[SOLVED] How do I install my new SSD?

[Anas03]

Right, so I currently have a 1TB HDD and I have been using it for over 5 years. It has my life's work on it and my father's too., and steam games of course.

Of course, since we have been using it for 5 years, the bootup time is soo slow. It takes around 5 minutes to load up our account.

I want to buy a 240gb SSD just for the sake of having a faster bootup time and downloading games quicker. I do not, and I mean do not want to delete anything from my HDD. The only thing I am willing to copy to the SSD is the games. Nothing else. So when I install my SSD, how do I get windows on it? Or is it already on it? And will my files still be on the desktop or will it be in the HDD drive which I can access through file explorer? Also, if I do have an SSD as the main, if I try to open any of the work files on the HDD will it be incompatible because of the SSD being the main or can it still open normal? And last question, if I want to see my files on the desktop from my HDD, id just have to switch it back to primary in bios right?

 

[SkyNetRising]

If you want to do it easy way, then get 1TB SSD instead (not 240GB). All the contents of your HDD has to fit on new SSD.

Clone HDD to SSD,
disconnect HDD,
boot from SSD,
reconnect HDD, clean it and use it for secondary storage.

You can also do it the hard way.
Disconnect HDD,
connect SSD,
install windows on SSD,
install all the software,
connect HDD and manually move your data around, where you want it, and delete old OS from HDD manually.

 

[USAFRet]

Right, so I currently have a 1TB HDD and I have been using it for over 5 years. It has my life's work on it and my father's too., and steam games of course.

Of course, since we have been using it for 5 years, the bootup time is soo slow. It takes around 5 minutes to load up our account.

I want to buy a 240gb SSD just for the sake of having a faster bootup time and downloading games quicker. I do not, and I mean do not want to delete anything from my HDD. The only thing I am willing to copy to the SSD is the games. Nothing else. So when I install my SSD, how do I get windows on it? Or is it already on it? And will my files still be on the desktop or will it be in the HDD drive which I can access through file explorer? Also, if I do have an SSD as the main, if I try to open any of the work files on the HDD will it be incompatible because of the SSD being the main or can it still open normal? And last question, if I want to see my files on the desktop from my HDD, id just have to switch it back to primary in bios right?

"having a faster bootup time and downloading games quicker"
"The only thing I am willing to copy to the SSD is the games. Nothing else. "
"So when I install my SSD, how do I get windows on it? "

These statements do not go together.

What is your budget for this new SSD?
What motherboard is it going on?

 

[Anas03]

If you want to do it easy way, then get 1TB SSD instead (not 240GB). All the contents of your HDD has to fit on new SSD.

Clone HDD to SSD,
disconnect HDD,
boot from SSD,
reconnect HDD, clean it and use it for secondary storage.

You can also do it the hard way.
Disconnect HDD,
connect SSD,
install windows on SSD,
install all the software,
connect HDD and manually move your data around, where you want it, and delete old OS from HDD manually.

Yeah the easy way seems fine but first one thing: if i clone hdd to ssd, are you 100% sure all of the documents and files will still work from it? and that all of it will be transferred. Basically will I not lose anything doing so?

The hard way seems safer to me tbh, so when I disconnect the HDD and put the SSD, does windows download automatically or what?

 

[Anas03]

"having a faster bootup time and downloading games quicker"
"The only thing I am willing to copy to the SSD is the games. Nothing else. "
"So when I install my SSD, how do I get windows on it? "

These statements do not go together.

What is your budget for this new SSD?
What motherboard is it going on?

Mate, imagine getting a new SSD. There are no files on it. My HDD has everything on it. I want to plug in the SSD as the primary boot whilst having the HDD as storage for the documents. Can I just transfer the games on the HDD to the SSD by dragging it in file explorer?

 

[SkyNetRising]

if i clone hdd to ssd, are you 100% sure all of the documents and files will still work from it? and that all of it will be transferred. Basically will I not lose anything doing so?

Clone means exact copy. Contents of new SSD will be identical to contents of HDD. Nothing is lost. Everything works the same way.

The hard way seems safer to me tbh, so when I disconnect the HDD and put the SSD, does windows download automatically or what?

