Let me BREAK it INTO STEPS: Existing Win7 SP1 on OLD Thinkpad Laptop - SLIC 2.1 Enabled IMPLANT TO New Toshiba Laptop (Win 8.1 Preinstalled) by Repartitioning and Creating space for Win7 SP1 partiation ( I am guessing the above can be done using Acronis/ Paragon etc. How to ensure the following stuff works out) THEN: - Enable Dual Boot (What would you use/ choose?) - Activate/ Enable Win 7 Sp1 on new laptop (How?) (Since it was originally SLIC 2.1 enabled with Lenovo Cert/Key, would using same technique work for installed Toshiba OEM Cert/Keys?)
Why don't you install Windows 7 from scratch?? 1. Newer bioses are well-protected & sometimes it is impossible to flash the modded one. 2. If you can install Professional or Enterprise then it will be easier to activate them using KMS method. 3. Most probably your Thinkpad HDD is partitioned as MBR & your Toshiba HDD is partitioned as GPT. Restoring MBR backup to GPT is complicated.
Thanks a lot for responding. I am in the middle of TONS of WORK and my Windows 7 has all apps, files etc all correctly placed and configured. I dont have the time & energy to migrate everything piece by piece. Please link me to any guides on each of the following 1 - 4. 1. So lets assume the newer BIOS cannot be flashed. But its already ON for Win 8.1 - Isnt there any easy way to use DOWNGRADE RIGHTS to activate Win7 on the newer laptop? 2. Can the KMS method be used for an existing installation? 3. I dont mind converting between MBR and GPT. If its complicated then please guide me. I'll take your guidance and steps on it. 4. I will try the above. If not, then I would like to VIRTUALIZE to a VHD or something and run it on top of Win 8.1 (prefer not to but..) Once I slowly get a hang of Win 8 and have time to migrate stuff from Win 7 to Win 8.. then I'd like to resend the Win7 VHD etc to PHYSICAL Thinkpad. - What might be the best Virtual Drive format for this purpose?
I'd go the VHD route, best solution IMO (native booting into cloned VHDX). You can use the tool "Disk2Vhd" from Sysinternals for this, though you may have to tweak the VHDX a bit or you may see a BSOD while the VHD expands (lack of space). Note that you will need to use KMS for the W7 VHD or a legit key. Tip: To reduce the amount of work shrink your Windows Partition as much as possible (may need to defrag first) but be sure to keep a few extra GB in case it lets you shrink so much that the drive would be full after shrinking, otherwise you will probably need to shrink your VHDX later on which is a tad more annoying to do.
Could you link to a good "How To" for this? Current Win7 Sp1 is 256 GB and new HDD has Win 8.1 TB. I could resize partition that to make space and how/ where to put VHD?
I don't know if there is any good tutorial for it, it's really fairly simple anyway, if you need a proper tutorial you need to do some google-fu Disk Management > Select Windows partition > Shrink. Disk2VHD > create a VHDX (check all partitions) Copy VHDX over to your new laptop, double click the file > CMD as Admin > bcdboot D:\Windows (where as D:\ is the path of the new mounted VHD) Should do it, you only need to shrink if you don't have enough space on your new laptop/don't want it to use that much space, the VHD itself will be much smaller but once you boot into it it will occupy that 256GB of space so you may want to reduce it's size first. If you need to shrink the VHDX later on, you need windows 8.1 with activated Hyper-V (activating it over windows features and reboot) to use the powershell command "resize-vhd"
You only need to shrink it if you don't want it to occupy 250GB (you need to keep this much space free on your new HDD or booting into the VHD will cause a blue screen of death) You can copy the VHDX anywhere you want and if you boot into your VHD it will run native, just like a real installation. Windows should "reconfigure" it self when you first boot it up on a different hardware, normally at least, ofc you may need to apply new drivers if some things don't work. The Hyper-V is only if you want to shrink your VHD later because the "resize-vhd" powershell command requires hyper-v to be active and can be disabled after that again, you don't need to activate Hyper-V to boot into VHD There is nothing easier/safer than VHD booting, it doesn't screw around with your native Installation on the HDD I used VHD booting a lot and honestly it's one of the best features Microsoft ever added into Windows, just keep in mind this only works with W7 Professional/Enterprise and W8 Pro/Enterprise, Core/Home will not boot from VHD.
If VHDs are so good & portable, why would we want to use PARTITIONS at all? (Assuming we had enough drive space). I will have to add drivers for sure. My question is does the VHD get CLEANED of the PREVIOUS DRIVER/ HARDWARE PROFILE on the HDD? And when it re configures with NEW HARDWARE does it clean the previous out and or has both included on it. I have Windows 7 Ultimate. I am assuming that would work as well (not only Pro/Entr).
