I have another thread about my hardware upgrade, but thought I should keep this part of the question separate. I've been convinced that a SSD boot drive is the way to go. Physical installation I'm fine with; crack the beast open, shove it in, stick some screws in and slap the cables in, Bob's your uncle. Software i'm not so great. My plan was to use my old Win 7 disc (should still work as keeping the mobo and not mess my current install up right?) and do a fresh install (i like new and shiny things). From here, after setting the SSD to my default boot drive in the BIOS, how do I go about making my current HDD a drive that I can install things to? I currently have a fair few games on there that I'd like to not have to reinstall thanks to a shabby internet connection. I understand I can just point Steam in the right direction like the hound it is and it should be good, this the case? What about other programs like Word I have installed on there and won't bother switching over to the SSD? Will they still run? Will it matter that Win 7 will still be installed on the old HDD? Do I need to RAID something? Also, while copying and pasting data from one drive to another seems easy, is it worth me doing a backup for my music, photos, savegames, documents etc.? Basically, I think my question is, can a dummie like me do this without crying?
Yes, in the settings under Downloads (I think) there's an option called Steam Library Folders. Simply click that and you can add the folder from your HDD to it.
Having Windows installed on the old drive too is asking for issues I think - you'd be best to do a full reinstall.
Clean install, have your programs in your SSD. Games on your HDD if you don't have the space. Having Windows only on your SSD make your computer boot faster, and stops there. Having your programs on your SSD, will make your daily experience with the system faster, more and responsive. A 64GB SSD should be enough, if you are on barebone setup. 120GB will give you plenty of room to party, even put some games that you currently play on it. And more storage from there, the more games you put.
OK, so 128Gb should be plenty for say windows, steam, iTunes, Firefox, word... they're my main programs and I should be able to redirect steam to my old hdd and it'll play the games without reinstalling them? Sounds easy enough. You mentioned about having 2 windows installs a bad idea. How do I remove windows from my old hdd without formatting it completely? Surely if I make the ssd my boot drive in the BIOS it shouldn't make a difference? also, I take it that my old win 7 disc should work on a new hdd since its the same mobo?
If you have 2 windows installs you'll end up with a dual boot. Not a problem but a bit of a waste of time having whats basically a duplicate. One option if you want every thing exactly as it was would be to clone the HDD on to the SSD then just delete the old windows installation. The only thing is any old junk you have will be carried over, so if you are going to do it that way I would say do a defrag and run CCleaner and maleware bytes to get rid of the crap before you clone it. You will find it will give you back some space that would have been lost. If you do go this route to delete the old windows instal just highlight it on the drive then hit the delete button and run a disc clean up. I have done that myself before when I am being lazy. Probably the only thing you will need to reload is the bootloader. this can be done easily from your installation disc. But although that would work adequately a fresh install on a new disc is better.
There are 2 ways you can go... First, do a clean install, as well as having to install all of your programs (except steam games, as you can just copy out the C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps and point the new steam install there to pick everything up). Then you will need to go through and clean up all the old Windows and program files stuff on the old HDD. Make sure you disconnect your old HDD when installing fresh on the SSD to ensure it puts the boot files where they belong. Otherwise there is a high chance it will decide to use the boot already on the HDD which can cause issues later on. Second choice, which may only be viable if you have another HDD to back up all your static data like music, movies, etc that would waste too much space on the SSD. Once you have cleaned up the current Windows install as much as possible, you will then shrink the partition so it is small enough to match the SSD size. Then you can clone your current install preserving all the application installed, settings and etc you have now. Then once cloned, I would format the HDD and restore your files to it, set up a secondary 'Program Files' and so on.
Sounding very much like a clean install will be easier. I have my Win 7 OEM (after a bit of reading I see that makes a difference somehow?) and my Microsoft Office 2007 discs as these are the only 2 things I installed from a disc. Say I install th new SSD, if I put these in will they recognise they're in the same computer as before and not require any new licences? I know my Office disc has no licences left and I can't afford another right now. Basically, if I do a fresh install, am I going to need new licences for Win 7 (OEM) and Office 2007?
No the licenses will work. Office will just activate after typing the key in. Windows should also just activate once the key is type in. At worst you'll need to ring the automated number to manually activate it.
