SSD Noob, Installation with OS and whatnot

Darren

Darren

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Well I just picked this up and it should arrive within the week.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147247

I currently have Windows 7 along with all my files and games on my current 1TB HDD.

How should I go about installing Windows 7 on the SSD and removing it from my current HDD so I don't have a conflict. Any other tips with using an SSD would also be appreciated. Never had one before. Thanks. :)
 
Install windows fresh on the ssd making sure its in ahci mode. You don't have to remove the windows install on the regular HDD if you don't want to.
 
windows 7 supports SSD's you can just clone the drive, I've done it hundreds of times, the speed difference is negligible. The SSD probably comes with the necessary software.. If not you can download it. I use EZ GIG IV, then change the boot order in the cmos to boot from ssd and reformat the original drive and you can use the original as a data or backup drive. U can create a repair/clone cd from UBCD for free

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/download.html
 
raymar said:
windows 7 supports SSD's you can just clone the drive, I've done it hundreds of times, the speed difference is negligible. The SSD probably comes with the necessary software.. If not you can download it. I use EZ GIG IV, then change the boot order in the cmos to boot from ssd and reformat the original drive and you can use the original as a data or backup drive. U can create a repair/clone cd from UBCD for free

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/download.html
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Yes you can just clone it. But for best results I always recommend a clean install.
 
How is it less work? If I'm just installing Windows on the SSD and leaving the other HDD the same it shouldn't be too much work at all really. Besides I don't want/need to wipe my current HDD since it has about 400GB of Steam games on there.
 
ok i'm confused, if you have all this stuff installed on another drive what are you going to do with the ssd, if you install the os on ssd you'll have to reinstall all the apps/games that's the tedious part. I've been building computers since the 8088 chips. you could leave the other drive alone as a slave if you wanted. or you could do a dual boot system I guess. I am a speed freak so I wouldn't want the bottleneck of a SSD and a SATA or PATA I have my OS and programs on a SSD and data on a striping raid.
 
raymar said:
ok i'm confused, if you have all this stuff installed on another drive what are you going to do with the ssd, if you install the os on ssd you'll have to reinstall all the apps/games that's the tedious part. I've been building computers since the 8088 chips. you could leave the other drive alone as a slave if you wanted. or you could do a dual boot system I guess. I am a speed freak so I wouldn't want the bottleneck of a SSD and a SATA or PATA I have my OS and programs on a SSD and data on a striping raid.
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Why would I need to install all the games/apps over again. They should run fine where they are? I'll reinstall stuff like Chrome, Office, and that kind of thing over to the SSD, but my games should run fine from where they are, right?
 
Denther said:
Why would I need to install all the games/apps over again. They should run fine where they are? I'll reinstall stuff like Chrome, Office, and that kind of thing over to the SSD, but my games should run fine from where they are, right?
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I'm not 100% sure but I know every time I've tried to do that it hasn't worked, probably because of missing keys in the registry on the new version of Windows. But I was trying with non Steam games, maybe Steam games will work. Try it and see, what have you got to lose?

When you install Windows on the SSD, make sure no other hard drives are plugged in whilst you are installing Windows. Just makes things easier.

Obviously plug the SSD into a SATA 6GB/s port too. On some boards (notably ASUS boards), there are two 6GB/s controllers, an Intel (or AMD I suppose, guessing with that one since I've not used an AMD board with 6GB/s) one and a third party one such as Marvell. Don't use the third party one, since they're often slower (at least in my experience with ASUS boards with Intel and Marvell controllers). I know you have an MSI board, I don't know if they use third party controllers on their boards or not, but just in case now you know.
 
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Got everything set up. Getting Steam to work was easy once I knew what to do. Just install the steam client on the SSD, then manage libraries and point it to the steam apps folder on the second HDD.

What is safe to remove from my HDD now that I've installed my stuff on the SDD. Obviously I want to keep my documents, pictures, videos, and the like. Mainly talking programs that I should get rid of. Any kind of disk cleanup utility that would help or anything like that?
 
Denther said:
Got everything set up. Getting Steam to work was easy once I knew what to do. Just install the steam client on the SSD, then manage libraries and point it to the steam apps folder on the second HDD.
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You couldve just navigated to SteamApps on the old drive and double clicked on the Steam.exe and it wouldve fixed everything up for you automaticallly.
 
Okedokey said:
You couldve just navigated to SteamApps on the old drive and double clicked on the Steam.exe and it wouldve fixed everything up for you automaticallly.
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I did that originally but it didn't work. It acted like I didn't have admin rights on the HDD for some reason so I couldn't modify some file to let it reinstall everything correctly. Works fine now and Steam is on the SSD so it starts faster too anyway.
 
Denther said:
I did that originally but it didn't work. It acted like I didn't have admin rights on the HDD for some reason so I couldn't modify some file to let it reinstall everything correctly. Works fine now and Steam is on the SSD so it starts faster too anyway.
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Yes, because its a new installation, you would need ot right click on the HDD or its directories and take permission. After that, simply double click on Steam.exe. Job done.
 
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