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A bit of advise needed

Last response: in Storage
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I know I ask alot of questions but....
About to buy a SSD (Intel 320 40gb) exclusive for Windows 7
At the moment I have a 500gb Seagate Barracuda which the OS and apps are installed on, aswell as a 150gb Velociraptor for Flight Simulator.
How would I go about installing W7 on the SSD, Do I format my two other drives and install it or??
Also I would like to not have to format my Velociraptor if it is possible, but if I must, I can.
And will I have any problems Registering W7 again?

More about : bit advise needed

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No, you don't need to format any other drive. But after installing the new windows on the new drive you will need to install all your programs as well for the new OS.
In short - formatting of drives will not be necessary, but a lot of reinstalling.
Or you may use the SSD as cache of the HDD if your system supports it.

Ok, so having W7 installed on both wont cause any issues? Hopefully?
And it wont stop me from being able to register Windows again? or do I de-activate the Windows on the Barracuda?

It will not cause issues by itself, but you'll need to have two installations of your programs and they should be in different folders. And because you can't install your programs on the SSD it may became complicated. You also should have two My documents folders on different drives...
And well, you shouldn't have two copies of the same Windows, registered with the same number at the same time.
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There isn't a procedure (that I know of) for de-activating Windows.

You can have Windows installed on multiple hard drives but you have to tell your BIOS which hard drive to boot from. And yes you will have to install your apps under that particular OS for any that require installation. (Doesn't matter for apps that you just copy into a folder and run from there.) You can install your apps on any drive, but they have to be installed under the OS that you are running at the time. So you could boot from Windows on one drive and have your apps available, boot from Windows on the other drive and your apps would not be available, almost like running 2 completely different computers connected to the same monitor and keyboard.

I've read the comments several times. It seems to me some of the advice is overly complicated.

Don'tcopy - You stated you were going to use an ssd as a Windows 7 boot drive. Do you intend to use it as the only boot drive (recommended) or do you also intend to use your Seagate Barracuda or your Velociraptor as a Windows 7 boot drive (not recommended)?

JohnnyLucky said:
I've read the comments several times. It seems to me some of the advice is overly complicated.

Don'tcopy - You stated you were going to use an ssd as a Windows 7 boot drive. Do you intend to use it as the only boot drive (recommended) or do you also intend to use your Seagate Barracuda or your Velociraptor as a Windows 7 boot drive (not recommended)?


Sorry should of clarified,
I want the SSD as the Only boot drive with only the OS and anything Vital to the OS (Like antivirus) on it.
Barracuda for games, apps and storage.
Velociraptor I want for Flight Simulator only.

Also, my Barracuda has a Partition on it, if anyone can tell me how to get rid of that I would be happy.

As a side-note:
If I just re-installed W7 on the SSD and kept it also on the Barracuda, could I just copy the Shortcuts from my desktop to a pen drive and then onto the new desktop? Should still lead to the same place rite?

No, you can't copy the shortcuts. You need new installations in the new OS. They will have different paths... etc., your SSD will be C: but programs will be on D: or elsewhere...
You need to have at least one partition on a physical disk to form a logical disk there, so if you have only one partition on your barracuda drive, you shouldn't delete it.

So, its looking like I need to just wipe my Barracuda and re-install everything, which isn't that bad since most of my stuff are either benchmarks or games.. I have ways to save Flight Sim though (I hope). I always like a fresh start anyway.
Any extra advice is welcome before I do this.

Backup any data that you want to keep before you do anything else.
Take out all of the old drives and put in just the SSD and the DVD. Install the OS on the SSD and any other apps that you want installed on the SSD.
Disconnect the DVD drive.
Install your other drives. I would do it one at a time in the order that you want the drive letters, reformat the drives, assign their drive letters.
Put the DVD drive back in and install your other apps. Specify folders on D:, E: or whatever for these apps.
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