Getting ready to commit to OSX 100% and get rid of Windows

[clipper99]

I’m getting ready to sever my remaining Windows ties. I've been running OSX exclusively for the last couple weeks as a dry-run leading up to this and finally got my XBMC fully tweaked as it was really my last remaining need to run Windows. OSX has been just a "hobby" for the last 3 years thanks to all the wealth of info here at tonymacx86. I've really only run OSX to get aquanted with the OS, gather the programs (apps?) I'll need and transfer the data over from Windows that is important to me. I have a fully functioning Windows 7 running as a virtual machine under OSX with VMWare so its there if I need it. Right now I’m transferring any files I need from the dedicated Windows drive to the virtual machine. Since Windows right now is installed on my SSD drive I want to free it up to reinstall OSX on it so I have the speed. I’ll probably make an image of the Windows SSD drive (its only a 120GB SSD) onto one of my larger physical drives to have it *JUST* in case I miss something.

Since I have a fully functioning Mavericks on a 500GB seagate drive (with 4k clusters, what a pain that was!), restoring to my 120GB SSD isn't an option so I guess I'll do a fresh Mavericks install. I'll be installing this with an AMD HD6870 card and I seem to recall it may not be supported for the install so I may need to switch temporarily to the onboard HD3000 graphics (or not, I'll figure it out).

So my long-winded wind up to a couple questions:

- Can anyone recommend from experience an OSX app that will allow me to "image" my existing 120GB SSD Windows drive that would allow me to recreate it back to another, or the same SSD drive, that will be fully bootable? Better still maybe something that would let me browse the image it creates to retrieve any data I might have forgotten to transfer over?

- When I install to my SSD drive I assume the only thing I need to do different post-install is to check off the "10.9.x TRIM Patch" option with Multibeast (Mavericks) correct?

Of course the simple way would be to just purchase another SSD drive but I don't really want to right now. I've got terabytes of space to store the old Windows install and no desire to have a dedicated Windows drive anymore.

Thanks in advance for any other advice as well.

Cheers

 

[Going Bald]

So my long-winded wind up to a couple questions:

- Can anyone recommend from experience an OSX app that will allow me to "image" my existing 120GB SSD Windows drive that would allow me to recreate it back to another, or the same SSD drive, that will be fully bootable? Better still maybe something that would let me browse the image it creates to retrieve any data I might have forgotten to transfer over?

- When I install to my SSD drive I assume the only thing I need to do different post-install is to check off the "10.9.x TRIM Patch" option with Multibeast (Mavericks) correct?

Of course the simple way would be to just purchase another SSD drive but I don't really want to right now. I've got terabytes of space to store the old Windows install and no desire to have a dedicated Windows drive anymore.

Thanks in advance for any other advice as well.

Cheers

No need for an OS X app for that. Create a Win7 System repair disk. Create the image. burn image to DVD or place on a USB you will not use for anything else.

If you want to restore the image to a drive, boot the System repair disk and select restore from a disk image. Can also select this option from the original Win7 installation DVD you used.

 

[Khan]

I believe the 6870 issue during install is no longer there. Had no trouble installing on the rigs I have. Going Bald told you the rest.