You could have saved time by cloning the old C: drive to the new one, instead of just copying files. That way everything would still be installed. There are a few programs that might detect the change of hardware and require activation again, but most would just work.

Vegas has a unique hardware ID. It is not reusable with new hardware.
If you try to register with the old machine ID,,it will fail.

I had thought you could clone to the SSD using something like Macrium and that all the programmes could then be opened from the SSD but Musivid10 seems to be suggesting this wouldn't work (for Vegas at least). Is this right? If so my plans to back up my Hard Drive by cloning it to an external drive are beginning to seem a foolish dream :(

Richard

I would think the machine ID has nothing to do with replacing your (C) drive being the machine ID is imbedded in the motherboard and I think it's part of the CPU.

Cloning your old C drive with Acronis to a new SSD should work with out a problem.

Jerry K.

I posted my actual experience with a new drive, mounting a properly indexed image, and nothing more.

What I didn't do is speculate about what "might" happen "if" I swapped a drive on my machine. Ymmv
Let us know how it turns out.

If you are simply replacing your C: drive, just use a image backup program (I use Acronis) to create an image. Then, take out your old drive, and physically install the new drive. Next, run the backup program and restore the image to your new drive. Re-boot, and the computer should run exactly as it did before, with all your programs and all your preferences in exactly the same state as before.

You don't need to re-install anything. Even Windows will work just fine.

Windows does keep track of the number of things that change between re-boots. So, you can't change the motherboard AND the disk drive; you can't change the disk drive AND the video card. Change one at a time, and you'll be fine. Most programs don't check many things, so you'll be fine.

Someone mentioned that Vegas checks the processor ID, and I think that may be true. However, you are not changing the motherboard or the CPU, so I think Vegas will be happy.

Programs can vary widely in what they are coded to create and detect in hardware signatures. Sometimes it is the CPU, sometimes it would be the combination of a lot of the hardware to create a unique signature for that build alone. OEM Windows OS packages would be a fair example of the latter.
The level of the signature write and detect determines the "crack" difficulty designed by the program authors.
Traditionally VegasPro is one of the most lenient hi -level programs out there with its difficulty being designed as minor. On the other hand Adobe Premiere before the cloud experience one of the most problematic.

At worst, the most you should have to do with a cloned installation of Vegas is to re-activate.

I replaced my primary hard drive with a Samsung SSD back in January of this year. I used the cloning programme as provided by Samsung and all SCS and other programmes programmes transferred without having to reactivate.

Sadly the Windows OS did require reactivating.

There are other programmes for cloning to SSD and, I suspect, work just as well.

I hope that helps the perspective on this posting.

BRC

I've replaced dozens of hard drives, using the procedure I outlined above, and never once had to re-install or activate anything.

Perhaps Windows 8 is less forgiving ...

I have swapped my motherboard out from under Vegas. I have also migrated my SSD (install drive) from an older smaller one to a bigger one. Vegas just wanted a activation which occurred without fuss. If my memory serves me only one of those two events needed an activation and I cannot remember which.

Vegas does not have a deactivate feature and their activation is probably a little bit slack because of this. By that I mean not super strict about the two computer install limit depending on the timeframe difference in between the different installs.

If they are super strict then a simple support request stating that you upgraded your computer should clean things up.

I recently had an SSD fail after 3 years of not very heavy use - the drive itself is covered under warranty, but I have to pay for installation of the new drive and Windows.

In these circumstances, I presume that Windows has to be first "manually" installed on the replacement HD, followed by re-installation of Acronis or whatever Clone program was used, before one could make use of the previously saved Image?

Acronis and Macrium Reflect both make bootable media, either CD or USB stick, to restore images to a bare drive. Of course, you have to make the media from within Windows before you remove the working drive.

In these circumstances, I presume that Windows has to be first "manually" installed on the replacement HD, followed by re-installation of Acronis or whatever Clone program was used, before one could make use of the previously saved Image?Fortunately, no. Acronis includes the ability to create a CD or DVD "boot" disc that uses a Linux version of Acronis. You boot to this, and you can then partition and format the drive, followed by restoring the image, all without having to re-install Windows.