Nothing is automatic there. You'll have to install everything manually.
Here are instructions of what you'll have to do.
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/how-to-do-clean-installation-windows-10,36160.html

 

[USAFRet]

Yeah the easy way seems fine but first one thing: if i clone hdd to ssd, are you 100% sure all of the documents and files will still work from it? and that all of it will be transferred. Basically will I not lose anything doing so?

The hard way seems safer to me tbh, so when I disconnect the HDD and put the SSD, does windows download automatically or what?

Cloning from the HDD to a new SSD, if done correctly, WILL work.
I've done it many times myself, and talked literally hundreds of people here through the process.

When it works, absolutely nothing is lost.
All licenses, permissions, files, etc, etc, etc....all transfer to a new drive of sufficient size.

 

[USAFRet]

Mate, imagine getting a new SSD. There are no files on it. My HDD has everything on it. I want to plug in the SSD as the primary boot whilst having the HDD as storage for the documents. Can I just transfer the games on the HDD to the SSD by dragging it in file explorer?

" the SSD as the primary boot "
That concept only happens if you have your Windows OS on this new drive.

There are two ways to do this:
1. A clean install of Windows on this new drive. This means a full reinstall of ALL your applications, drivers, etc.

2. Migration from the old drive to the new drive. This requires that the new drive be of sufficient size to hold the entirety of the contents of the old.

To your second question, it is not quite as simple as just dragging them over.
Some things like Steam or Origin games can be moved. A little bit more complicated than just 'drag and drop', but it can be done.

Other standalone games, no. Those would need to be reinstalled on the drive of choice.

 

[geofelt]

How much space is used on your HDD?
If you buy a samsung ssd of enough capacity to hold the contents of your HDD, the process is simple.
You run the samsung ssd migration app to move your windows C drive to the new ssd.
Here is a link to the manual and software:

Tool & Software Download | Samsung Semiconductor Global

Download various software related to your product, including Samsung Magician, designed for use with Samsung's memory products, and find related information.

www.samsung.com

The original HDD source remains untouched.
When done, you boot from the new ssd.
You can do what you will with the old HDD.

If the bulk of the data on the HDD is user files, you can exclude those folders from the move.
The manual shows you how.
Possibly, the remaining windows and apps could fit in a smaller ssd.

You will find that the big benefit of a ssd shows up on everything you do.
Files open quicker, browsing is faster, thumbnails open instantly.
Boot times are the least of the benefits.
In fact, Try using sleep to ram instead.
That puts the pc and monitor into a very low power state about equivalent to a full power off.
Sleep/wake becomes a matter of 5 seconds.

 

[SamirD]

Yeah the easy way seems fine but first one thing: if i clone hdd to ssd, are you 100% sure all of the documents and files will still work from it? and that all of it will be transferred. Basically will I not lose anything doing so?

The hard way seems safer to me tbh, so when I disconnect the HDD and put the SSD, does windows download automatically or what?

In my experience, I use cloning whenever I don't want to lose anything since every single bit is copied as is. In fact, I keep clone images of my drives using clonezilla since the original drive will eventually fail. When cloning drives for installation, I use a startech cloning dock specifically designed for high-speed cloning. Put source drive, put destination drive, press button, come back in an hour and done.

Manually moving files around like what you're talking about was easier back in the DOS and earlier days of windows, but not today with saas and drm and cloud based authentication that hooks deep into the operating system. Moving the files manually will break all that and then you have to install everything from scratch.

The one big thing I would caution you on is that if you do not have an entire backup of that drive--STOP!!! DO NOT DO ANYTHING UNTIL YOU CREATE A BACKUP!! I can't tell you how many times I've seen people post in a forum trying to do what you are trying and end up ruining their original drive, formatting their original drive, or otherwise doing something that renders all their information LOST FOREVER.

The easiest way to do this would be to get an external usb drive, download a clonezilla live cd and save an image of the entire drive to the usb external. Then, I would boot up like normal, connect the external drive and copy all your files manually to the drive as well so you have 2 copies. You'll need at least a 2TB drive to do this, but that should be cheap. And if this data is priceless to you, buy a second external of a different make and model and do the same so you have 4 copies across two drives just for your backups. Then you can proceed with an ssd upgrade by cloning your original drive to a 1TB ssd. And then you'll also have some backups if you don't already have them.

