfer mode is activated the next time the system starts.
Preparing for use - All data that should not be copied with the image (security identifiers (SIDs), activation information, etc. will be removed from the system, but the installed software should be transferred without problems.
Windows 8 takes a few minutes to prepare for transfer to my friend's computer. The computer turns off. We remove the hard drive from my system unit and put it in its rightful place in my friend’s system unit. We disconnect my friend’s computer from the Internet (why is written below). We connect the cables and turn on his computer, everything is ready for transfer.

And so, if you now back up Windows 8 prepared in this way in the Acronis True Image program or the Paragon program and save this image on DVDs or a portable USB hard drive, then you can successfully deploy this image to other computers, you can do without the Acronis program. use built-in operating system Dism or ImageX tools, (the only thing you will need to do after installation is to enter the system license key or Windows will only work for 30 days and will ask for activation (everything is fair).

We turn on the computer; boot priority from the hard drive should be set in the BIOS. Immediately after switching on, the devices are prepared.

You can activate Windows 8 after installation, click Next.

We accept the license agreement. Computer name.

Attention here friends! Microsoft itself advises that in order to avoid a conflict when transferring a system in this place, be sure to disconnect your computer from the Internet, and assign a new name to your computer, and also create a new user. Then, during the transfer, you will retain the old profile with all installed programs and some settings. If you remember, when new installation Windows 8 we named our computer Makar-PK,

and created an account Makar-77

choose a different name now, for example Fedot-PK. As a result, after migrating Windows 8, you will have two user profiles. The old Makar-77 profile with all programs and the Fedot-77 profile will be saved - it turns out to be temporary and is only needed to transfer Windows 8. Click Next.

Use standard settings.

Select Login without a Microsoft account (if you previously logged into your Windows 8 using an email address, you cannot enter it here, again, to avoid a conflict when transferring the system, and so that your old Makar-77 profile is not overwritten).

Create a new user, that is, an additional local account different from the one that already exists in this system. For example, before transferring Windows 8, you logged in to the system under the Makar-77 account, now in this window create a Username Fedot-77, then assign a password with confirmation and a hint. Ready.

And finally, Windows 8 loads. Naturally, the system is not activated until the Internet is connected, if you do not know how to activate if you have a license key, read our article “How to activate Windows 8.”

We logged into the Fedot-77 account we had just created,

there is not a single program here, an empty desktop, that is, a clean profile,

but I installed the programs and they didn’t go anywhere. Select the Makar-77 account

and we find ourselves in the configured operating system, where almost all the programs I installed run.

Go to computer properties. We see all the information about the “new” components of the system unit.

Every year, SSD storage devices become more affordable, and their capacity increases. It will not surprise anyone by the fact that a home PC uses an SSD drive as a hard drive, and the operating system is installed directly on it. To use an SSD drive in this configuration, you do not need to make any special settings in the OS. Everything will work just like that. However, if you want to get the most out of your SSD drive and use it most efficiently, you need to configure Windows correctly.

It is a well-known fact that the number of write cycles per memory cell on an SSD drive is limited (it should be noted that on modern SSD drives it is quite large). Therefore, each write operation to such a disk potentially reduces its service life. In this article we will try to understand the features of setting up and optimizing Windows 8 installed on an SSD drive. The main goal of optimizing the operation of SSDs in Windows 8 is to minimize the number of disk writes performed by service Windows programs 8.

Using an SSD in Windows 8

AHCI SATA mode

Make sure that in the BIOS of your computer/laptop for the controller SATA operating mode enabled ACHI(AHCI mode is needed for native TRIM support on SSDs). Please note that already installed Windows You cannot switch this operating mode, because this will cause Windows to simply not boot (no AHCI driver)!! To switch the mode to installed system read the article: , .

Also check that in the device manager (Control Panel->Device Manager) in the IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers section there is a controller called AHCI. If there is such a controller, then your system is operating in AHCI mode.

