Just Move only OS to SSD from Hard Drive

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seanparko

Commendable
Dec 13, 2016
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I've been looking around for ways to move my OSS for my hard drive and put it on my SSD without taking all of the other files with it. Im thinking of doing a clean install to my ssd, but will i be able to use all of my applications on my hard drive once i install windows on my ssd right out of the box? Or do i need to move everything to the harddrive and use it as a backup disk. Speaking of backup disks i dont have any drives or usb's that i could use as a backup drive (Well, atleast ones that have enough storage on them). Please help me.
 
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SuperSoph_WD
Welcome to the community, @seanparko!

I'd recommend you find a friend that could lend you an external HDD for just a backup or use a cloud storage service online, depending on the size and the importance of your files. Doing a backup before tampering with your storage configuration is essential as it would avoid any potential data loss. Cloning is an alternative to transfer the OS, there are some utilities that let you manually select what gets cloned and what doesn't. However, it's always recommended to do a clean install of Windows onto the newly acquired SSD. This is how you will avoid transferring any redundant system files that could affect the performance of the system.
You should be aware that performing a fresh install...
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Barty1884

Barty1884

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Apr 16, 2015
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It can;'t be done.

You either clone everything, or you clean install your OS.

Applications installed to a HDD should be reinstalled, very few *may* work, but in all likelyhood, they won't.
Obviously'bulk' storage on your HDD won't be affected. You may just have to map drives etc again (if you've mapped drives to the HDD opposed to the SSD).
 
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SuperSoph_WD

SuperSoph_WD

Glorious
Jul 30, 2014
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Welcome to the community, @seanparko!

I'd recommend you find a friend that could lend you an external HDD for just a backup or use a cloud storage service online, depending on the size and the importance of your files. Doing a backup before tampering with your storage configuration is essential as it would avoid any potential data loss. Cloning is an alternative to transfer the OS, there are some utilities that let you manually select what gets cloned and what doesn't. However, it's always recommended to do a clean install of Windows onto the newly acquired SSD. This is how you will avoid transferring any redundant system files that could affect the performance of the system.
You should be aware that performing a fresh install requires to unplug the HDD from the system while the installation is proceeding. Having more than 1 SATA device connected at that time to the motherboard could possibly result in the so-called OS confusion that scatters the system files across all the drives and then gives you quite the booting headaches afterwards.

I'd advise you to follow this detailed Windows Install & Optimization Guide for SSDs & HDDs.

Hope this helps you. Keep us posted if you have more questions! :)
SuperSoph_WD
 
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