mSATA to 2.5 SATA adapter help

[adamsonm]

I would like to upgrade my 128gb mSATA hardrive to a 256gb mSATA hardrive. Ideally I would like to clone what's on my current harddrive and put it on the new 256gb hardrive. I know I need an mSATA to 2.5 adapter in order to copy over what's on the current hardrive to an enclosure. I have been reading about this but I am confused to how I connect the hardrives to the adapter.

Can someone please explain how the adapter is meant to work and how I connect the hardrives to the adapter.

I have Acronis TrueImage to clone the hardrive.

[Kumagoro]

Why not just use the boot CD / usb drive to clone the drive to a usb drive etc.

[DDY]

Rather than buying a mSATA to 2.5" SATA adapter;

1) Make an image of the 128GB SSD as it's still installed on your machine to any external hard drive with enough space. You can use Acronis TrueImage to do this but I recommend Windows 7's own backup tool if you have it.
2) Upgrade the 128GB with your new 256GB SSD
3) Restore the image to your new SSD.

Remeber to backup important data beforehand!

[adamsonm]

@DDY So when I upgrade to the 256GB mSata SSD how do I restore the image from the 128GB SSD? Will I have to install Windows 7 on the 256GB mSATA first and then put the cloned image from the 128GB SSD on the 256GB mSATA SSD?

[Blastuk]

Acronis has a boot cd you can use to boot from, then restore directly from the external hd to the drive

[DDY]

@DDY So when I upgrade to the 256GB mSata SSD how do I restore the image from the 128GB SSD? Will I have to install Windows 7 on the 256GB mSATA first and then put the cloned image from the 128GB SSD on the 256GB mSATA SSD?

You can boot from the Windows install CD or USB to restore an image made using Windows backup, you won't have to re-install Windows if the image already has Windows on it.

[adamsonm]

@DDY So when I create a clone of my old hardrive onto an external hardrive, I then take out the old hardrive and put in the new one. I connect the external hardrive to the laptop and boot up the system. Then I boot from the external hardrive and install the cloned image onto my new hardrive.

Is that correct???

Sorry for being a pain lol

[DDY]

For the following, I'm assuming you have Windows 7 installed on your 128GB drive and have access to some form of Windows 7 installation media, this could be the Windows 7 install disk for example.

To clarify the steps in my previous posts:

1) Create image of existing 128GB drive by using Windows backup to an external drive, you can find the backup tool by typing backup in the start menu.
2) Shut down computer, remove 128GB drive and replace with 256GB drive.
3) Turn on computer and boot off the Windows install disk or USB, have the external drive connected at this point although you're not booting from it.
4) Once you've booted from the Windows installation media, find an option to "repair your computer" and then choose the option to restore from image, follow the instructions
5) Windows should now be transfering the contents of your 128GB drive (off the external drive) to your new 256GB drive.
6) Boot from new 256GB drive

Done!

[adamsonm]

Simples Thanks for the help, I'll let you know how it goes in the next couple of days

[adamsonm]

Right, so I managed to make a system image of my computer using Windows backup and put the image onto an external hardrive. I also managed to install the new 256gb hardrive. I turn the laptop on and it finds the hardrive. I run Windows 7 install through USB and I select the repair option. I click the option to restore from image. A new window pops up for me to choose the image, however it doesn't pick up the external hardrive which the image is in. I have used two different external hardrives and both don't show up. I checked on another computer to see if the image is on the external hardrive through My Computer and it is.

So what i did was click the option command prompt. I typed in diskpart, and then list volume. It shows only the bootable Windows 7 USB.

What am I doing wrong?

Note: The external hardrives are shown in the bios also.