Upgrading to Win8 + SSD From Win7

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AccuracyM

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Dec 15, 2013
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My PC currently has Windows 7 installed onto its Hard Drive but i'm going to be adding an SSD to my build and will be getting Windows 8 at the same time. My question is whats the best way of installing Windows 8 onto my SSD and getting rid of/disabling Windows 7 on my Hard Drive?

Thanks in advance.
 
Solution
J
Are you doing an official upgrade, or a clean install?

If I were doing a clean install, I would disconnect the old HD, connect the new SSD. Proceed to install a clean copy of Windows 8. Then once everything is set up, add the second hard drive - make sure in your BIOS that you have the SSD boot priority set FIRST so it boots to the SSD, not the old HD. Then, copy over any old files from your old HD that you still want and then format that sucker. You can use it as a storage drive or whatever.

If you're doing an upgrade, I would install the SSD and then format it in Windows 7. Use a utility to image your current drive over to the SSD. There are tons of utilities, I've used EaseUS and it's pretty easy and straightforward. Then remove...
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Jaime3d

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Dec 3, 2013
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Are you doing an official upgrade, or a clean install?

If I were doing a clean install, I would disconnect the old HD, connect the new SSD. Proceed to install a clean copy of Windows 8. Then once everything is set up, add the second hard drive - make sure in your BIOS that you have the SSD boot priority set FIRST so it boots to the SSD, not the old HD. Then, copy over any old files from your old HD that you still want and then format that sucker. You can use it as a storage drive or whatever.

If you're doing an upgrade, I would install the SSD and then format it in Windows 7. Use a utility to image your current drive over to the SSD. There are tons of utilities, I've used EaseUS and it's pretty easy and straightforward. Then remove the old HD, and boot to the new SSD. Proceed to upgrade to Windows 8. Then re-add the old HD again making sure BIOS is set up to boot to the SSD first. Make sure you have all files needed and format it. This will only work if the size of the data you are trying to image to the SSD is SMALLER in size than the maximum capacity of the SSD. If not, you'll need to find a place to store stuff before you can do the image.
 
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corroded

corroded

Splendid
Sep 5, 2011
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Image the Win7 disk. (I use ToDo backup free)

Copy off your Profile folders that are transferable (Desktop, Documents and such)

Copy out any "local" gaming data, if you do not know, look in the game's user forums and support about "Moving to a new computer"

Pull Win7 boot disk

Add the SSD, install Win8, update it to current

Reformat and checkdisk /f the old HD

Make a user profile folder on the newly formatted drive, now "Move" your Profile OFF the SSD

Now you can copy back all your "Stuff" from your backed up Win7 profile and begin the fun of installing all your applications.

***Note, you could do an upgrade in place to Windows8 and then port it to the SSD with a disk cloning tool (ToDo Backup Free does this too). While faster that above it ends up messier. I did something like this recently and was unhappy with the results and redid the whole this like above.

Images before upgrades are a saviour!
 
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