TRIM support

Next, you should make sure that TRIM support is activated in Windows 8. TRIM is a special SATA protocol command that allows the OS to indicate which blocks of data on an SSD drive are no longer needed due to file deletion or formatting, and can be used by the drive to prepare for writing. This allows the SSD to perform garbage collection, otherwise writes to the SSD would be significantly slower. In short, using TRIM increases the efficiency of the SSD disk, increases the speed of write operations and ensures more uniform wear of the SSD memory cells.

You can check TRIM support in Windows 8 from the command line; to do this, run the command:

Fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify

DisableDeleteNotify = 0- TRIM command support enabled
DisableDeleteNotify = 1— TRIM function is disabled.

You can enable TRIM with the command

Fsutil behavior set DisableDeleteNotify 0

Disable disk indexing

The first step in optimizing an SSD drive is to disable the indexing function of such drives. The point of indexing technology is to speed up access and search through files. This technology was developed for mechanical hard drives. In the case of an SSD drive with a short response time, there is practically no sense in this technology. In addition, disabling indexing reduces the number of unnecessary writes to the SSD.

You can disable indexing by going to the SSD disk properties and unchecking the " Allow files to have contents indexed in addition to file properties» and click OK. If there are errors in applying the attributes, answer “ Ignore All».

Windows Search Service

Next you need to disable the service Windows Search(Windows search). This service creates a separate index of files, folders and other objects on your hard drive. By indexing, Windows Search significantly speeds up the search for needed data. The index is stored in the directory c:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Search and its size is usually 10% of the contents of the indexed files. Due to the short access time to the SSD, this function is not particularly needed and can be disabled.

Open the Service Management Console services.msc
In the right pane, find the service Windows Search, go to its properties
In field Startup type(Startup type) select Disabled(Disabled)
Click the button Stop(Stop) and save changes

Disable System Restore

The next step is to disable the “System Restore” function. This is necessary in order to reduce the number of write operations on the SSD and free up precious (literally) space on the SSD disk. Function System Restore periodically creates recovery checkpoints (copies of system files) to which you can roll back in case of problems with the OS.

You can disable system restore by going to computer properties, selecting the menu item System Protection, then select our SSD drive and click Configure. In the next window, disable system protection by selecting the option “ Disable System Protection" Save your changes.

Disable or reduce the size of the paging file

SSD drives are best used if available large quantity RAM (4 GB or more). By disabling the page file for the SSD drive, we will free up space reserved for it and reduce wear on the SSD. However, it should be understood that the paging file allows the computer to work more efficiently when there is a lack of physical memory (RAM); if the computer does not have enough RAM and the paging file is not enabled, the system will slow down if more memory is required than the physical one.

You can disable the paging file by going to the properties window " My computer", tab Advanced, chapter Performance–tab Settings, tab Advanced, chapter Virtual Memory button Change. Uncheck the option Automatically Manage Page File Size For All Drives(Automatically select paging file size), then select the option No paging file.

If the computer also has a regular hard drive, the swap file can be transferred to it.

Disabling hibernation mode in Win 8

Hibernation is needed to speed up system recovery after inactivity. When the system is turned off, it will save all the contents of the RAM to the hard drive, and when turned on, it reads it. When using an SSD, the hibernation feature does not provide much benefit due to the fast boot time from such a drive. By disabling hibernation mode, you will save several gigabytes of memory on the SSD drive (depending on the size of the RAM).

You can disable hibernation with the command:

Powercfg -h off

Defragmentation of SSD in Windows 8

PrefetchAndSuperfetch

Prefetch and Superfetch- These are Windows 8 components designed to speed up the loading of data and applications. These components cache frequently used programs and data in the cache, thereby launching such programs much faster. Because An SSD drive is an order of magnitude faster than a traditional hard drive, eliminating the need for the Prefetch and Superfetch functions. Thus, we save memory space and get rid of unnecessary write operations on the SSD.

Windows 8 automatically disables these services when running on an SSD drive. We recommend that you still make sure that this is really the case using the registry editor.

