Installing internal solid-state drive as boot drive

There SHOULD be an option in your BIOS to change the boot sequence of your drives. I know with my asus motherboard its a very simple drag and drop mechanism that shows up when the BIOS first opens. I've only used asus motherboard though so im not sure how other brands work.

Is the Samsung 850 EVO empty? or does it have windows installed in it already?

If the SSD is empty and what you want is to make it your bootable device with the OS in it you have the following options:

1) clean install of windows in SSD (recommended)
2) Clone your old HDD into the SSD and then boot from the SSD.

I could walk you through with either option 1 or 2 and explain you step by step how to do this. But I need more information on exactly what your needs are.

You can always log in to the forums from a smartphone. if something goes wrong just ask me and we'll fix it.

You're welcome.

good luck with that

Well, although I really don't want to upset your apple-cart, so to speak, if you've made up your mind to fresh-install the Windows OS (as entropy... has suggested) and then install all your programs & personal data, etc. currently on your HDD (not the most pleasant of tasks!), perhaps you might give consideration to undertaking a rather simple & straightforward disk-cloning ("data migration") process whereby in one fell swoop you would transfer the complete contents of your HDD over to your new SSD. Does that have any potential appeal to you?

If it does, and if certain conditions presently exist with respect to your current OS, you may be well-advised to undertake that "data migration" route. Those conditions are:
1. Does your present system function without any problems in that the system boots without incident and thereafter functions trouble-free?
2. Are you comfortable enough with your present system that you would have no qualms in having a bit-for-bit copy of that system transferred to your new drive?
3. Is the 250 GB disk-capacity of your new Samsung SSD sufficient to contain the TOTAL contents of your present HDD, the drive that you would like to transfer?

If your answers to the above are "yes" I would see no reason why you should not utilize a data-migration (disk-cloning) program to effect the transfer of data to your new Samsung SSD. Because you will be purchasing a Samsung SSD the drive will come with Samsung's Data Migration program. It's a particularly nice disk-cloning program for Samsung drives in that it's simple to use and quite effective from our experience with the program. Here's an outline of how you could use it...

(Before you begin ensure that the only drives that are connected in the system are the source & destination drives, i.e., your HDD & SSD. Uninstall any other storage devices such as a flash drive, USB external HDD, etc.)

1. With both your HDD & SSD connected boot the system. The system will, of course, boot to the HDD's OS.

2. Install the Samsung Data Migration program on the HDD. The program is included in the CD bundled with the Samsung SSD package.

3. Access the program and click Start.

4. The Source Disk (your HDD) and the Target Disk (your SSD) will be identified.

5. Click Start.

6. Click Yes when the confirmation message appears.

7. The disk-cloning process will begin. It can be a lengthy process depending upon the amount of data that's being cloned.

8. When the cloning process has successfully completed a message will appear to that effect.

9. Click Quit, then Shut Down.

10. After the system has been shut down disconnect the HDD from the system and boot to the SSD. Assuming all is well ensure that your new SSD boot drive is connected to the first SATA connector on the motherboard which will be designated either SATA 0 or SATA 1. The HDD can now be connected to any following SATA connector.

11. Presumably you're going to utilize the HDD as a storage/backup disk but with the SSD for a while to determine it's completely functional before making any significant changes in your HDD's data. Should any problems arise you would still have the HDD with all its data intact and you would still have the option fresh-installing the OS onto the SSD should it come to that.

So give the preceding process a try if you desire to have a precise copy of your old HDD on your new SSD.

A fresh install will always get the best performance from your SSD... if it isn't much trouble, I always recommend doing the fresh install. I myself migrated from an HDD to an Samsung SSD. Samsung's cloning software the most user friendly cloning software I've seen around, however it didn't work in my case; it doesn't always work. I did end up cloning anyway (using clonezilla) simply because I could not do a fresh install as I didn't have the license key. If I could have done a fresh install I would have totally done it, it isn't that bad to do on an SSD and you'll get a clean installation.

He/she picked option #1. If he would have picked option #2 I would have suggested to try the Samsung's cloning software first of course. But option #1 gives the first performance, and option #2 SHOULD include defragging the HDD before cloning the drives, which could take a very long time using a good defragging software. And even after defrag it is not guaranteed that you will get the best performance out of your SSD. Not to mention that if the HDD is larger than the SSD (probably the case) he/she would have to shrink the HDD, delete or storage data somewhere else, etc... The samsung SDD cloning software does let you clone BIG to SMALL but you'll be deleting files at one step.

In short. About Samsung's cloning software.

User friendly? yes
Gives the user what he wants? most of the times
practical? hm.. maybe.
Optimal? No

Well, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. Time & time again I read posters responding to this issue with statements like "it's always better to fresh-install the OS" rather than undertaking a disk-cloning (data-migration) process to transfer the contents of one drive to another drive. This is not to say that a fresh-install of the OS may not be warranted in certain circumstances. But I simply don't think it's appropriate to have this knee-jerk reaction that a fresh-install of the OS is always "better". One must consider the specific circumstances of the situation. We're all aware of what an onerous - even tortuous - process it can be manually installing programs and data to a new drive. If a user can avoid that process and the result will be a reliable fully-functional system created through a disk-cloning operation, so be it.

There is no empirical evidence that I'm aware of that mandates a fresh-install of the OS is always "better".

I'll reiterate my position as previously stated...
As long as certain critical conditions are present with a user's system, I see no problem in undertaking the data migration (disk-cloning) route...
1. Does the user's present system function without any problems in that the system boots without incident and thereafter functions trouble-free?
2. Is the user sufficiently comfortable with his/her current system that they would have no qualms in creating a bit-for-bit copy of that system transferred to their new drive?
3. Is the disk-capacity of the new drive sufficient to contain the total contents of the drive that they would like to transfer?

If the users' answers to the above are "yes" I would see absolutely no reason why they should not utilize a data-migration (disk-cloning) program to effect the transfer of data.

I would only add that we have undertaken (or helped to perform) dozens of disk-cloning operations relevant to this issue and by & large have experienced no problems in doing so. And more importantly neither have the users experienced any problems. Does a disk-cloning operation go awry for one reason or another at times or is it clear from the results of the disk-cloning operation that a fresh-install of the OS is warranted in a particular situation? Of course. And then we proceed accordingly. But to conclude that it's *always better* to undertake a fresh-install of the OS rather than a disk-cloning data-migration process is absurd in my opinion.

In any event, the choice is the user's.

That's why I told you to unplug the HDD on step 3 . sda1 is usually your windows booting partition, and if the HDD is plugged then it would interefere with your fresh install. If you unplug it, then windows sees sda1 in the SSD and notices there's no boot partition for windows so it installs it and everything's good . I am glad it work out, enjoy your SSD.