Setting up new SSD for OS with old HDD for media

[Jonah T]

I recently got a 250GB Samsung 850 Evo to put in my laptop's secondary slot. I want to use it for the OS and a handful of often-used programs and keep all of my media, documents, and other programs on the HDD.

I'm using Samsung's data migration tool for this, but I'm running into the problem of separating the OS from my other files on my HDD to be cloned. My HDD has about 500GB of stuff on it, and only about 2GB are media files that the program is designed to be able to skip. I have a basic understanding of partitions, but not enough to find a tutorial on how to clone just my OS and a few choice programs over to my new SSD (or if it's even possible).

Or would it be better to do a fresh install of windows 10 on the new drive and re-install those programs afterward? Would this also mean that I'd need to re-install all my drivers for graphics cards, external hardware, etc.? Would I be able to run programs installed on my HDD if the OS is on the SSD? Would I also need to remove Windows from the old drive?

I'm sure this a fairly common process, but I haven't been able to interpret the other threads that I've looked at and It'd be nice if I at least get a roadmap of the basic steps I should take so I know where to start and how the two drives will interact with each other.

Cheers!

Note: I already have the SSD installed in the slot and enabled AHCI in the BIOS and Registry Editor, so the Samsung program recognizes the SSD.

 

[CountMike]

Unless you partition HDD to less than 250GB including partitions needed to BOOT and run (Uefi and similar partitions) you can't fit it to smaller disk. Actually it has to be even smaller because windows need some empty space to work properly (10GB at least), your 250GB drive is actually 244GB and it may reserve even more space t for it's safe operation.
Best bet is to bite the bullet and redo everything from square one.

 

[BadAsAl]

You should have an external backup drive for the files on the HDD. If you don't get one. Then you can move your files, pics, videos, etc. to the external drive. This should get your HDD below the 244GB that the SSD can handle. Then clone the HDD to the SDD and boot with only the SSD in there. If everything works then you can put the HDD back in the second slot and wipe it. Then copy all your stuff off the external drive onto the HDD.

Once that is all done, setup a backup system using your external drive as the backup storage.

 

[Jonah T]

You should have an external backup drive for the files on the HDD. If you don't get one. Then you can move your files, pics, videos, etc. to the external drive. This should get your HDD below the 244GB that the SSD can handle. Then clone the HDD to the SDD and boot with only the SSD in there. If everything works then you can put the HDD back in the second slot and wipe it. Then copy all your stuff off the external drive onto the HDD.

Once that is all done, setup a backup system using your external drive as the backup storage.

Okay. After some thought, I think I'd prefer to do a clean installation of windows on the new SSD because I've been having a fair bit of permission problems and random freezes lately. I do have a backup drive that I can store my documents and such on. If I remove windows from the HDD and install it on the SSD, will the programs work properly? Or would it be better to move my stuff to the backup drive, completely wipe the HDD, and re-install all of my programs?

 

[CountMike]

Some programs may work from another windows system disk (SSD in this case) but most probably won't. You'd probably be best off doing clean install of Windows and programs on on new SSD and after cleaning up HDD (after a backup of necessary files) install some programs /games on HDD to save space on SSD. Programs/ games will in that case install partly on SSD and rest on HDD so you will not loose much of the speed with which they load and run.