Open Registry Editor – regedit.exe
Go to section HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters
Check the key values: EnableSuperfetch=0(default 3), EnablePrefetcher=0(default 3)
If the values are other than 0, change them to 0 and restart your computer.

So, we got acquainted with the optimization features of Windows 8 on an SSD drive. It is primarily up to you to use one or another technique, but in the long run, with the help of such simple manipulations, eliminating unnecessary write operations, you can extend the life of your SSD drive and achieve maximum performance of the SSD drive in Win 8.

It should be noted that for owners of Intel SSD it is recommended to install an additional utility Intel SSD Toolbox, designed to optimize the performance of Intel SSD drives.

Hello dear readers of the blog www.site. Today we will return to the topic of transferring a Windows user profile to another drive.

Why move user profiles to another drive?

The need to transfer profiles from the Windows boot partition to another volume may be dictated by various reasons. For example, the desire to place the operating system itself on a fast striped raid (RAID 0), and move user data to a fault-tolerant array (RAID 1, 5, etc.).

However, there has been increased interest in issues related to moving user profiles in Windows to Lately, mainly due to the increased popularity of fast solid-state drives.

As has been noted many times before, while SSDs are significantly superior in speed, they are significantly inferior to their mechanical counterparts in capacity and price. Placement of system Windows files 7 – Windows 8.1 and user data on one small SSD makes working on such a computer uncomfortable in the future and forces you to look for solutions to the problem of lack of disk space.

The process of transferring user profiles from an SSD to a HDD in Windows 7 was discussed in some detail in previous blog posts in a series of articles under the general title “Transferring Windows 7 to a small solid-state drive.”

The second part described a not very successful attempt to use the standard “Windows Easy Transfer” for these purposes.

The third part, which has become very popular among readers, describes an option for a very successful transfer of user profiles using symbolic links.

Today, after several months of active use of such a system, we can say with confidence that Windows 7 in a two-disk configuration (SSD + HDD) feels great. Everything works quickly and not a single problem has arisen due to the transfer of work profiles to the second disk.

Reasons that prompted us to revisit the topic of transferring user profiles

By now, there are several new considerations that I would like to share:

Complicated process for backing up moved folders

With all the positive things that have been said about the two-disk configuration of Windows 7, one significant inconvenience arose during actual operation. It is related to the creation of backups.

Many people back up system partitions using or Acronis. This method does not take much time and guarantees quick system recovery in the event of an emergency.

And here the problem arises - what to do with the folders of moved user profiles? To these are added system directories, additionally transferred to the SSD to save space (Installer, MSOCache, Search).

Making a backup of the entire disk on which these directories are located is absolutely not an option. Firstly, there is a lot of stuff on the disk, mainly that there is no need to back up. Secondly, where can I get so much space on the target media?

IN Acronis the ability to create backup copies of individual files and folders is declared. However, it is unlikely that you will be able to take advantage of this opportunity to create a backup of transferred user profiles, since Acronis This is clearly not the best way to handle such a task. Even if the program manages to complete the task and does not terminate abnormally, the total running time will exceed all reasonable limits.

All that remains is to manually copy the transferred profiles and system folders. Their volume can amount to several tens of gigabytes. Accordingly, such file-by-file copying takes quite a lot of time.

You can try to reduce the time it takes to create repeated backups using the command robocopy. It needs to be run with elevated privileges (as administrator):

robocopy X:\Users\ Y:\Backup\Users\ /COPYALL /MIR /XJ X:\Users\– disk and folder with transferred computer user profiles;
Y:\Backup\Users\– the target disk and the folder on it in which copies of user profiles will be recorded.
/MIR– the key thanks to which the source and destination folders are synchronized.

During the execution of the command, not only will new and changed files be added to the final (target) folder, but files that no longer exist in the source folder will also be deleted from it.