I partition my main drive into the C: and D: drive. I put programs and Windows on the C: drive, and everything else on the D: partition of that drive. I have a dual boot system with XP 32-bit on one main drive, and Win7 64-bit on a second physical drive. The XP 32-bit partition on the first drive has a huge number of programs installed, but is only 11 GB because I have been very careful what I install. I've had this computer for over four years, and that is all that is on that drive.

The Win7 64-bit partition, which I never bother to prune, is 28 GB.

I have restored my main XP partition many times (both because of my own errors, and because it is so easy to do). I can completely restore my computer in under ten minutes, and after the restore it is exactly the same as it was at the moment I did the image restore. This is true whether I restore to the same hard disk, or if I replace the boot disc.

This system is pretty hard to beat.

Thanks John and John - I'm still getting my head round this, but the thought of restoring in ten minutes is amazing.

Once I get my new SSD complete with Windows, I shall reinstall all my programs, THEN do the Acronis boot disc thing.

One more thing. For the Acronis boot disc to be able to find the Image to restore, presumably this Image has to be previously saved onto a different physical HD to the C Drive - in my case it's likely to be around 35Gb.

"Thanks John and John - I'm still getting my head round this, but the thought of restoring in ten minutes is amazing."

Make sure you place ALL your data files on another drive. Your mail and documents folders for example need to be placed on another drive so they stay up to date and don't get written over when you restore image.

I use another imager as opposed to Acronis so I'm not familiar with acronis, but there is no sense imaging your hibernation files, or your page file so if your imager has the ability to exclude those then it will save a bit of room.

Very recently I replaced the hard drives on both my laptop and my main desktop with the new 500gb CT500MX200 SSD's from Crucial.

I did completely clean re-installs of Windows 8.1 plus all the programs that I now use. Vegas Pro 13 installed on both machines without any activation or other problems what so ever.

Crucial did supply access to an OEM version of Acronis with each disc with which to clone the existing discs - you download it then quote a reference number that comes in the package to get the software from Acronis. But I preferred to do a clean install to sidestep all the unnecessary clutter that built up over time.

I transferred various Vegas specific setting such as favourite render settings using Vegasaur.

I'd read previously that Vegas does not seem to be monitored closely as regards activations so I wasn't overly concerned about there being no de-activation procedure before changing hard drives.

I did however de-activate Photoshop Dreamweaver and Capture One Pro. Installation of the new hard drive went wrong on my desktop first time around and therefore the de-activation of these three programs on it was not valid. However both Adobe and Capture One (from Phase One) were very easy to get re-authorised. A quick on-screen chat with Adobe did Photoshop and Dreamweaver and Phase Ones procedure was fully automated :- )

The clean re-install of Windows 8.1 was more problematic due to the sheer amount of time required. I had to re-install Windows 7, then 8, then 8.1. authorising each as I went along. In between each version you have to download its complete set of updates. There are very many of these - far more than the system can cope with installing in one go so you have to install the updates for each version in small batches, sometimes less that 10 at a time. But when you get to the end its a great feeling to know you have a fast clean system with no crud. It was tempting to just buy a new copy of Windows 8.1 to be honest but all my versions are Pro and it gets expensive.

The first thing I did then was to buy the full version of Acronis so that I could clone both PC's drives in full to include their "new" operating systems, all my programs, and all my preferences. You can use Acronis to backup your data as well but I prefer to use external USB3 drives for that.

Crucial do an SSD installation kit comprising a metal tray to seat the SDD on within a desktop drive array, a new sata to sata cable to connect an SSD to your desktop, and a USB to sata cable to enable you to clone your stuff from a laptop.

I used the old 1tb desktop harddrive as a new desktop storage drive. If you do that be careful to check in the BIOS how your machine is going to prioitise booting up otherwise you may confuse it if it finds two hard drives with operating systems on them (prior to you re-formatting the old hard drive for storage). I used the old laptop 500gb in my Playstation 3, replacing its ridiculously small 60gb drive. Changing the drive in the PS3 was no harder and no longer than changing a lightbulb :- )

Pete