First time installing windows 7 on new PC

[Alariata Chupas]

Hey guys well i am about to plugin and turn on my first ever build.
I have both HDD and SSD.

So i am planing on having windows 7 on my SSD 256 gigs. also some other applications. And a few of my favorite games.

In order to install windows 7 on my SSD what should i do?... disconect the HDD so my mobo will only read the SSD? or?

Thanks,
Alan

 

[ThomasJ93]

If you really want to make sure that you will install Windows on the SSD, keep the HDD unplugged until you have installed Windows. If you do plug it in, you'll have two drives to choose from during installation. You can see the capacity of the drives, but there's still a chance you accidentally install it on the HDD

 

[Alariata Chupas]

If you really want to make sure that you will install Windows on the SSD, keep the HDD unplugged until you have installed Windows. If you do plug it in, you'll have two drives to choose from during installation. You can see the capacity of the drives, but there's still a chance you accidentally install it on the HDD

unplug both sata and power or eaither one?

 

[ThomasJ93]

If you really want to make sure that you will install Windows on the SSD, keep the HDD unplugged until you have installed Windows. If you do plug it in, you'll have two drives to choose from during installation. You can see the capacity of the drives, but there's still a chance you accidentally install it on the HDD

unplug both sata and power or eaither one?

Just power is enough.

 

[bigcyco1]

1. Ensure your SATA ports are configured to use AHCI mode in BIOS

This is the very first step to ensuring that you’re getting the most from your SSD. SSDs using AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface) SATA mode will perform much faster than SSDs in the old IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) SATA mode, so this should definitely be the first thing you do when you after physically installing your new SSD. Unfortunately, there’s no universal way to do this, but be sure to check out your motherboard manual on how this is done. Do make sure to do this PRIOR to installing Windows!2. If your SSD supports it, enable TRIM!

You may be asking yourself what is TRIM? Well, TRIM is a series of commands that are sent back and forth between the SSD and the rest of the computer that tells the SSD when files are no longer being used so that they can be deleted or cleaned up. These files are usually files like temporary internet files, so no need to worry about losing anything important!

To enable trim it’s pretty easy. Just a simple command through the command prompt (CMD), but first we want to test and see if it’s enabled. Click Start, in the search bar type “cmd” and right click your search result and click “Open as Administrator”. Once that box is open, type “fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify” without the quotes. If you get DisableDeleteNotify = 0 then TRIM is working. If you get DisableDeleteNotify = 1 then we need to enable it.

To enable it simply type “fsutil behavior set disabledeletenotify 0″ without the quotes and restart your computer! It’s that simple. That said, most Windows 7 users will find that TRIM is automagically enabled, but just in case it’s not, be sure to do it!

 

[Alariata Chupas]

1. Ensure your SATA ports are configured to use AHCI mode in BIOS

This is the very first step to ensuring that you’re getting the most from your SSD. SSDs using AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface) SATA mode will perform much faster than SSDs in the old IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) SATA mode, so this should definitely be the first thing you do when you after physically installing your new SSD. Unfortunately, there’s no universal way to do this, but be sure to check out your motherboard manual on how this is done. Do make sure to do this PRIOR to installing Windows!2. If your SSD supports it, enable TRIM!

You may be asking yourself what is TRIM? Well, TRIM is a series of commands that are sent back and forth between the SSD and the rest of the computer that tells the SSD when files are no longer being used so that they can be deleted or cleaned up. These files are usually files like temporary internet files, so no need to worry about losing anything important!

To enable trim it’s pretty easy. Just a simple command through the command prompt (CMD), but first we want to test and see if it’s enabled. Click Start, in the search bar type “cmd” and right click your search result and click “Open as Administrator”. Once that box is open, type “fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify” without the quotes. If you get DisableDeleteNotify = 0 then TRIM is working. If you get DisableDeleteNotify = 1 then we need to enable it.

To enable it simply type “fsutil behavior set disabledeletenotify 0″ without the quotes and restart your computer! It’s that simple. That said, most Windows 7 users will find that TRIM is automagically enabled, but just in case it’s not, be sure to do it!

Thanks for your answer, now i installed a copy of windows 7 professional that I used on another computer I no longer use, so when I tired to install windows 7 professional it asked me for a key, which I still have, but of course it says is no longer valid. And I was reading that windows 7 can only be install in one Computer ONLY and that computer will be the Licensed computer. So with all this been said I will buy a brand new copy of windows 7 BUt now the Home Edition (ot something like that lol) because i never used all the options that the professional editions offers. So now this is where I am at, I never finished the process of the instalation of windows 7 professional. So since I am getting a brand new copy of the home edition how can I uninstal professional edition?

