Just Bought a SSD (Still on its way) Help Me Prepare, Installation Questions!

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Travis4261

Travis4261

Distinguished
Mar 9, 2011
46
0
18,530
My PC:
OS - Windows 7 Ultimate
Case - Rosewill CHALLENGER Black Gaming ATX
MB - ASUS M4A79XTD EVO AM3 AMD 790X ATX
CPU - AMD Phenom II 965 Black Edition 3.4Ghz
PSU - CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W
RAM - G-Skill Ripjaw Series 4GB DDR3 1600 x4 (16GB)
HDD - Seagate Barracuda 7200 1.5TB
GPU - XFX Radeon HD 4850
Display - ASUS MS238 23'' LED (Primary)
Display - VIZIO E-Series 60” Razor LED™ E601i-A3 (Secondary)

So as you can see I currently have a Seagate Barracuda 7200 1.5TB
it is currently partitioned in the following way, "Windows" 150GB | "Games" 210GB | "Storage" 1TB.
My objective is to not have to back everything up, I am planning on disconnecting the old hard drive and doing a clean install with only the SSD installed. I also bought a new video card so I was hoping this will stop an driver issue by installing all my drivers with the fresh install.
What I am trying to avoid is any conflicts with having 2 instances on Windows on my PC. I am probably over thinking this but I would like to erase the "Windows" partition on the old hard drive without accessing the freshly installed Windows. Any thoughts on how I should do this, or is it even worth worrying about?
I know I can just boot my pc with both of them installed and choose the right Win7 to load and then just manually format the old partition inside of windows.
So in summary this is what I want to accomplish:

Fresh install of Win7 on new SSD.
Format 2 partitions on old HD leaving only "Storage" partition intact.
Not run into any old drivers / BSOD issues "finding there way onto my fresh install"
Whats the best way to make this happen?
 
Solution
markwp
Are you planning to use the ssd for both windows and your games? If so, you've got the right idea. Disconnect the existing hdd, install the ssd and install windows, current drivers, windows updates and your games. Once you have that set up, reconnect the hdd and use a third party program such as g-parted to wipe the o/s and games partitions on the hdd. Don't forget to remove the windows recovery partition also.

I would suggest leaving your data alone on the hdd and using the newly freed space as an additional storage/data partition. If you try to resize the existing data partition to "fill" the hdd, you run the risk of losing some data during the resize.

Gparted is available as a stand alone, but can also be run via linux. If...
Sort by date Sort by votes
rocknrollz

rocknrollz

Distinguished
Nov 16, 2011
750
0
19,010
Disconnect HDD, install windows on SSD. The reconnect HDD, and tunr on computer. Boot into BIOS, and select the SSD as the boot drive. When in windows, open up disk management and delete the windows partition.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
markwp

markwp

Dignified
Jan 22, 2013
3,183
0
14,960
Are you planning to use the ssd for both windows and your games? If so, you've got the right idea. Disconnect the existing hdd, install the ssd and install windows, current drivers, windows updates and your games. Once you have that set up, reconnect the hdd and use a third party program such as g-parted to wipe the o/s and games partitions on the hdd. Don't forget to remove the windows recovery partition also.

I would suggest leaving your data alone on the hdd and using the newly freed space as an additional storage/data partition. If you try to resize the existing data partition to "fill" the hdd, you run the risk of losing some data during the resize.

Gparted is available as a stand alone, but can also be run via linux. If you download a linux distro such as linux mint or ubuntu and run it from a usb, you can access gparted through the menu system and do all the operations from there. Get a program called "yumi" at pendrivelinux.com, install it to your current hdd then use it to format a usb for multiboot. Point the program to your distro download and it will create a live usb that you can boot and not only try linux, but also use gparted to clean your hdd.

As far as preparing and installing on the ssd, read THIS guide - it is very well written and gives you all the info you will need.

Before you use the gparted, do a little reading (there are a lot of threads on gparted) so that you know what to expect.

Mark
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom