Switching Operating System onto a new SSD

Josh-Sweeny · Jan 14, 2015

I have a 1TB hard drive at first and this is what i am running my operating system and keeping all my files on. I want to get an ssd to be my boot drive and looked how to do this but the ones i have found transfer all the data on the old hard drive to the SSD, i wasnt planning on buying a 1tb SSD as i mainly want it for a fast boot drive and to put games i play most frequently on it so i would have to delete a substantial amount of data i have already used which i dont want to do. I still have the disk for my Windows 7 and the keycode for it so can i just install a fresh copy of windows on the SSD and switch this to be my boot drive in BIOS. IS it that simple.

Also is it possible to delete the operating system off of my mechanical drive so make room for more data?

Spath87 · Jan 14, 2015

Best way, imo, is to install the OS fresh onto the SSD, change the boot order, and format the old drive after you have backed up all the data you want to save. That being said, there are plenty of ways to clone the OS image over to the SSD. The link below shows how to do that.

http://lifehacker.com/5837543/how-to-migrate-to-a-solid-state-drive-without-reinstalling-windows

ThomasLeong · Jan 14, 2015

I doubt if cloning from a large 1TB hd to a smaller sized SSD is possible (the reverse is possible: from smaller to larger). The simplier and faster method is to disconnect the 1TB, connect up the SSD, install Win 7 to the SSD (being the only disk connected, the SSD will default to c:\), then reconnect the 1TB with a new connection (since your mobo may have a preference on which SATA connection should be the boot drive), boot up (from the SSD), delete the partition containing the old OS on the 1TB (freeware: Minitool Partition Wizard Home Edition is a good option to use), and add the freespace to your data partition to increase its size - this assumes your current OS and data are in two partitions on the 1TB. If not, then just delete the OS files from the 1TB.

Spath87 · Jan 14, 2015

You're right, you can't clone 1TB of data to 120GB SSD. You can, however, remove all of your personal file, music, movies, etc from the HHD until it is using less than 120GB and clone that. Then move all of your personal files back to the correct locations.

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Switching Operating System onto a new SSD

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