BTW this is the first thing I install on my brand new build PC so all I want to know how can I erase windows 7 professional from my SSD. OR just reformat and start from scratch, since i dont have nothing else installed yet just maybe reformat? and dtart like brand new ? lol....

Thanks again,
Al.

 

[ThomasJ93]

When starting the installation of Windows 7 Home Edition, it will ask you where to install it, just like it did with Win 7 Pro. Just remove the partitions the Win 7 Pro install made and you're good to go.

 

[Alariata Chupas]

When starting the installation of Windows 7 Home Edition, it will ask you where to install it, just like it did with Win 7 Pro. Just remove the partitions the Win 7 Pro install made and you're good to go.

So in order to remove it i need to wait untill I install the home edition? or?

Like I said I dont mind just reformating my whole pc since i just built it, and windows 7 pro is the only thing in my SSD.

 

[ThomasJ93]

Unless you want to use other tools, then yes, you'll have to wait until you install Home Edition.

 

[Alariata Chupas]

Unless you want to use other tools, then yes, you'll have to wait until you install Home Edition.

I just want to reset my whole pc and start from scratch, how can I ?

Thanks!

 

[bigcyco1]

You can just follow Seans secure guide http://www.overclock.net/t/1227597/how-to-secure-erase-your-solid-state-drive-ssd-with-parted-magic#post_16684060

 

[ThomasJ93]

There's no need for a secure erase if he's only going to do a reinstall. My advice is to just wait until you have the Home Edition disk and then remove the partitions you have now during the installation.

 

[bigcyco1]

Yes he can do that as well.It does not matter to me either way will work fine.

 

[Alariata Chupas]

Yes he can do that as well.It does not matter to me either way will work fine.

how can i reformat this PC? I havent got time to explore my mobo: Asus Rampage IV extreme.

 

[ThomasJ93]

You'll need bootable software for it. Hirens boot CD has several tools on it. But really, you don't have to go through the hassle to do all that. Just removing the partitions during the installation of Windows is enough.

 

[Alariata Chupas]

1. Ensure your SATA ports are configured to use AHCI mode in BIOS

This is the very first step to ensuring that you’re getting the most from your SSD. SSDs using AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface) SATA mode will perform much faster than SSDs in the old IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) SATA mode, so this should definitely be the first thing you do when you after physically installing your new SSD. Unfortunately, there’s no universal way to do this, but be sure to check out your motherboard manual on how this is done. Do make sure to do this PRIOR to installing Windows!2. If your SSD supports it, enable TRIM!

You may be asking yourself what is TRIM? Well, TRIM is a series of commands that are sent back and forth between the SSD and the rest of the computer that tells the SSD when files are no longer being used so that they can be deleted or cleaned up. These files are usually files like temporary internet files, so no need to worry about losing anything important!

To enable trim it’s pretty easy. Just a simple command through the command prompt (CMD), but first we want to test and see if it’s enabled. Click Start, in the search bar type “cmd” and right click your search result and click “Open as Administrator”. Once that box is open, type “fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify” without the quotes. If you get DisableDeleteNotify = 0 then TRIM is working. If you get DisableDeleteNotify = 1 then we need to enable it.

To enable it simply type “fsutil behavior set disabledeletenotify 0″ without the quotes and restart your computer! It’s that simple. That said, most Windows 7 users will find that TRIM is automagically enabled, but just in case it’s not, be sure to do it!

To late when you replied with your answer I already installed windows 7, so what can i do in regards of AHCI? Is it to late?

 

[bigcyco1]

If you’ve already missed this step, there’s a pretty easy way to do this in Windows.

Click Start
In the Search bar at the bottom type in “regedit”
Browse to “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\msahci”
Right click on “Start”
Click Modify
Change the value data to “0?
Restart your computer
Go into your BIOS/UEFI and set your SATA Configuration to AHCI

 

[Alariata Chupas]

If you’ve already missed this step, there’s a pretty easy way to do this in Windows.

Click Start
In the Search bar at the bottom type in “regedit”
Browse to “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\msahci”
Right click on “Start”
Click Modify
Change the value data to “0?
Restart your computer
Go into your BIOS/UEFI and set your SATA Configuration to AHCI

It was at cero already so I cancel out of it. Even at CERO value I do still need to click ok and then go to BIOS?

