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I already have a hard drive in my computer (C drive).

I bought an SSD. I want to turn that SSD into the C drive.

There is a good solution here: Easiest way to move my Windows installation to an SSD? http://www.winsupersite.com/article/windows-7/replace-your-hard-drive-using-free-windows-7-tools

However that solution has one fatal issue. After I back up the whole C partition to the SSD I will have to remove the previous hard disk so that windows think that the new hard disk is the new C partition.

What about if I want windoes to reassign the SSD into the Cdrive and then I delete the original C partition?

But no I want to keep the old hard disk. I just want to delete the old C partition and make windows think that the SSD is the new C drive.

How would I do so?

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  • Use the software your SSD manufacturer suggests. In many cases they have their own, and instructions on migration. In general most backup/cloning software would work – Journeyman Geek Jan 07 '13 at 12:07
  • How about [clonezilla](http://clonezilla.org/downloads.php)? – avirk Jan 07 '13 at 12:12
  • Hm I thought this was a practical question that is perfectly answerable, and also on-topic. Oh well... –  Jan 07 '13 at 14:20
  • @bvukelic - It is, it's not down voted, just closed as the question has already been asked before. – Dave Jan 07 '13 at 16:22
  • @DaveRook: Earlier it was closed as off-topic and/or unanswerable. I see that's been corrected now. –  Jan 07 '13 at 19:03
  • I changed the question a little bit to make it different than the other questions. – user4951 Jan 08 '13 at 02:05
  • Jim, it's still the same question, it's still closed and you've already marked an answer. I'm not sure what you are trying to achieve by changing the details now it is closed? – Dave Jan 08 '13 at 08:40

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Free live CDs like SytemRescueCD have tools for cloning NTFS partitions. Advantage is that the live CD itself runs its own OS, so you don't have to worry about locked system files and such.

Alternatively, you can use backup tools to back up entire system configuration, swap drives, install a fresh copy of the OS, and restore the backup. But I think it's faster to just clone the partition.

EDIT:

FYI, SystemRescueCD includes a tool call FSArchiver, which apparently has a way to clone NTFS partitions, which is what you want to do.

EDIT2:

Another tool that can clone NTFS partitions is ntfsclone. Not sure if SystemRescueCD includes it (I see no reason why it wouldn't), but there is another one called RIP (Recovery Is Possible) which does.