I am getting this with the VHDX boot. Thoughts? I am sure this is a regular occurrence that has an easy fix. Code: When I reboot, the screen where I can choose OS appears, I choose Windows 7 but a black screen with this message shows; File: \windows\system32\winload.efi Status: 0xc0000428 Info: The digital signature for this file couldn't be verified If it helps, this Win 7 instance first had a 200MB Boot partition ahead of it and then it was eliminated and all of it included into the Win7 partition. A snippet from BCDEDIT output Code: Windows Boot Loader ------------------- identifier {LongHexKey} device vhd=[C:]\MIGRATION\D201\SSD_P1_X.VHDX path \Windows\system32\winload.efi description Windows 7 locale en-us inherit {bootloadersettings} osdevice vhd=[C:]\MIGRATION\D201\SSD_P1_X.VHDX systemroot \Windows resumeobject {LongHexKey} nx OptIn detecthal Yes VHD File is in C Drive at pointed out location When mounted/ attached from Windows 8 host instance it shows up as E: drive as there is DVD at D: Any thoughts?
So I created 3 VHDs of the same DRIVE as you had suggested. Why 3? - Disk2VHD 1.64 - .VHD - Disk2VHD 2.01 - .VHD & .VHDX All 3 (including .VHDx) work when loaded in Hyper V with Generation 1 settings (Gen 2 spec says it needs Win 8 or later) (after I updated Win 8 to Win 8 Pro). Now, what do I need to do to make it boot Native VHD? I've done some steps to add it to BCD but I am not sure if there are issues with that or something else. .. Some people on a forum pointed the issue of source machine being BIOS based and new machine being UEFI Code: File: \windows\system32\winload.efi Status: 0xc0000428 Info: The digital signature for this file couldn't be verified Code: .. I've disabled secure boot for the secure / signature message. Now I am getting a different error message. Code: windows failed to start.A recent hardware or software change might be the cause Some more stuff. I can post a pic of it if needed. Can someone guide me as to what I need to do here to get a Working Native Boot VHD. Also everytime I attach the VHD in the host DiskMgmt it disappears from it after a reboot.
I tried converting a VHD i had from MBR to GPT and it worked fine, so im not sure what you need to actually do. You can also try the Software i posted to convert from MBR>GPT but you can also use that software to move/resize the partitions to create more unallocated space infront of the main partition in case it doesn't let you. You can ignore the .IMGs you created (you can just remove them again), the -w command for gptgen is for writting directly to the drive Post a picture of disk mangement if you can.
Thanks. Finally got it to Convert. Now wonder what else I need to make it SHOW up in BOOT MENU for Native Boot? The last command I ran from that Hyper V tutorial ..was to do that? right? In my case it was G: Code: bcdboot h:\windows /s s: /f UEFI Current BCDEDIT /enum ALL (Please delete if any of this should be out and visible on the net) Code: Firmware Boot Manager --------------------- identifier {fwbootmgr} displayorder {bootmgr} {a26d1a53-1770-11e4-826a-806e6f6e6963} {a26d1a54-1770-11e4-826a-806e6f6e6963} {144053b4-1bb4-11e4-8271-806e6f6e6963} {144053b5-1bb4-11e4-8271-806e6f6e6963} {144053b6-1bb4-11e4-8271-806e6f6e6963} timeout 2 Windows Boot Manager -------------------- identifier {bootmgr} device partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume2 path \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi description Windows Boot Manager locale en-us inherit {globalsettings} default {current} resumeobject {7f94b950-16ce-11e4-8265-7c7a91e559f1} displayorder {current} toolsdisplayorder {memdiag} timeout 30 Firmware Application (101fffff) ------------------------------- identifier {144053b4-1bb4-11e4-8271-806e6f6e6963} description UEFI:CD/DVD Drive Firmware Application (101fffff) ------------------------------- identifier {144053b5-1bb4-11e4-8271-806e6f6e6963} description UEFI:Removable Device Firmware Application (101fffff) ------------------------------- identifier {144053b6-1bb4-11e4-8271-806e6f6e6963} description UEFI:Network Device Firmware Application (101fffff) ------------------------------- identifier {a26d1a53-1770-11e4-826a-806e6f6e6963} description UEFI: IP4 Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller Firmware Application (101fffff) ------------------------------- identifier {a26d1a54-1770-11e4-826a-806e6f6e6963} description UEFI: IP6 Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller Windows Boot Loader ------------------- identifier {current} device partition=C: path \Windows\system32\winload.efi description Windows 8.1 locale en-US