Installing a new 60GB SSD - Win7 64 bit

[autotran]

I had Win7 installed on my "C" drive. I used dixmlsetup.exe to make a backup on my D drive (different hard drive). I then used this backup, and installed it on my new SSD drive, which was my "O" drive. I was then able to boot my computer using the SSD drive, "O" as my boot drive. I though I was OK, but I see that I am still writing and using the "C" drive These two files, hiberfil.sys and aaw7boot.log were updated on the "C" drive this AM, and on the "O" drive they have yesterdays morning date when I restored the image. I know I can't change the "C" drive letter and it is too much work to install Win7 on the SSD drive and then reload all my applications.
If I do it over, and install the image on my SSD drive, then unplug all my other nine drives, and then restart, will Windows assign the new SSD drive as my "C" drive? I know I will have a problem on 1st startup, as Windows will be looking for my applications which are mostly installed on my "E" and "F" drive which will be unpluged (my original boot drive has 5 partitions, C, E, F, G and H). Then when I plug my original boot drive in only, what will it do about the original "C" drive? Will it just rename it or will it get confused? (I can get rid of the old "C" afterwards with one of my partitioning programs)
Any other suggestions? Thanks, Dave

[EzyStvy]

If I do it over, and install the image on my SSD drive, then unplug all my other nine drives, and then restart, will Windows assign the new SSD drive as my "C" drive?

Yes - that would be the way to do it..

[autotran]

Something went wrong.
I started my computer using the "O" drive as my boot drive. I then tried to restore my original "C" backup onto this same drive, it just failed and locked up right away. Maybe I should have stared using the "C" drive as the boot drive, but it's too late for that now.
Now, when I start my computer, I see the SSD drive OK in the setup, but it doesn't show up in explorer anymore. It doesn't show up in disc manager also. I haven't been able to get it to show up no matter what I do. Any ideas what might have happened to it?
The computer runs fine and works fine on the original "C" drive, so it isn't a critical emergency to finish installing the SSD drive properly.
Thanks, Dave
PS: The SSD was installed on an add-on card, I moved it to the main board after this all happened, still no luck.

[glc]

SSD's are not known for their reliability.

[autotran]

I loaded Knoppix and tried to look at the drive. It was there before but it isn't there now.
I then remembered that I had Easeus Partition Magic Pro on my computer. It found the drive OK, it was marked unallocated and logical. I changed it to Primary and NTFS. I rebooted and there it was again without any Windows files.
I then used my C_Backup xml file and restored it to the SSD again. This time it seemed to work OK. Unplugged all my drives and tried to boot using the SSD drive, it wouldn't boot, claimed no operating system. Used my Win7 repair disk to try to fix it, couldn't do it, again claimed no operating system.
Using the Win7 repair disk, it says if I have a drive image on a DVD, it would restore it. I might try this next unless someone has a better idea.
Thanks, Dave

[autotran]

Since the back-up using my C_Backup xml file didn't work, I had to look for another solution. I forgot that I had Acronis True Image Home on my computer, so I tried it using it. I backed up my "C" drive to my "D" drive and then restored this back-up to the SSD drive. Both the back-up and restore were much faster than the 1st method.

I then made sure all of my other drives, except for one DVD drive, was disconnected, and restarted my computer. Win 7 started fine fron the SSD drive, and it ended up as the "C" drive as expected.
Of course a lot of programs were not available/working as they are on my "E", "F" and "P" drives. I shut the computer down and reconnected all of my drives. On the re-start, a lot of the programs were still unavailable as the "E" drive came back as the "L" drive. The connected DVD drive had been assigned the "E" and the old "C" drive was now assigned "I". I changed this "I" drive to un-assigned with no letter and then I changed any of the drives that had changed letters back to there original ones. I will delete and repartition the old "C" drive later after I am sure I have no problems with the SSD drive. I now made my last restart and everything was back as it was, total success.

Was it worth it for me?
In my case, it is an unqualified yes. My computer starts up much faster (it appears over twice as fast) and everything that has anything to do with the "C" drive is much quicker and more responsive. I do have a lot of programs on my computer, and many are loaded in the system tray on start-up, this would slow almost anyone's system down. After this I ran Windows "Performance Information and Tools", and my "Disk Transfer Rate" shows it went from 5.9 to 7.3, a very significant increase.