Using my SSD as a boot drive

[PCN00B123]

I think I've gone wrong but I backed up all my data from my hard drive to an external hard drive (But forgot to back up the videos, music and picture folders) then booted from my SSD then formatted my Hard drive (wiping all the data). I've now added all the data back onto the hard drive whilst booted in the SSD, but I was wondering if I had to install all my apps again as It wont let my make shortcuts and open them ? Should I of saved all my shortcuts from my desktop?

 

[RunLuke]

If I understand you correctly:
You reinstalled windows, then you won't be able to open any programs.

 

[Colif]

yes, you need to reinstall all programs after a fresh install.

No, saving shortcuts won't help, you need to reinstall them all and let it recreate the shortcuts

You should use google music or something and upload you collection to it. I had a Office 365 subscription and got 1tb of space on One drive so backed up all my libraries to it. My big concern is losing it all so I have multiple copies of most things now.

 

[PCN00B123]

yes, you need to reinstall all programs after a fresh install.

No, saving shortcuts won't help, you need to reinstall them all and let it recreate the shortcuts

You should use google music or something and upload you collection to it. I had a Office 365 subscription and got 1tb of space on One drive so backed up all my libraries to it. My big concern is losing it all so I have multiple copies of most things now.

Is there a faster way of having to route through my hard drive and find all the .exe files and reinstalling everything? Otherwise I'd be here for hours.

 

[Colif]

Download them off the web sites, you get the newest versions that way too.

this app will help: https://ninite.com/

 

[PCN00B123]

Download them off the web sites, you get the newest versions that way too.

this app will help: https://ninite.com/

Okay, thank you

 

[Lee-m]

Installing a program normally doesn't just extract the content to your hard disk and make a short cut. There are almost always a bunch of registry entries and possibly other system files and config.

For most applications and programs you will almost always have to do a reinstall.

 

[PCN00B123]

Installing a program normally doesn't just extract the content to your hard disk and make a short cut. There are almost always a bunch of registry entries and possibly other system files and config.

For most applications and programs you will almost always have to do a reinstall.

But what I don't understand is although I need to reinstall everything, my Hard drive has the same amount of space left now as it did before I formatted it. So wouldn't reinstalling everything fill up my hard drive?

 

[USAFRet]

Installing a program normally doesn't just extract the content to your hard disk and make a short cut. There are almost always a bunch of registry entries and possibly other system files and config.

For most applications and programs you will almost always have to do a reinstall.

But what I don't understand is although I need to reinstall everything, my Hard drive has the same amount of space left now as it did before I formatted it. So wouldn't reinstalling everything fill up my hard drive?

1. What size is your SSD? Ideally, you install a bunch of applications on the SSD. Otherwise, you are throwing away a large part of having the SSD.

2. Reinstalling on the HDD - where, exactly, did you install them? If you found the original install location, and reinstalled to that exact same location, no additional space would be taken up. Just the new OS now has the correct Registry entries.

 

[Lee-m]

Installing a program normally doesn't just extract the content to your hard disk and make a short cut. There are almost always a bunch of registry entries and possibly other system files and config.

For most applications and programs you will almost always have to do a reinstall.

But what I don't understand is although I need to reinstall everything, my Hard drive has the same amount of space left now as it did before I formatted it. So wouldn't reinstalling everything fill up my hard drive?

Well you would just be replacing the stuff you already copied back. So no.

 

[PCN00B123]

Installing a program normally doesn't just extract the content to your hard disk and make a short cut. There are almost always a bunch of registry entries and possibly other system files and config.

For most applications and programs you will almost always have to do a reinstall.

But what I don't understand is although I need to reinstall everything, my Hard drive has the same amount of space left now as it did before I formatted it. So wouldn't reinstalling everything fill up my hard drive?

Well you would just be replacing the stuff you already copied back. So no.

After finding the downloads for the apps I had, do I download in the file locations they were originally on? E.g replacing the old folders?