inherit {bootloadersettings} recoverysequence {3c2efe44-f665-11e3-8256-6002922507b4} integrityservices Enable recoveryenabled Yes isolatedcontext Yes allowedinmemorysettings 0x15000075 osdevice partition=C: systemroot \Windows resumeobject {1fc12a3c-f66d-11e3-8657-6002922507b4} nx OptIn bootmenupolicy Standard hypervisorlaunchtype Auto Windows Boot Loader ------------------- identifier {3c2efe44-f665-11e3-8256-6002922507b4} device ramdisk=[\Device\HarddiskVolume1]\Recovery\WindowsRE\Winre.wim,{3c2efe45-f665-11e3-8256-6002922507b4} path \windows\system32\winload.efi description Windows Recovery Environment locale en-us inherit {bootloadersettings} displaymessage Recovery osdevice ramdisk=[\Device\HarddiskVolume1]\Recovery\WindowsRE\Winre.wim,{3c2efe45-f665-11e3-8256-6002922507b4} systemroot \windows nx OptIn bootmenupolicy Standard winpe Yes Resume from Hibernate --------------------- identifier {1fc12a3c-f66d-11e3-8657-6002922507b4} device partition=C: path \Windows\system32\winresume.efi description Windows Resume Application locale en-US inherit {resumeloadersettings} recoverysequence {3c2efe44-f665-11e3-8256-6002922507b4} recoveryenabled Yes isolatedcontext Yes allowedinmemorysettings 0x15000075 filedevice partition=C: filepath \hiberfil.sys bootmenupolicy Standard debugoptionenabled No Resume from Hibernate --------------------- identifier {7f94b950-16ce-11e4-8265-7c7a91e559f1} device vhd=[C:]\MIGRATION\D164\SSD_P1.VHD path \WINDOWS\system32\winresume.efi description Windows Resume Application locale en-us inherit {resumeloadersettings} filepath \hiberfil.sys Windows Memory Tester --------------------- identifier {memdiag} device partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume2 path \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\memtest.efi description Windows Memory Diagnostic locale en-us inherit {globalsettings} badmemoryaccess Yes EMS Settings ------------ identifier {emssettings} bootems Yes Debugger Settings ----------------- identifier {dbgsettings} debugtype Serial debugport 1 baudrate 115200 RAM Defects ----------- identifier {badmemory} Global Settings --------------- identifier {globalsettings} inherit {dbgsettings} {emssettings} {badmemory} Boot Loader Settings -------------------- identifier {bootloadersettings} inherit {globalsettings} {hypervisorsettings} Hypervisor Settings ------------------- identifier {hypervisorsettings} hypervisordebugtype Serial hypervisordebugport 1 hypervisorbaudrate 115200 Resume Loader Settings ---------------------- identifier {resumeloadersettings} inherit {globalsettings} Device options -------------- identifier {3c2efe45-f665-11e3-8256-6002922507b4} description Windows Recovery ramdisksdidevice partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume1 ramdisksdipath \Recovery\WindowsRE\boot.sdi What do I need to make this .VHD with all of the above.. go native boot with Boot Menu selection
Enter this into a command prompt (if your VHD is actually mounted as G:\ ofc) to add it to your boot menu. Code: bcdboot G:\windows Reboot, select the new boot entry and that's it. You may also want to enter this command into a elevated CMD to get back the "old" boot menu (faster for dual booting) Code: bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy legacy
Do I need to somehow UNDO this one? Code: bcdboot h:\windows /s s: /f UEFI I did add this also Code: bcdboot G:\windows I was able to start booting and then Win 7 logo was frozen. Powerdown and hard Reboot and I get 'error' relating to hardware/ software changes asking to get my Windows Media etc..and with or try Safe Boot / w Networking/ w CMD etc. I tried Safe Mode with networking, then purely safe mode.. they both end up freezing at 'ClassPNP.sys'. This is my current BCD enum /ALL. Does something need to be fixed on the BCD? or is this primarily Windows and Hardware/ Driver related? What might I do? Does it need Sysprep? (How would I run it now?) Code: Firmware Boot Manager --------------------- identifier {fwbootmgr} displayorder {bootmgr} {a26d1a53-1770-11e4-826a-806e6f6e6963} {a26d1a54-1770-11e4-826a-806e6f6e6963} {144053b4-1bb4-11e4-8271-806e6f6e6963} {144053b5-1bb4-11e4-8271-806e6f6e6963} {144053b6-1bb4-11e4-8271-806e6f6e6963} timeout 2 Windows Boot Manager -------------------- identifier {bootmgr} device partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume2 path \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi description Windows Boot Manager locale en-us inherit {globalsettings} default {default} resumeobject {7f94b953-16ce-11e4-8265-7c7a91e559f1} displayorder {default} {current} toolsdisplayorder {memdiag} timeout 