 

[USAFRet]

The easiest way to do this would be to get an external usb drive, download a clonezilla live cd and save an image of the entire drive to the usb external.

All perfect info, except this.
I would absolutely NOT recommend clonezilla for this.

Any of the modern tools will do an Image, not a direct clone. And allow use of the rest of whatever drive or external you put it on. It also wipes out everything already existing on the target drive.
Clone Zilla also has the requirement of the target drive must bee larger than the source drive.

Macrium Reflect does this easily.

 

[SamirD]

All perfect info, except this.
I would absolutely NOT recommend clonezilla for this.

Any of the modern tools will do an Image, not a direct clone. And allow use of the rest of whatever drive or external you put it on. It also wipes out everything already existing on the target drive.
Clone Zilla also has the requirement of the target drive must bee larger than the source drive.

Macrium Reflect does this easily.

Clonezilla actually can do a direct clone (did it a few times) and can also work on drives that are smaller, but I forgot how I did it. It also leaves any additional space for use and wipes out anything on the target drive.

I have seen Macrium reflect recommended many times so I'm sure it can also do the job, but usually commercial software that's 'free' is usually crippled or otherwise compromised so I avoid it. Plus, I don't think Macrium can do an entire drive image to a file, can it? That's one of the strengths I've found of clonezilla.

 

[USAFRet]

Yes, CZ will do a direct clone. That is what it is good for. Or used to be good for...😉
As far as size...Only if the source drive or partition is smaller than the target.

Clonezilla - About

clonezilla.org

Limitations:

• The destination partition must be equal or larger than the source one.

Macrium will do a full drive clone or Image. Yes, even the free version.
I use it literally every day.

It also does not care about the actual partition or drive sizes, but merely the size of the data.

A 1 TB drive, with a single partition, with 150GB consumed on it will easily clone or Image to a 250GB drive.
CloneZilla will not do that.

 

[USAFRet]

The red underlined file is my entire C drive, all partitions. Done early this morning, automated.

The smaller file is the Incremental that happened right after that.

I store a months worth of Images, both Full and Incremental, of all 7 drives in my system. Each drive in its own folder, individually recoverable.

 

[SamirD]

Yes, CZ will do a direct clone. That is what it is good for. Or used to be good for...😉
As far as size...Only if the source drive or partition is smaller than the target.

Clonezilla - About

clonezilla.org

Limitations:

• The destination partition must be equal or larger than the source one.

Macrium will do a full drive clone or Image. Yes, even the free version.
I use it literally every day.

It also does not care about the actual partition or drive sizes, but merely the size of the data.

A 1 TB drive, with a single partition, with 150GB consumed on it will easily clone or Image to a 250GB drive.
CloneZilla will not do that.

No, there's a way around that limitation by running the command in command line mode with a particular switch. It will simply write sectors until the drive is full--useful for those times when you're only short a few sectors at the end of an empty partition.

Nice. I'm going to need to download a copy. Does it have its own boot or run under an OS?

Clonezilla can, but it will not do it cleanly. I usually will resize the partition to get under a smaller drive's limits and then use CZ.

 

[SamirD]

The red underlined file is my entire C drive, all partitions. Done early this morning, automated.

The smaller file is the Incremental that happened right after that.

I store a months worth of Images, both Full and Incremental, of all 7 drives in my system. Each drive in its own folder, individually recoverable.

Pretty slick. I don't use CZ for backups--just imaging. Backups are just multiple copies, multiple mediums, different locations. 😉 You know the drill. 😀

 

[USAFRet]

No, there's a way around that limitation by running the command in command line mode with a particular switch. It will simply write sectors until the drive is full--useful for those times when you're only short a few sectors at the end of an empty partition.

Nice. I'm going to need to download a copy. Does it have its own boot or run under an OS?

Clonezilla can, but it will not do it cleanly. I usually will resize the partition to get under a smaller drive's limits and then use CZ.

It runs natively in Windows, and you can create a RescueUSB to boot from.

On my main system, I have the paid version. On all others, the free version.

