OS upgrade, new and old drives

[Saubrey]

Hey all,
I'm doing an essentially new build and have a question about how I should go about it.
I currently have a 3 hard drives in my PC that I will be trashing with the new build, but there are quiet a lot of programs and files that I want to keep. How do I get those onto my new hard drives? Do I have to install the old drives with the new build, transfer everything I want and then uninstall them? Is there an easier way?

Thanks for any help!

For those interested, the new PC specs are listed below. I've learned over the years that I prefer single GPU set-ups and I have never bothered to OC a system even when I have bought OC-able components and I don't expect I will anytime soon. Hence, the somewhat bare bones MB.

Case: Antec 900 *from previous build

PSU: Antec EarthWatts 650W 80 PLUS Certified *from previous build
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371015

MB: ASRock Z68M/USB3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157270

GPU: Sapphire HD 6870 1GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102948

RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231428

OS: Windows 7 HP

OS Drive: Crucial M4 CT064M4SSD2 2.5" 64GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148441

Storage Drive: Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136533

I'm only waiting to buy my CPU to complete the build:
I am planning to look at price vs performance of Ivy bridge when it is released and compare to the i5-2400

 

[Raiddinn]

I would highly suggest you don't try to keep your operating system and programs. It is better to install these fresh on the new boot drive whatever it is going to be.

When you do these installs, make sure you don't have any other hard drive connected to the motherboard.

Once the OS and all the programs are installed fresh, then connect your new data drive and make sure it is recognized. Then connect one of your old data drives and start it up, copy all the data over to your new data drive, and repeat this process for however many hard drives need to have data moved.

 

[Saubrey]

I would highly suggest you don't try to keep your operating system and programs. It is better to install these fresh on the new boot drive whatever it is going to be.

When you do these installs, make sure you don't have any other hard drive connected to the motherboard.

Once the OS and all the programs are installed fresh, then connect your new data drive and make sure it is recognized. Then connect one of your old data drives and start it up, copy all the data over to your new data drive, and repeat this process for however many hard drives need to have data moved.

Thanks for the reply.
Yeah, I will have a new SSD for the OS and a new data drive as well, and will do a clean install of Win7, so there will be no hold-over OS.

I guess I'll just browse my old system before the new build and figure out what programs I want to keep and then install them fresh on the new system. I have a lot of music-production software and VST's that were download downloaded from random places and will be a pain to try and find again, but it might give me a reason to get fresh software and a new sound

 

[Saubrey]

Another thing, to keep the SSD OS drive from getting filled, I really just need to tell Windows to store my profile files on the data drive, yes? Or does Win7 identify the SSD and do this automatically?

 

[Raiddinn]

Keeping the SSD from getting filled is kinda problematic, because you really want to have all your game files on the SSD.

You can split the files between the SSD and the regular hard drive, but whatever is on the hard drive will load at hard drive speeds.

People get SSDs because they want to load things faster, and that can especially have a positive effect on gaming load times, but to get the maximal benefit you have to have everything on the SSD.

Really whatever you feel comfortable with, I guess.

Whenever I manage to get an SSD, I would like it to be a Crucial M4 128 GBs, because 64GBs is just hard to manage when Windows 7 takes up like 20 - 25 GBs, basic free space needs account for another 6.5 GBs, the page file is another 8 GBs, and games are like 10 GBs each.

With the 128 GB version you have like 7x the space you can use for games as compared to the 64 GBs version.