Additionally, to save space on the target media, you can create empty destination folders in advance and assign them the “ Compress content to save disk space" V " Properties” / “Additionally”:

In my case, enabling compression of destination folders allowed me to reduce the backup size by 13% (52 instead of 60 GB). Unfortunately, I cannot say how turning on compression affected the average recording and the total operation time. I think that in this case it is not very important.

The backup process must be performed in a “non-migrated” user session. Otherwise, a large number of files in the current profile will be locked and will not be able to be copied.

If, in addition to profiles, some system directories were transferred, for example, Installer, MSOCache, Search, then they can also be backed up using robocopy:

robocopy X:\SystemFoldersC\ Y:\Backup\SystemFoldersC\ /COPYALL /MIR /XJ

In order to be able to backup the contents of the folder Search, before starting copying you need to stop the search service WSearch.

This can be done in Task Manager, opened with elevated privileges - command taskngr V command line running as administrator:

Or, which is much simpler, in the command line with administrator rights, run the command:

net stop wsearch

After creating a backup, you need to restart the computer or enable the search service with the command:

net start wsearch

Ultimately, you can create a batch file that will contain all the commands listed. This will greatly simplify the backup task.

However, it should be noted that robocopy works with user profile content quite strangely. This manifests itself in incorrect processing of links such as “Application Data”, “Local Settings”, etc. When copying for the first time using the above command, they simply do not appear in the target folders.

To solve this problem, we can recommend using the FAR file manager. Unlike the team robocopy it does a great job of copying profile content.

Perhaps we can develop some kind of sharing plan FAR And robocopy. For example, first perform console commands, and then “do copy” using the file manager FAR in the “Only new / updated files” option.

In a word, there are issues with profile backup. This is also added to them - what to do with such a backup in case of problems with the second disk? If, let's say, Windows won't start without the transferred folders, then it's not very obvious how to get them back. Of course, there will be a solution, but it is not a fact that it will be trivial.

In general, creating backups and backup copies of data does not at all guarantee the possibility of quickly restoring the system’s functionality after an accident if the possibility of such recovery has never been tested before and there is no clear plan. For example, the backup was made by Acronis directly from the Windows environment, but there is no bootable Live-CD. Ultimately, you will somehow make it using another computer, but it is absolutely not a fact that this instance will see its own image on your media. Many such examples can be given.

Let's summarize what has been said. I would like to be able to make backups of moved folders in the same way as system disk. This is what we will do today.

Windows 8.1 release

The next reason that prompted us to once again turn our attention to the transfer of user profiles is the recent release of Windows 8.1. Judging by the increased popularity of publications dedicated to this latest operating system, many users are thinking about installing it.

I am also no exception. If I did not plan to install Windows 8 on my work computer and looked at it as if “from the outside,” then with regard to Windows 8.1 it may very well be the case.

I wouldn’t want to buy a new SSD with a larger capacity at the same time as a new operating system. Therefore, you need to make sure that Windows 8.1, like Windows 7, will work properly in a dual-disk configuration.

2. Mounting a volume as an NTFS folder

On the C:\ drive, create an empty folder using any usual method. Let's call it, for example, “Disk2”. You can connect a new volume to it directly at the stage of its creation:

If a volume to accommodate roaming user profiles and, possibly, some system folders already exists on the second disk, then in Windows 8.1 we click Win + X(or " Computer management” –> “Disk management"). Select the desired disk partition and use context menu by right mouse button or through the menu item “ Action” –> “All tasks"open" Change drive letter or drive path” –> “Add”:

After mounting the volume as an NTFS folder, the drive letter can be deleted. This should be done only after there are no resources left on the disk associated with the drive letter. These include, for example, the swap file, or the folder Search. After connecting the folder, it will appear as a link in Explorer. In fact, this is a symbolic link to the entire volume:

3. Transfer of user profiles

We create, if it does not already exist, a new local “service” user, whose profile will remain in its original location on the C:\ drive, and include it in the Administrators group. It is in this user's session that we will transfer user profiles.