Free gives you Full and Differential Images.
Paid adds Incremental. (or the other way around, can't remember which)

Both do full drive or partition cloning, both do an automated schedule.

This is one of those applications that 'just works'.

And yes, I've had to recover a full drive image.
960 GB drive died, 605GB on it.
Slap in a new drive, click click...100% recovered, exactly as it was at 4AM that morning when it ran its nightly image.

 

[SamirD]

Ah, runs under windows. 🙁 That won't work for me as I'm imaging non-windows stuff or systems that do not need their original state altered.

Sounds like it's a great backup and restoration program that also does very well with migrations. Thank you for sharing the details of how it works as I've always wondered. 😀

 

[USAFRet]

Ah, runs under windows. 🙁 That won't work for me as I'm imaging non-windows stuff or systems that do not need their original state altered.

Sounds like it's a great backup and restoration program that also does very well with migrations. Thank you for sharing the details of how it works as I've always wondered. 😀

It runs under windows, but also does all the other drives, even those without an OS. As said, it also does all my secondary drives.

And the bootable RescueUSB will do whatever OS drive you're working with.
Boot from that, and Image whatever drives are in the system.

 

[SamirD]

It runs under windows, but also does all the other drives, even those without an OS. As said, it also does all my secondary drives.

And the bootable RescueUSB will do whatever OS drive you're working with.
Boot from that, and Image whatever drives are in the system.

Ah gotcha. That rescue usb sounds perfect. Will I be able to write images and specify the size of each file like in CZ?

 

[USAFRet]

Ah gotcha. That rescue usb sounds perfect. Will I be able to write images and specify the size of each file like in CZ?

Specify the size....Not really. It takes the whole drive or partition you select. It leaves off a few things like temp files, pagefile, etc.
And it does a little bit of compression.

For instance, one of my secondary drives, 1TB Samsung
Currently 741GB consumed, the full image from last night (0130) is 718GB.

There might be a setting to split that into individual files of size X, but I've never looked into it.

 

[USAFRet]

Actually, yes, file size choice:

 

[mdd1963]

Mate, imagine getting a new SSD. There are no files on it. My HDD has everything on it. I want to plug in the SSD as the primary boot whilst having the HDD as storage for the documents. Can I just transfer the games on the HDD to the SSD by dragging it in file explorer?

Uhhhh....no. (if you truly desire to keep your OS on the spinning drive for some odd reason, uninstall the games, then freshly install them to the newly installed SSD. It would be better to have OS and games on the SSD.)

First step---back up needed important documents, photos, etc., to a flash drive, external drive, cloud storage, something... It is a precarious state to be in when someone says 'our/my life's work is on that drive'! It could all be gone in an instantaneous screech of grinding metal, as I've witnessed happen working on my brother's old HP laptop some five years ago. All was well, reboot one more time, screeching noise, drive dead..; hoped it was fan, but, it was not....; catastrophic drive crash!!

Before deciding on a best course of action...how much space is currently used on your 1 TB drive?

(If you have 500+ GB of your drive used, then a 1 TB SSD makes sense...; the Crucial MX500 in 1 TB is about $105 , normally., and the use of the Crucial lets you use free Acronis True Image, useful for transferring OS/apps to the SSD. Or, install Macrium Reflect to another system, and transfer /clone your drive to the new SSD, then test if the original will boot/operate from the SSD by itself. If you only have 200-300 GB of space used, a 500 GB Crucial MX500 is abotu $65, and well worth it)

 

[SamirD]

Actually, yes, file size choice:

Nice! Thank you for checking it out for me! 😀

 

[mamasan2000]

I didn't read all replies but I've always used Aomei Partition Assistant Standard edition to clone. That would require the that the 2 partitions on both drives are the same size. So if you have a 1 TB partition ( C: ), the new SSD needs to be at least the same size. Which is why I partition to smaller sizes nowadays. Warning: You can't partition a drive without loosing all data on it so don't even think about that for your current 1 Tbyte.

Always have backups. Relying on 1 drive for all your data is bad. What happens when it dies, or master boot record (MBR) gets corrupt? You loose it all. Put data on 2-3 different drives, if it's real important, burn it on DVD.