Need Help with new Hard drive

masterofmagic420

Honorable
Feb 16, 2012
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10,510
I'm going to buy a new hard drive and I want to transfer all of my data and the OS to from my old HDD to my new HDD, is there a way to do this????

Or is there a way to use my old HDD for the OS and use the new HDD for my files and games??
 
Solution


It would be better to do a whole new install on you new drive. After you install Windows on your new hard drive, plug in the old drive and just copy everything over from one hard drive to another; simple as that.

Some people recommend a SSD, it's a good idea, but for games it's not going to have a large impact. Games will only load a few seconds faster, most games load almost instantly or take a few seconds when I used a normal mechanical hard drive. Windows loads in mere seconds though...

clutchc

Titan
Ambassador
Simply make an 'image' of your old drive using Windows 7: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/4241/how-to-create-a-system-image-in-windows-7/
After it finishes you will be given the option to make a bootable system repair disk that you can use to restore that image to the new drive.
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/7702/restoring-windows-7-from-an-image-backup/
 

clutchc

Titan
Ambassador
A good option to think about is to get a SSD for the OS and your current drive will then be storage and apps and games that you don't want on the SSD. There are a variety of sizes of SSD's and depending on your budget you can get a 128 gb or a 256 gb. I use a 256 gb for the boot drive and that has room for Win 64 bit and a couple of games so you can actually fit 4 or 5 games comfotaby and put movies and photos and storage files on the old hard drive.

SAMSUNG 830 Series MZ-7PC256B/WW 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) $199.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147164

For $200 you can get this Samsung 830 256 gb and it's the same as I use and I get a 7.9 WE with it. Ganmes load faster and apps open quicker , it just makes the over all performance of the Pc much faster.
 


It would be better to do a whole new install on you new drive. After you install Windows on your new hard drive, plug in the old drive and just copy everything over from one hard drive to another; simple as that.

Some people recommend a SSD, it's a good idea, but for games it's not going to have a large impact. Games will only load a few seconds faster, most games load almost instantly or take a few seconds when I used a normal mechanical hard drive. Windows loads in mere seconds though which is awesome. A 120GB SSD is more than enough for Windows and programs as long as all your data is installed on a mechanical drive.

If you wait another year SSD prices will drop to 25-35 cents per gigabyte at the rate they are going.
 
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