I recently purchased an Asus N55SL laptop. It came with an OEM copy of Windows installed on the 750GB HDD that came with it. I bought a 120GB SSD and would like to replace the stock HDD with this. But I can't figure out how to get Windows onto the SSD. The laptop came with a recovery partition on the HDD, which I don't think helps me. When I booted up the laptop for the first time, I made Asus recovery disks which I could use to recover the laptop to factory defaults. The problem is, these disks are made as an image of the HDD, and the image doesn't apply properly to the SSD. Plus, I've read that SSD's work much better with a fresh install of the OS. I tried using another copy of Windows 7 Home Premium that I had, but the OEM activation key on the bottom of the laptop doesn't work with the non-OEM copy that I have. If anyone knows where I could get an OEM copy of Windows that would work with my product key, or Asus recovery disks that do a fresh install instead of applying an image, it would be a huge help. Or any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated as well.
Assuming you have the OEM disk, call M$ with your old OEM activation keycode. If it is valid they will give you a one time freebie or charge you $25.00 for a new keycode. You may have to purchase an OEM disk. Laptops used to come with one. Not so much any longer. You cannot use an OEM keycode on a full version of Win7. If the full version is pirated or being used by another PC that does not belong to you forget about it.. Jeff
Thanks for the info. I'm going to try cloning the HDD to the SSD again. I found a guide that explains how to do it properly using windows backup. I can't psst the link since I'm a new user, but it's the first Google result from "image ssd from hdd". Ill update once I see how well it works.
Before creating the image or backing up of C: disable pagefile & turn off hybernation or sleep is what they now call it this will reduce fragmentation & lower space requirements,reboot then defrag the system then create image Yes post back whether it works or fails http://www.ssdfreaks.com/content/664/how-to-clone-hdd-to-ssd-with-windows-7s-own-software http://sonic-media.dk/?p=103
It seems to have worked great. I disabled hibernate and pagefile, then defraged. That helped but left the partition still too large after shrinking it. I disabled windows restore and defraged it again, and then I was able to shrink it down really small. Now, I'm left with an 86.7gb C-drive and the 25gb recovery partition. That's not a lot of space, so I'm planning on deleting the recovery partition. I made the Asus recovery disks when I first started the computer, so I don't think that the restore partition is important. Any reason that I shouldn't?
So today I learned that windows can only extend a partition if the unallocated space is to the right of it. Since the restore partition that I erased was to the left of my boot disk, I had to use EaseUs Partition Master. That program worked well and let me resize my partition however I liked. One thing, when the program was trying to resize the disk, I was getting a "The operation had been aborted" messages, and it kept failing. I found these instructions on another forum (I still can't link): "In your case, we suggest you create a txt file named 'EpmStart' under "C:\WINDOWS", and input 'EpmStart' in this txt file and then save the content. After that, please try to run our product and do the operation again." That fixed the program, now my boot drive takes up almost all of the disk. Thanks for the help!
So You've deleted the recovery partition! that was a bad move ,have you tested those recovery discs to make sure they work ? without the recovery partition files you won't be able to restore,for future reference you didn't need to remove that partition all you needed do was use easeus todo backup to copy c partition,change a line in the boot ini so that when bios loads it sees c on partition 1 & load it onto the ssd & it would've booted fine assuming vista or win 7's boot ini is like xp I've not needed to do what you've done on a vista or win 7 machine if you find windows will no longer boot you need to change the boot ini from partition 2 to partition 1,basicly just change the number assuming windows has booted with an error no OS or such like,you can use a linux live cd puppy will suffice At this point don't do any more partition manipulation or attempt recovery using those discs,create an image of c in easeus it's called system it's at the top of the list & at the end to rstore at anytime create a bootup disc from easeus
