How do I setup a SSD and a regular Harddrive in my computer?

[Vinnbadd58]

Hello,
I am running Windows 7 64 bit. I mostly download movies from a pay site and light gaming. I have a 1TB Seagate HD. I want to by a SSD but don't know how to set it up.Do I have to have a duel boot setup? I don't really want that, what I would like to do is have the O/S on the SSD and justdownload movies to the regular HD. Also how do I setup the bios. If anyone could give my step by step instructions it would be a great help.

 

[John_VanKirk]

Hi there and Welcome to the Forum!

You can set up your system to have just the one Win-7 64 bit OS running. That's not a problem
First you need to see how much data is on your Seagate HDD. Is it partitioned so that your Video movies and games are on one partition and operating system on another, or all together?

To clone your OS containing drive, or just the OS partition, you need to have the partition about the same size. If it's a lot of data, you could set up another partition on the HDD, and move your movies and stuff there.

The SSD's are much more expensive than comparable HDDs, which come 64GB, 128 GB, 256 GB in size. Once you have your system prepared, then you clone over bit by bit your HDD stuff to the new SSD, and you are in business.

 

[geofelt]

It might be best to do a clean install of windows 7 on the new ssd.
Use windows easy transfer to back up your settings and files you want on the ssd to an external device, or a file on your current hard drive.
Uninstall any programs that will go on the ssd.
In the BIOS, set the sata mode to AHCI, not raid or ide. That is to permit transmission of the trim command.
Disconnect your current hard drive, either the sata cable, or power. That is so the os install puts everything needed on the ssd and no recovery partition on your old hard drive.
After install, reconnect, and restore your windows settings and files.
install any apps on the hard drive.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/270102-32-useful-articles-part

More great SSD info ^

 

[John_VanKirk]

Hi again,

Geofelt's suggestions are very good ones. Since you are watching video movies and light gaming, the only software you would have to clean install on the SSD is the OS, your video viewer, and a game or two. That wouldn't take too much time and it would be 'clean' (clean is good!)

Then you could place your movies on the secondard regular HDD. You could also 'mount' that HDD partition onto an empty Folder you make in Movies and it will look like they are all on your SSD.

That way your SSD doesn't have to be so big & sooo expensive, say 120GB.