Transferring OS from HDD to SSD using ThinkVantage Tools?

Question

Hi everyone. I recently purchased a ThinkPad T420 from Lenovo and an mSata SSD (80gb) off Newegg. I installed the drive properly and my computer recognizes the drive, etc. Now, when I bought my ThinkPad, I didn't purchase a physical copy of Windows 7 because when I go to college next year, I'll be able to get a super cheap copy (like 7 dollars). So I'm stuck with the problem of getting my operating system from my factory installed HDD to my self installed SSD. How would I go about doing this?
Things I have:
-External Hard drive
-CD-RW discs (made one into a Rescue and Recovery Start Up Disc using the Rescue and Recovery software)
-ThinkVantage Tools
-Patch for Rescue and Recovery
Should I be doing this using Lenovo's built in tools? Also, I was wondering if/how/when I should partition my SSD for my OS. I don't have any experience doing this, but I've read that it's pretty important.
Thank you! I'm still learning, so I appreciate your patience :]

Answer 1

There are a couple of ways to do this, depending on what you want to accomplish.  Do you want the OS install on your SSD to be the factory image - as it was when your  laptop came out of the box - or do you want a snapshot of your machine at the time you swapped drives (actually just before you swapped drives)?
(obviously, you do either of the below with the original HD in the machine.)
For a factory config, in addition to that Rescue and Recovery start-up disk, you need the full factory recovery media set.  You should see an option to burn that set of DVDs in R&R.  Whatever you do, it's a good idea to burn these and keep them handy.  Once you have the full set, install the SSD, and boot the first DVD.  You should then be able to install the factory image.
For an "as-running" image, plug in your external HD.  You can choose to put the R&R bootable rescue media on the HD, or you can just use the CD you already made.  If you make the HD bootable and it already has data on it you want to keep, watch out for a "preserve existing data" checkbox. Then just save a backup to your external HD.  Install the SSD, boot the CD or external HD, and do a restore.
I don't know about the current generation of machines and R&R, but it's been my observation that a full restore from backup restores everything _except_ the factory image in the Q: partition.  You will have your full OS and everything you've installed, R&R capabilitites (from within Windows and at boot time) but you will not have the boot time option to restore your machine to factory state from the Q: image.  That's what that factory optical media set it for.
If you use the factory media set you burned to set up your SSD, you will have everything including the Q: full image, but of course you will have to reinstall anything that you added to the HD yourself.
You can also do this kind of thing with Acronis, and other utilities.  One thing though, if you use a cloning process instead of a backup and restore, make sure that the SSD ( or any target HD or SSD you or another reader is using) is in the ThinkPad when you do the clone.  For some reason TPs are very fussy about this.  Cloning to an external device, then moving it to the TP generally doesn't work.
Here is  andyP 's excellent write-up on using Acronis for this: Hard Drive Clonewars
Re SSDs, there may be things you should do/have to do to get full performance and keep it healthy.  I can't help you there.
Good luck,
Z.
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