Can I Fresh Install an OEM W7 Copy (on a SATA3 SSD)?

[lauxenburg]

Hi,

I am looking at getting a SATA 6.0GB/s controller and an SSD somewhere down the road, soon. I don't think I can just move my Windows install over to the SSD within Windows, or can I? Since it's an OEM piece of software, its sometimes a bit picky with reinstalling too...Does anyone have any experience with this.

A lot of people buy SSDs and never mention reinstalling in their reviews....just a bit confused. Never really did this through the years.

Thanks.

 

[number13]

thorny question, lots of possibilities I am assuming that the M/B doesn't have on board SATA, but if it does, just use the SSD for Apps and leave everything alone, if the BIOS sees the card, no problem, if the card has windows drivers then it's not possible

 

[sminlal]

You can definitely "clone" your existing Windows partition from an HDD onto an SDD, assuming that you don't change any of the hardware on your motherboard. I've done this using the Windows 7 "System Image" backup and restore, and it works perfectly. But there may be an issue with partition alignment if you do it this way.

If you install a new controller, then what SHOULD work (although I haven't tried it) is to install the hardware, boot Windows on your old drive and install any required drivers for the hardware BEFORE cloning the drive.

The good news is that should you decide to reinstall Windows and your applications from scratch on the new drive, the process seems a lot less painful because the SSD is so much faster.