Question SSD Installation

[ReadyPlayer23]

Hey guys,

Before I begin, I want to put it out there that I am a complete noob with these sorts of things, so please try to explain in the simplest form.

I have bought myself a 250gb Gigabyte SSD for my pc. I would like a complete runthrough from start to finish of what I should do when installing this. I would like the SSD to be my main boot drive and have programs on here that I use often. I then have a 1TB HDD which I would like as a backup drive.

At the moment, everything is on the HDD.

I would appreciate it if someone could help me out.

Cheers!

 

[chippenweow]

Hey! Gratz on your purchase, this is going to speed up your pc and games on the ssd a lot! I would say it's the biggest noticeable upgrade you can do
What you are asking for is quite the guide, and a guide like that already exist. HowToGeek has an awesome guide on how to change disk, you can find it here: https://www.howtogeek.com/345988/how-to-upgrade-and-install-a-new-hard-drive-or-ssd-in-your-pc/

 

[mdd1963]

Which SSD did you get? (Some come with or authorize use of migration or cloning software, although often migrating to a smaller SSD can be problematic, depending on existing partition scheme. ANd if going from spinning hard drive to NVME SSD, then, even more so, see below..)

Easiest/cleanest way might be to simply freshly reinstall WIndows and apps to the SSD, then quick format the hard drive for use as secondary storage.... (Backup any must have files beforehand; you will need correct chipset and GPU drivers as well, as default installed MS drivers may or may not work, but, are rarely the best ones when others are available from mainboard/GPU manufacturers....

 

[USAFRet]

What OS are you using?
Desktop or laptop?
How much space is consumed on your current C drive?

 

[ReadyPlayer23]

Thanks for the replies.

Here is some more info:
SSD: GIGABYTE GP-GSTFS31240GNTD
OS: Windows 8.1 Pro
Using an i7-4771 Desktop
C: about 610gb used

 

[USAFRet]

With 610GB consumed space, you can't clone/migrate that into a 250GB drive.

So, a clean install on the new SSD.
Basically, this:

How To - Windows 10 clean install tutorial

If you are looking for the Windows 11 Clean install tutorial, you can find that here: Windows 11 Clean install tutorial (Click here) Otherwise, welcome to the Windows 10 Clean install tutorial This tutorial is intended to help you, step by step, to perform a clean install of Windows...

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[ReadyPlayer23]

With 610GB consumed space, you can't clone/migrate that into a 250GB drive.

So, a clean install on the new SSD.
Basically, this:

How To - Windows 10 clean install tutorial

If you are looking for the Windows 11 Clean install tutorial, you can find that here: Windows 11 Clean install tutorial (Click here) Otherwise, welcome to the Windows 10 Clean install tutorial This tutorial is intended to help you, step by step, to perform a clean install of Windows...

forums.tomshardware.com

I have done a clean install of Windows and will just re-download any programs. However, I now have the issue of my SSD not showing up under my computer or even disk management.. This is very frustrating. It shows up in my BIOS and also under Disk Drives. Am I missing something?