You can do this directly in “ Computer management” or in Windows 8 / 8.1 “ Options” –> “Change computer settings” (right pop-up panel) –> “ Accounts”.

Reboot the computer and log into the new local administrator session. As we have already said, the process of transferring user profiles is no different from that previously described for Windows 7.

Let's assume that you need to move the user profile “User-3”.

Problem using the command robocopy for copying user profiles was discussed above. Team xcopy I couldn’t cope with the task at all. Let's hope these are temporary difficulties.

For now, let’s again use this wonderful program for our purpose. FAR. The program is still free and works great on Windows 8.1. You need to run it with administrator rights:

The main thing is not to forget to check the copy access permissions box before starting the task.

Once the copying is complete, you need to make sure that all files are copied and delete the original profile folder. In this case, “C:\Users\User-3” (I hope that this was done before the transfer operations began).

Just in case, before deleting the moved profile folder, you should restart the computer - sometimes without this you cannot delete some files.

After deleting the original profile, make a link in the “C:\Users” directory to the new location of the user profile. The link can be made on the command line:

mklink /D "C:\Users\User-3" "C:\Disk2\Users\User-3"

or in the manager FAR By " Alt+F6”.

The question of the advisability of changing paths to user directories in the registry was discussed in the first article. There is practically nothing to add to this, except that on a working machine with Windows 7 I did not change anything in the registry and this did not lead to any negative consequences during the entire period of operation.

I will also not dwell on moving the Installer, MSOCache and Search system folders to a new location - there is nothing new here.

Testing Windows 8.1 with a moved user profile

Testing was carried out in a Windows 8.1 x64 virtual machine in the system Oracle VirtualBox. The guest machine was allocated 2.5 GB of RAM and 256 MB of video memory.

The first login to the User-3 session after the profile transfer went completely smoothly. That is, it was no different from logging into the session before the transfer:

Before moving the user profile, several files were created on the desktop and in the Documents folder. I think it is needless to say that after the transfer all these files remained in place.

First of all, we launch the “Store”, the performance of which was promised to have some problems:

The “Store” launched properly and, at first glance, works successfully - you can freely navigate and select applications.

Let’s launch a few more “tiled” applications:

There were no problems launching programs. As with switching between them.

Short testing Windows operation 8.1 on a virtual machine in a user session with a profile moved to the second disk, of course, cannot be considered exhaustive and complete, however, it gives a certain idea of the performance of the two-disk configuration of Windows 8.1. I hope that after some time I will be able to do this on my work computer.

Replacing a conventional hard drive with an SSD can significantly improve operating comfort and provide reliable data storage. This is why many users try to replace the HDD with a solid-state drive. However, after replacing the drive, you need to somehow transfer your operating system along with installed programs.

On the one hand, you can install everything again and then there will be problems with the transition to new disk will not be. But what to do if the old one has about a dozen programs, and the OS itself is already configured for comfortable work? It is this question that we will answer in our article.

So, you purchased a brand new SSD and now you need to somehow transfer the OS itself with all the settings and installed programs. Fortunately, we don't have to invent anything. Developers software(however, like the developers of the Windows operating system) have already taken care of everything.

Thus, we have two options: either use a third-party utility or standard Windows tools.

Before moving on to the instructions, we would like to draw your attention to the fact that the disk to which you will transfer your operating system must be no smaller than the one on which it is installed.

Method 1: Transfer OS to SSD using AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard Edition

First, let's take a closer look at the method of transferring an operating system using a third-party utility. Currently, there are many different utilities that allow you to easily transfer an OS. For example, we took the AOMEI Partition Assistant application. This tool is free and has a Russian interface.

Among the large number of functions, the application contains a very convenient and simple wizard for transferring the operating system to another disk, which we will use in our example. The wizard we need is located on the left panel in the “ Masters", to call it, click on the command " Transfer OS SSD or HDD».

A window with a small description appeared in front of us, after reading the information, click on the button “ Further" and move on to the next step.

