18 Posts
0
4124
Recovery Partition Question
I have the Dell model XPS 8700 running Win 7 Pro. It is now 5 years old with the original hard drive that has 3 partitions OS (C), Recovery and FAT (16) and would like to replace it with a Samsung EVO 60 500GB solid state drive. The Samsung drive comes with migrating software to clone the HDD contents to the SSD but there is some debate on where the boot files reside. I'm told the some Dell models have the boot files in the Recovery partition.
1.Does anyone know if this the the case?
2.If the boot files are in the Recovery partition does Dell lock this partition thus making cloning with the Samsung software unavailable?
3. If I am able to clone this partition along with the other two (FAT and OS (C) will I be able to boot from the installed SSD?
Hoping others on the forum might have experience and answers and can assist.
Frank
fdm2000
18 Posts
0
November 16th, 2018 07:00
jphughan, thanks again for your assistance and kindness. I think I am somewhat better prepared to make the upgrade to an SSD. Just waiting to see if there may be a Black Friday price drop before purchasing the drive.
jphughan
4 Operator
4 Operator
•
14K Posts
0
October 31st, 2018 19:00
Disk Management should show you which partition is the "active" partition, which would be the one that your system boots from. But honestly to keep things simple I would recommend just cloning everything. Those other partitions take up very little space, and even if you don't need the Recovery partition for booting, it can come in handy for recovering your system after events such as a Windows update that went awry, for example. Capturing periodic system images is a much better solution, and there are several excellent applications for that purpose (such as Macrium Reflect, which even offers a free version that has a solid feature set), but very few people bother to do that.
I've never used the Samsung tool for cloning (I use Macrium Reflect since it does both cloning and imaging), but from what I've read it's dead simple -- and no you won't encounter issues with partitions being locked.
Yes, if you clone everything to your new SSD, you should be able to boot just fine. You'll need to install your SSD internally (some people don't realize that you can't test boot a cloned SSD while it's still connected via a SATA to USB adapter, for example, since Windows doesn't allow booting from USB), and I would also recommend at least temporarily disconnecting the source drive when you install the SSD and try to boot the system from it for the first time. If you want to reintroduce that other drive later, go ahead, but for the first time you should keep it simple.
fdm2000
18 Posts
0
November 12th, 2018 06:00
Many thanks for your response and insights, jphughan. Yes I would plan on cloning all three partitions on my existing old HDD to the SSD. As you suggested I did look in Disk Management and I am correct that the OS partition contains the boot files as captured on the included image? Others have indicated that Dell usually uses the Recovery partition for boot files?
Confused on which partition actually boots PC - what is your conclusion?
jphughan
4 Operator
4 Operator
•
14K Posts
0
November 12th, 2018 08:00
Unfortunately uploaded images are initially only visible to the person who uploaded them and to Dell reps, until Dell reps "approve" them for viewing -- so as of this writing, I can't see what you uploaded.
In terms of the partition that includes the boot files, that's not really a Dell thing. It's more based on the partitions that are available when Windows is first installed and can possibly change if you enable BitLocker. It also doesn't help that Microsoft names their partitions backwards from everyone else. Everywhere else, the "boot partition" is the one that contains the bootloader files, and the "system partition" is the partition that contains the operating system files -- makes perfect sense, right? For reasons passing understanding, Microsoft long ago decided to flip those around, and it's been that way ever since. So the partition marked "Boot" is just where the OS is. The partition marked "System" is where the boot files are. Anyway, on a UEFI system, the boot files will either be on the EFI System partition (which always has to exist) or possibly on the Recovery partition (which is created by default but isn't always necessary). On a Legacy BIOS system where there's no such thing as an EFI partition, the boot files can either be on the OS partition (your C drive) or on the Recovery partition; they will HAVE to be on the latter if you are using BitLocker. But if you intend to clone all of the partitions over, I'm not sure why you're concerned about this. Are you just curious?
jphughan
4 Operator
4 Operator
•
14K Posts
0
November 14th, 2018 09:00
Well the good news is that since your source drive is intact, you can always try one tool and then rerun the clone with another one if the first one doesn't work so well. But if you want to see where your boot files are, one quicker way I forgot to mention is to open Command Prompt, type "diskpart", and then enter "list volume", then check the Info column. Again, since we're in Microsoft's bizarro world where they took an existing completely sensible convention and reversed it, whatever partition is labeled as "System" will be the one where your boot files reside. The partition labeled "Boot" will be the one containing the OS you're currently running.
fdm2000
18 Posts
0
November 14th, 2018 09:00
Again thanks for the reply to my last post jphughan.
I really have no substantive concern merely curious and trying to increase my currently limited level of understanding. Only a matter of curiosity. Recently learned that some Samsung SSD purchasers encountered problems when using the transfer software provided with the SSD.with the StarTech SATA III to USB 3.0 adapter. Thinking about cloning with either Macrium or EaseUS Todo free versions.