Dual Boot (Linux+XP) migration to SSD
Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2014 7:29 am
New user here and I am looking for some pointers from you gurus - Looks like the community here is fairly knowledgeable so here goes:
Basically I'm planning to migrate my dual boot environment (XP Pro + a few Linux Distros) to a new SSD drive. My current HD is 300MB, but is not completely full, so I s/b ok with a 240GB SSD. (Any recs for model/brand invited - I don't need anything fancy as my m/b is only SATA2).
What I'd like to do is make a (Cold) image copy - including MBR partitions etc of my HD - just a straight byte for byte copy w/out worrying about partition types/sizes etc. Then remove the HD, install the SSD drive and restore to the SSD from the image backup. This all sounds perfectly doable except for:
1) SSD partition alignment - AFAIK I may have performance issues in XP if I do not align the partitions correctly. So how do ensure that I get the partitions aligned correctly - either before or after the install.
2) TRIM support - XP does not support TRIM operations - Is there a 3rd party utlilty/garbage collection I can run periodically until I upgrade to Windows 7 or 8?
3) I'd like to achieve this WITHOUT installing original XP media as Its been a while since I originally installed XP and am planning to upgrade to either Windows 7 or Windows 8 in the next 6 months.
AFAIK this is not rocket science - however I don't do this very often so I'm just checking that there are no hidden snags/gotchas here.
TIA,
Patrick
Basically I'm planning to migrate my dual boot environment (XP Pro + a few Linux Distros) to a new SSD drive. My current HD is 300MB, but is not completely full, so I s/b ok with a 240GB SSD. (Any recs for model/brand invited - I don't need anything fancy as my m/b is only SATA2).
What I'd like to do is make a (Cold) image copy - including MBR partitions etc of my HD - just a straight byte for byte copy w/out worrying about partition types/sizes etc. Then remove the HD, install the SSD drive and restore to the SSD from the image backup. This all sounds perfectly doable except for:
1) SSD partition alignment - AFAIK I may have performance issues in XP if I do not align the partitions correctly. So how do ensure that I get the partitions aligned correctly - either before or after the install.
2) TRIM support - XP does not support TRIM operations - Is there a 3rd party utlilty/garbage collection I can run periodically until I upgrade to Windows 7 or 8?
3) I'd like to achieve this WITHOUT installing original XP media as Its been a while since I originally installed XP and am planning to upgrade to either Windows 7 or Windows 8 in the next 6 months.
AFAIK this is not rocket science - however I don't do this very often so I'm just checking that there are no hidden snags/gotchas here.
TIA,
Patrick