Here the wizard prompts you to select the disk where the OS will be transferred. Please note that the drive must not be partitioned, that is, it must not contain partitions or a file system, otherwise you will get an empty list at this step.
So, once you have selected the target disk, click the “ Further" and move on.

The next step will be marking the drive to which the operating system is transferred. Here you can change the partition size if necessary, but do not forget that the partition must be no smaller than the one on which the OS is installed. Also, if necessary, you can specify a letter for the new partition.
Once all the parameters have been set, proceed to the next step by clicking the " Further».

Here the wizard prompts us to complete the setup of the AOMEI Partition Assistant application to migrate the system to an SSD. But before that, you can read a small warning. It says that after a reboot, in some cases the OS may not boot. And if you encounter a similar problem, then you need to disconnect the old disk or connect a new one in place of the old one, and the old one in place of the new one. To confirm all actions, press the button “ End» and complete the wizard’s work.

Next, in order for the migration process to begin, you must click the “ Apply».

Party Assistant will display a window with a list of pending operations, where we just have to click the “ Go».

This will be followed by another warning, where by clicking on the “ Yes", we confirm all our actions. After this, the computer will restart and the process of transferring the operating system to the solid-state drive will begin. The duration of this process will depend on a number of factors, including the amount of data being transferred, the speed of the HDD and the power of the computer.

After the migration, the computer will reboot again and now all that remains is to format the HDD to remove the OS and the old bootloader.

Method 2: Transfer OS to SSD using standard Windows tools

Another way to migrate to a new disk is to use standard operating system tools. However, you can use it if Windows 7 and higher are installed on your computer. Otherwise, you will have to use third-party utilities.

Let's take a closer look at this method using Windows 7 as an example.

In principle, the process of transferring an OS using standard means is not complicated and takes place in three stages:

creating a system image;
creating a boot drive;
unpacking the image to a new disk.

So let's get started. In order to create an OS image, you need to use the Windows tool " " To do this, go to the menu “ Start" and open the "Control Panel".

Next, you need to click on the link “ Backing up computer data" and you can proceed to creating a Windows backup. In the window " Archiving or restoring files“There are two commands we need, now we will use the creation of a system image, for this we click on the corresponding link.

Here we need to select the drive on which the OS image will be written. This can be either a disk partition or a DVD. However, it is worth remembering that Windows 7, even without installed programs, takes up quite a lot of space. Therefore, if you decide to burn a copy of the system to DVD, you may need more than one disc.

Having selected the location where you want to save the image, click “ Further" and move on to the next step.
Now the wizard prompts us to select the sections that need to be included in the archiving. Since we are only transferring the OS, we don’t need to select anything; the system has already included all the necessary disks for us. Therefore, click " Further" and move on to the final step.

Now you need to confirm the selected archiving options. To do this, click “ Archive

After a copy of the OS has been created, Windows will prompt you to create a bootable drive.

You can also create a drive using the command “ Create a system repair disk" in the window " Archive or restore».

At the first step, the bootable disk creation wizard will prompt you to select a drive in which a blank drive should already be installed for recording.

Attention! If your work machine does not have writeable drives, you will not be able to burn the optical recovery drive.

If there is a data disk in the drive, the system will offer to clear it. If you use DVD-RW for recording, then you can clean it, otherwise you need to insert a clean one.

To do this, go to “ My computer"and right-click on the drive. Now select the item “ Erase this disk».

Now let’s return to creating a recovery drive, select the desired drive, click on the “ Create disk" and wait for the process to complete. Upon completion, we will see a window like this:

this indicates that the disk was successfully created.

So, let's summarize. At this point, we already have an image with the operating system and a bootable recovery drive, which means we can move on to the third and final stage.

Reboot the computer and go to the boot device selection menu.

This can usually be done by pressing the F11 key, but there may be other options. Typically, function keys are listed on the BIOS (or UEFI) start screen, which is displayed when you turn on the computer.