 

[USAFRet]

Installing a program normally doesn't just extract the content to your hard disk and make a short cut. There are almost always a bunch of registry entries and possibly other system files and config.

For most applications and programs you will almost always have to do a reinstall.

But what I don't understand is although I need to reinstall everything, my Hard drive has the same amount of space left now as it did before I formatted it. So wouldn't reinstalling everything fill up my hard drive?

Well you would just be replacing the stuff you already copied back. So no.

After finding the downloads for the apps I had, do I download in the file locations they were originally on? E.g replacing the old folders?

You can install them on whichever drive you choose.
What size is your SSD?

 

[PCN00B123]

Installing a program normally doesn't just extract the content to your hard disk and make a short cut. There are almost always a bunch of registry entries and possibly other system files and config.

For most applications and programs you will almost always have to do a reinstall.

But what I don't understand is although I need to reinstall everything, my Hard drive has the same amount of space left now as it did before I formatted it. So wouldn't reinstalling everything fill up my hard drive?

Well you would just be replacing the stuff you already copied back. So no.

After finding the downloads for the apps I had, do I download in the file locations they were originally on? E.g replacing the old folders?

You can install them on whichever drive you choose.
What size is your SSD?

Only 120GB

 

[USAFRet]

Only 120GB

OK then...
A 120GB SSD will hold the OS and actually quite a lot of (small) applications and utilities.
Browser, antivirus, Speccy, etc, etcc. All can live on that SSD.

When you start talking about games, that's where it gets tight.
Those need to be installed elsewhere, simply due to size.


So, in what state is the system now?
Where is the OS? Does it boot properly? What have you installed, and where?

 

[PCN00B123]

Only 120GB

OK then...
A 120GB SSD will hold the OS and actually quite a lot of (small) applications and utilities.
Browser, antivirus, Speccy, etc, etcc. All can live on that SSD.

When you start talking about games, that's where it gets tight.
Those need to be installed elsewhere, simply due to size.


So, in what state is the system now?
Where is the OS? Does it boot properly? What have you installed, and where?

It's a kingston 120gb ssd. I have stored my games onto my other hard drive seeing as that has 1TB. But on my SSD I have a few apps such as premiere pro and a few .exe files, along with my OS.
The SSD boots fine.

The question I was asking though, was, because I now have all my folders containing files and apps that aren't installed anymore but still contain files, If I were to download something from a website that was the same thing as something in one of those folders, do I just set the download location to the specific folder on my hard drive and replace the files?

I hope you understand what I'm saying as it's kind of hard to explain

 

[USAFRet]

Download and install are two different things.

Static files..video or music, for instance. Those can live anywhere.
If they still exist on the HDD, no problem.

Applications that need to be installed is a whole different thing.
You can "download" the install file wherever you want.
Once downloaded, you can install that application on whatever drive you want.

 

[Colif]

Downloading an application doesn't auto install it. If the program you downloaded is just a single file, you need to click on it and let it install. Generally during this install process it asks you where you want to put it, so if its a game, put it on the 1tb, but almost anything else can run off the ssd, as most programs like chrome won't take up a lot of space

If the program is a zip file, you need to extract its contents and then look in that folder for a setup file which you click on to install the program.

Problem with the installers is they only match the current version of that program at the time it was made, so if its chrome or something like that its best to get latest installer to avoid getting old versions.

So if you have installers from before, just delete them and start a fresh, don't reuse them as you just get old versions then.

I tried to find a video to explain this but its hard as its assumed most people know this already.

Tip, if you set up One drive, you might want to change its location to 1tb if you had any data saved on it. I have 35gb of music stored on it and the fact onedrive defaults to C meant I was down 35gb of space because of its folder... 35gb of music I already had on my pc at time. Silly system that.

 

[wpgwpg]

Next time you buy an SSD, consider getting a 240 GB one. You can get them nowadays for as little as $55.

Good luck.