SSD Boot Drive Change and External Hard Drive Trouble

[datakeeper]

I built a system a few weeks ago. I purchased three HDs:

Western Digital Caviar Green 1 TB SATA III
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0053YKMGA/ref=oh_o01_s00_i00_details

2x Kiingston SSDNow V100 SATA (32GB)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005JXADS2/ref=oh_o06_s00_i00_details

I also accidently purchased a WD Blue 500 GB drive. But I am not using it at this moment. Also, I meant to purchase only 1 of the SSDs.

I've got the Kingston SSD as my boot drive and everything else goes to the WD Green.

When I purchased the SSD, I had not seen any reviews for it and it was the cheapest one (the Onyx and other drives weren't listed at the time) so I went with this one. Now I'm reading reviews and I'm hearing that it's failing for alot of people. So, I went ahead and bought two other SSDs. One I plan to use for my boot drive, the other for a side drive or external drive, and the spare Kingston as an external for a friend.

Here are the SSDs, the Crucial would be the boot drive:
Crucial m4 64 GB
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004W2JKWG/ref=oh_o00_s00_i00_details


OCZ Onyx 32GB
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003BPBUQO/ref=oh_o00_s01_i01_details

But I'm confused. So any help would be great.

First and foremost, the boot drive.

A piece of paper in the crucial box said that there was an important firmware update. Do I get that now, or later?

To reinstall, do I just remove the Kingston (current C drive), plug in the Crucial and go on with the install?

Do I just leave the WD Green alone during the process?

In general, the reinstalling of windows onto a new drive confuses me. So please, explain it like I'm five.

EDIT: Figured out the issue with the External Drive. I didn't allocate it. So this is fine.
Now, the external drive.

I purchased this enclosure:
Kingwin Tool-Less 2.5-Inch SATA HDD External Enclosure with USB 3.0
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005W0UVDE/ref=pe_175190_21431760_cs_sce_dp_2

I opened it, plopped the spare Kingston SSD in, and pluged the cord into my 3.0 port. Nothing's showing up. The red light on the enclosure is on, which means it's on, but it's not being read by the computer.

Thanks for the help.

 

[RealBeast]

Okay, so let's focus on one issue at a time and once one is solved move to the next. First, flash the M4 with the new firmware before installing it as an OS drive if you have a working system. Get the firmware and flash guide here: http://www.crucial.com/support/firmware.aspx

Read the whole guide before starting, it is quite simple.

Once you flash the M4 install it in your computer. Not sure of your motherboard, but if you have an Intel SATA III port, install it on the lowest number such port with a SATA III data cable. Detach all other SSD and HDDs, then put your Windows install disk in and set your bios to AHCI and install Windows 7. Then do all the motherboard chipset driver install and all Windows updates, and install all device drivers.

Then you will be ready to move on to the next issue.

 

[datakeeper]

Okay, so let's focus on one issue at a time and once one is solved move to the next. First, flash the M4 with the new firmware before installing it as an OS drive if you have a working system. Get the firmware and flash guide here: http://www.crucial.com/support/firmware.aspx

Read the whole guide before starting, it is quite simple.

Once you flash the M4 install it in your computer. Not sure of your motherboard, but if you have an Intel SATA III port, install it on the lowest number such port with a SATA III data cable. Detach all other SSD and HDDs, then put your Windows install disk in and set your bios to AHCI and install Windows 7. Then do all the motherboard chipset driver install and all Windows updates, and install all device drivers.

Then you will be ready to move on to the next issue.

Well, so far it's a giant pain. I don't have a blank CD and now it's saying that my DVD isn't recordable. Goddman this is a giant pain. First it said the BootMgr was missing.

I don't know if I have a Sata III cable. I'm going to order one and swap it when it gets here.

 

[RealBeast]

These things are always very painful. Burn the disk on a different machine if you have one available.

The boot manager is wherever it is -- that's why you should do the new install without any other ssd or hdd attached, the SRP will have nowhere else to go but the boot ssd.

You can use any sata cable for now, the SATA III (6bp/s) cable can be replaced later.