Next, the OS recovery environment will be loaded. At the first stage, for convenience, select the Russian language and press the button “ Next».

After this, a search for installed systems will be performed.

Since we are restoring the OS from a pre-prepared image, we move the switch to the second position and click “ Further».

At this stage, the system itself will offer us a suitable image for recovery, so, without changing anything, click “ Further».

You can now set additional parameters if necessary. To go to the last action, press the button “ Further».

At the last stage we will be shown brief information about the image. Now you can proceed directly to unpacking to disk, to do this, press the button “ Further" and wait for the process to complete.

At the end of the process, the system will automatically reboot and at this point the process of transferring Windows to the SSD can be considered complete.

Today we looked at two ways to switch from HDD to SSD, each of which is good in its own way. Having familiarized yourself with both, you can now choose the one that is more suitable for you in order to quickly and without data loss transfer the OS to a new disk.

In this article we will talk about the procedure for migrating settings and user data from a system running Windows 7 to a new computer running Windows 8. And although the article is written on Windows 8 Consumer Preview, there is every reason to believe that after the final release of Windows 8 the data transfer procedure There will be no changes from Windows 7 to Windows 8.

Let's start by launching the Settings Transfer Wizard in Windows 7 by typing Windows Easy Transfer in the search window. Windows Easy Transfer is a native Windows 7 utility that allows you to transfer files, system settings and user settings from one computer to another. It is a simple wizard that allows you to select the files and settings that need to be transferred and transfer the specified data to another PC. The entire procedure for transferring information from Windows 7 to Windows 8 can be divided into two stages: the first stage involves downloading and saving Windows 7 settings on external media; in the second stage, the saved settings are imported to a computer with Windows 8.

We save files and settings on an external hard drive

After starting the Transfer Wizard, click Next and select a method to transfer data to another PC. The first two methods assume a connection between two PCs, but we want to first save the transferred data to an external drive, and then connect this drive to the new computer. Therefore, we will select the option: An external hard disk or USB flash drive (External hard drive or USB flash drive).

Next, you will see a list of all the profiles and shares stored on this computer that need to be migrated. By default, standard directories are selected, and if you want to specify additional folders and files, you must click the Customize and Advanced button.

In the simple file browser window that appears, you need to select additional directories (or entire disks) that need to be migrated.

The Window 7 Easy Transfer wizard saves all settings and data as a file with the MIG extension. In addition, you can set a password on this file to protect it from third parties. By clicking the Save button, the wizard will ask you to select an external drive to which you want to save the data. Please note that the external drive must be formatted in the NTFS file system, because... The FAT-32 file system can store files up to 4GB in size (and in most cases the archive will be larger than this value).

Once the directory is specified, the data and settings will begin to be copied into the migration file. This process usually takes a long time, depending on the size of the data being copied and the access speed of the internal and external drives.

After completing the copying procedure, you can remove the hard drive and connect it to a computer running Windows 8.

Transferring settings and data to a new PC running Windows 8

After we have saved the settings and information from the old computer using the Data Transfer Wizard, it is time to deploy them to the new one. As in previous versions of Windows OS, Windows 8 has a utility for transferring data from one PC to another, it is called Easy File Transfer. Using it, we will expand all the information from the archived MIG file to its original location on the computer disk.

Open the Windows Search menu and enter easy transfer in the search bar and select Apps.

In the Data Transfer Wizard window, select An external hard disk or USB flash drive.

Then we indicate that this is my new computer.

Click the Transfer button, after which the transfer of information and user settings (including accounts, themes, etc.) will begin.

After the process of restoring files and data on the new PC is completed, you will be able to view a list of files transferred during the migration process, as well as a list of applications that need to be installed.

By clicking the See what was transferred button, we will open a report on the operation of the Windows Easy Transfer utility, displaying a list of accounts, documents, and system/program settings that were transferred.

On the Program report tab you will be able to see a list of applications that were previously installed on the old PC and which will need to be additionally installed on the new one.