Windows SSD due, advice on moving Steam Games and Music

Hey all, i have a 256GB SSD on its way to me, i have a few things i need to try and figure out an was looking for help.

1. I dont have an optical drive atm, so i need to install via USB, any tips on how to do this?

2. Im installing win7 professional on the SSD, my existing install is win7home premium, if i wish to transfer settings will this cause an issue?

3. Steam, i can see you can now specify where steam can install games, i have a huuge arma2 install and would like this to be on the SSD im not fussed about any other steam games atm.
a. Would copy+paste the arma2 folder to the SSD, then tell steam to delete arma, then reinstall specifying the the new location on the SSD as the install work? (steam scans and just verifiys the integrity?)
Or
b. Should i make a copy of the arma2 folder, tell steam uninstall etc, then reinstall to SSD location, then move the copy over the top of the new SSD install?
or
c. I have heard of software that could do this?

4. Music, this may not be relevant to these forums. I have winamp and have a playlist of around 300songs of my favourites, the last time i attempted to move my music folder it broke the playlist. I want to keep the music on the HDD (current C: Drive) any tips on ensuring winamp will keep my media library upto date?

Any other useful tips regarding operation of an SSD? Im a virgin to them....

 

1a) http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/html/pbPage.Help_Win7_usbdvd_dwnTool
1b) if the tool above doesn't work, then http://www.maximumpc.com/article/howtos/how_to_install_windows_7_beta_a_usb_key
2) Windows will probably use the bootloader on your old drive, so your computer will not boot without the old drive. Not sure what to do if you want to transfer settings, i did disconnect my old drives every time i did a new install.
3) Steam backup, then restore.
4) Check the playlist file, if it has absolute file location (including the disk drive), then that is the reason why did it broke last time.

 

Cheers

Re: 2, i can tell the MOBO which order to boot from anyway.

Re:4 Yea im aware of the cause, but i dont fancy going through all 4000+ playlist entrys to change the filepath!

 

@2: If the installer finds the bootloader on any other drives (and it will, because you were booting from that older installation before), then it doesn't create a new bootloader on your SSD, but adds itself to the old one as another option.

 

Sym link your folder for music from C: to D: (I think its called symlink) it will appear as on C to the software when it is actually on D or whatever letter the data drive will be

 

Whats symlink exactly? I havent heard of it lol, i think i get what it is but not sure how to?

 

http://wintoflash.com/home/en/ - for installing windows from ISO into Flashdrive etc it's what I used on my laptop for speed.

 

It's just a symbolic link, it means it looks like something exists somewhere, but really it is somewhere else - it's basically like a shortcut, but different.

http://lifehacker.com/5496652/how-to-use-symlinks-in-windows

 

I think this is what i use to create symbolic links http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/hardlinkshellext.html

 

When you install a fresh install from steam it gives you the option to create steam libraries on various drives. So I install Steam on my SSD and Game that I don't think would benefit from being on an SSD, into s steam library on a HDD.

I like using symbolic links but because they aren't integrated into the shell properly, if anything goes wrong and you have to use system restore then it could make a bit of a mess of things.

 

Update- SSD arrived yesterday so set to work.....then discovered that my bleeding PSU leads for SATA power is not quite long enough to get power to the SSD

So its resting somewhere safe inside the case atm until i can get an extension.

Next headache was attempting to install windows, i tried each one of the options above and could not get them to work, it boots into the windows install no problem, but at the first step it asks for a driver :S im assuming its something to do with the flash drive being used but i gave up, ended up taking the optical drive out the other comp and burning the ISO to DVD....worked fine then. Mind you again as the PSU leads are too short i had to place the optical drive carefully on a box! (this is why i have no optical drive atm).

Then, the MOBOs bloody driver disk appears to be slghtly gubbed, the important driver for the LAN controller would not install, so i cant get online for other drivers etc. So i had to go get the drivers from elsewhere and then transfer via the flash drive.

However it all seems ok now, ill possibly look into transferring settings tonight an see how that goes.

 

Game transfer-

I actually found some advice on Steams own help, basically i moved the steam.exe to my new drive, then created the steamapps/common/ folder, moved the games i want on the SSD.

Start steam and click to install a game, when it asks where you point to the new SSD, steam automatically picks up the game does a quick check and your good to go

You can then goto steam setting and advise of another game libraby, so pointed to HDD an there was the rest of the games ready.

Transferred my appdata folder so all the settings have moved across (windows easy transfer never done this for some reason.)

So far it seems to be fine now, still have my problem with winamp but i will need to look into that. At worst i have the entire playlist collection on my phone, i may have to copy them all into thier own folder and re add to playlist.

 

I was going from Win7 Home Premium to Win7 Professional and a 1TB->250GB.

I have no experience with cloning software and dont fancy buying it either. Is it possible to move the Win install? Not that it matters as much anymore.

Anyway, i managed to sort my music, i launched winamp and brought up my playlist (its winamps own, im not sure if its an .m3u file hidden somewhere) from this I exported to .m3u, then i opened the playlist with notepad and modified the file paths using replace.

Save, then opened the m3u with winamp and it worked. Was simply a case of recreating the winamp playlist, Pretty simple when you think of iut