 

[bigcyco1]

I would just to be safe.Also Disable Superfetch and Prefetch

Superfetch and Prefetch, when running, simply tells Windows what it should expect to load next so it’s cached to your RAM. The nice thing about having an SSD of course is that you don’t really need to have things pre-cached into RAM. SSDs have ridiculous fast access times that are many, many, many times faster than traditional platter HDDs. Since, Superfetch and Prefetch is only going to eat up precious memory without giving you much of a benefit in the performance department, might as well disable them since you’ll probably need the extra memory after disabling the pagefile.

Click start, in the search bar type “regedit” right click your search result and click “Run as Administrator”
Navigate to this location “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters”
Right click EnableSuperfetch and EnablePrefetcher and modify their values to 0
Restart your computer

2. Disable indexing

When indexing is enabled, Windows is taking what it thinks is the most commonly used files and stores its file locations for quick access. While this isn’t taxing on your SSD, this does tax your processor. With SSDs being fast enough to access all files – commonly used and not at lightning speeds, there’s no reason to have indexing bog down your PC. Turn it off!

Click Start
Click ‘Computer’
Right click your SSD (usually C
Click ‘Properties”
Under the General tab look to the bottom and untick ‘Allow files on this drive to have contents indexed’



3. Disable Hibernation

Disabling hibernation will allow you to free up tons of space as well. Plus, with your new SSD you can boot into Windows from a complete shutdown and open all your work back up again, just as fast as you can resume from a state of hibernation! That, or just use this other sleep mode called “standby”.

Click Start, in the search bar type “cmd”
Right click the search result and click “Run as Administrator”
Type “powercfg -h off”


4. Disable Write Caching

With mechanical hard drives, write caching is quite useful as hard drives frequently can’t keep up with the data that needed to be written on them, so data was stored onto memory first then transferred onto the hard drive. However, since SSDs are capable of extremely fast sequential and 4k writes, this is unnecessary.

Click Start
Right click ‘Computer’
Click ‘Properties’
Click ‘Device Manger’
Click ‘Disk Drives’
Right click your SSD
Click ‘Properties’
Click ‘Policies’ tab
Untick ‘Enable Write Caching for this drive’





Well, that’s it for now! It’s a pretty good list of optimization for those first time SSD users out there.

 

[Alariata Chupas]

I would just to be safe.Also Disable Superfetch and Prefetch

Superfetch and Prefetch, when running, simply tells Windows what it should expect to load next so it’s cached to your RAM. The nice thing about having an SSD of course is that you don’t really need to have things pre-cached into RAM. SSDs have ridiculous fast access times that are many, many, many times faster than traditional platter HDDs. Since, Superfetch and Prefetch is only going to eat up precious memory without giving you much of a benefit in the performance department, might as well disable them since you’ll probably need the extra memory after disabling the pagefile.

Click start, in the search bar type “regedit” right click your search result and click “Run as Administrator”
Navigate to this location “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters”
Right click EnableSuperfetch and EnablePrefetcher and modify their values to 0
Restart your computer

2. Disable indexing

When indexing is enabled, Windows is taking what it thinks is the most commonly used files and stores its file locations for quick access. While this isn’t taxing on your SSD, this does tax your processor. With SSDs being fast enough to access all files – commonly used and not at lightning speeds, there’s no reason to have indexing bog down your PC. Turn it off!

Click Start
Click ‘Computer’
Right click your SSD (usually C
Click ‘Properties”
Under the General tab look to the bottom and untick ‘Allow files on this drive to have contents indexed’



3. Disable Hibernation

Disabling hibernation will allow you to free up tons of space as well. Plus, with your new SSD you can boot into Windows from a complete shutdown and open all your work back up again, just as fast as you can resume from a state of hibernation! That, or just use this other sleep mode called “standby”.

Click Start, in the search bar type “cmd”
Right click the search result and click “Run as Administrator”
Type “powercfg -h off”


4. Disable Write Caching

With mechanical hard drives, write caching is quite useful as hard drives frequently can’t keep up with the data that needed to be written on them, so data was stored onto memory first then transferred onto the hard drive. However, since SSDs are capable of extremely fast sequential and 4k writes, this is unnecessary.

Click Start
Right click ‘Computer’
Click ‘Properties’
Click ‘Device Manger’
Click ‘Disk Drives’
Right click your SSD
Click ‘Properties’
Click ‘Policies’ tab
Untick ‘Enable Write Caching for this drive’





Well, that’s it for now! It’s a pretty good list of optimization for those first time SSD users out there.

Thanks, I did all the tips you gave me =).. Thanks a million!

 

[bigcyco1]

No problem.You're welcome!