30 Firmware Application (101fffff) ------------------------------- identifier {144053b4-1bb4-11e4-8271-806e6f6e6963} description UEFI:CD/DVD Drive Firmware Application (101fffff) ------------------------------- identifier {144053b5-1bb4-11e4-8271-806e6f6e6963} description UEFI:Removable Device Firmware Application (101fffff) ------------------------------- identifier {144053b6-1bb4-11e4-8271-806e6f6e6963} description UEFI:Network Device Firmware Application (101fffff) ------------------------------- identifier {a26d1a53-1770-11e4-826a-806e6f6e6963} description UEFI: IP4 Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller Firmware Application (101fffff) ------------------------------- identifier {a26d1a54-1770-11e4-826a-806e6f6e6963} description UEFI: IP6 Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller Windows Boot Loader ------------------- identifier {current} device partition=C: path \Windows\system32\winload.efi description Windows 8.1 locale en-US inherit {bootloadersettings} recoverysequence {3c2efe44-f665-11e3-8256-6002922507b4} integrityservices Enable recoveryenabled Yes isolatedcontext Yes allowedinmemorysettings 0x15000075 osdevice partition=C: systemroot \Windows resumeobject {1fc12a3c-f66d-11e3-8657-6002922507b4} nx OptIn bootmenupolicy Standard hypervisorlaunchtype Auto Windows Boot Loader ------------------- identifier {3c2efe44-f665-11e3-8256-6002922507b4} device ramdisk=[\Device\HarddiskVolume1]\Recovery\WindowsRE\Winre.wim,{3c2efe45-f665-11e3-8256-6002922507b4} path \windows\system32\winload.efi description Windows Recovery Environment locale en-us inherit {bootloadersettings} displaymessage Recovery osdevice ramdisk=[\Device\HarddiskVolume1]\Recovery\WindowsRE\Winre.wim,{3c2efe45-f665-11e3-8256-6002922507b4} systemroot \windows nx OptIn bootmenupolicy Standard winpe Yes Windows Boot Loader ------------------- identifier {default} device vhd=[C:]\MIGRATION\D164\SSD_P1.VHD path \windows\system32\winload.efi description Windows 7 locale en-us inherit {bootloadersettings} osdevice vhd=[C:]\MIGRATION\D164\SSD_P1.VHD systemroot \windows resumeobject {7f94b953-16ce-11e4-8265-7c7a91e559f1} nx OptIn detecthal Yes Resume from Hibernate --------------------- identifier {1fc12a3c-f66d-11e3-8657-6002922507b4} device partition=C: path \Windows\system32\winresume.efi description Windows Resume Application locale en-US inherit {resumeloadersettings} recoverysequence {3c2efe44-f665-11e3-8256-6002922507b4} recoveryenabled Yes isolatedcontext Yes allowedinmemorysettings 0x15000075 filedevice partition=C: filepath \hiberfil.sys bootmenupolicy Standard debugoptionenabled No Resume from Hibernate --------------------- identifier {7f94b950-16ce-11e4-8265-7c7a91e559f1} device vhd=[C:]\MIGRATION\D164\SSD_P1.VHD path \WINDOWS\system32\winresume.efi description Windows Resume Application locale en-us inherit {resumeloadersettings} filepath \hiberfil.sys Resume from Hibernate --------------------- identifier {7f94b953-16ce-11e4-8265-7c7a91e559f1} device vhd=[C:]\MIGRATION\D164\SSD_P1.VHD path \windows\system32\winresume.efi description Windows Resume Application locale en-us inherit {resumeloadersettings} filepath \hiberfil.sys Windows Memory Tester --------------------- identifier {memdiag} device partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume2 path \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\memtest.efi description Windows Memory Diagnostic locale en-us inherit {globalsettings} badmemoryaccess Yes EMS Settings ------------ identifier {emssettings} bootems Yes Debugger Settings ----------------- identifier {dbgsettings} debugtype Serial debugport 1 baudrate 115200 RAM Defects ----------- identifier {badmemory} Global Settings --------------- identifier {globalsettings} inherit {dbgsettings} {emssettings} {badmemory} Boot Loader Settings -------------------- identifier {bootloadersettings} inherit {globalsettings} {hypervisorsettings} Hypervisor Settings ------------------- identifier {hypervisorsettings} hypervisordebugtype Serial hypervisordebugport 1 hypervisorbaudrate 115200 Resume Loader Settings ---------------------- identifier {resumeloadersettings} inherit {globalsettings} Device options -------------- identifier {3c2efe45-f665-11e3-8256-6002922507b4} description Windows Recovery ramdisksdidevice partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume1 ramdisksdipath \Recovery\WindowsRE\boot.sdi See the ones I've marked in BOLD. Does the 2nd one from the Previous command need to be UNDONE? PS: I did not enter the OLD Boot Menu command but apparently that I see the OLD style MENU already instead of Win8 style menu.