Question on mixing new SSD and old ATA HD and optical drive

[erzak]

I purchased a SSD that I want to install as the main drive in my desktop. Currently my system has a Toshiba DT01ACA200 ATA HD, as well as a optical drive that's also plugged into an SATA connector.

My motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-B75M-D3H, and has one 6 GB/s SATA connector and five 3 GB/s SATA connectors. MY BIOS is currently set for SATA to be in IDE mode.

My plan is to re-install Windows 10 on the new SSD, and then keep the old Toshiba HD in the system as additional storage.

My main question is can I change the BIOS setting to AHCI, install Windows on the new SSD, and then re-attach the Toshiba HD to one of the other SATA connectors, and have everything work and not lose any data on the Toshiba? Or does plugging in a slower speed SATA device, such as the optical drive, mean that I need to keep the BIOS set for IDE mode?

Regardless of settings, I assume that I should plug the SSD into the 6 GB/s connector, and the Toshiba and optical drive into the slower connectors.

Thanks,
Eric

 

[kanewolf]

You shouldn't lose any data. But you will have to reinstall most programs. When you do a new install of Windows you create a new registry. Programs rely on registry entries to work. The only way to create those registry entries is to reinstall.

Leave the HDD disconnected from the system when you do the install on the SSD.

Here is Tom's article on doing a clean Win 10 install -- https://www.tomshardware.com/news/how-to-do-clean-installation-windows-10,36160.html

 

[erzak]

Right, I understand that. I know that there are some utilities for migrating a Windows installation to a new SSD, but figure it's not a bad idea to have a clean install of Win10, at least previous versions of Windows tended to get cluttered up with junk and run slower over time.

Any thoughts on the AHCI vs. IDE setting for SATA?

 

[kanewolf]

Right, I understand that. I know that there are some utilities for migrating a Windows installation to a new SSD, but figure it's not a bad idea to have a clean install of Win10, at least previous versions of Windows tended to get cluttered up with junk and run slower over time.

Any thoughts on the AHCI vs. IDE setting for SATA?

AHCI. It will improve your SSD performance. The HDD shouldn't have any issues. Your BIOS may have an option to leave 1 or 2 ports in IDE mode which may be required for the optical disk.

 

[erzak]

I booted into BIOS and checked, there is only a single option for SATA. Guess I will try it with AHCI, am guessing that the optical drive will either work, or not?