Help New SSD

[Rubber Bullets]

So I've finally splashed out on a new 500Gb SSD to add to my PC, a 5 year old Win7 i5 750 machine that still works fine, but I don't remember ever doing a reinstall so the boot up is now measured in hours rather than minutes.

It currently has 2 1TB hard drives, one with Windows, My Docs, programs etc and the other with photo and video back up, both are getting a bit too full, but not too bad yet.

So I will put a nice clean install of Win 7 on the new SSD and put the programs and games I use most on there too, have one of the old HDDs to put other games and programs on and keep the back up one. The extra 500Gb will keep me going for a while.

Clearly the PC I have, though so slow, is set up as I like it, and has all my e-mails in Outlook, a lot of bookmarks and saved passwords etc in Firefox and Chrome, and other apps like Display Fusion looking after my dual monitor desktop.

Do you have any advice for the easiest and most painless way I can achieve what I want? Any pitfalls to avoid?

Many thanks

 

[Moriath]

So I've finally splashed out on a new 500Gb SSD to add to my PC, a 5 year old Win7 i5 750 machine that still works fine, but I don't remember ever doing a reinstall so the boot up is now measured in hours rather than minutes.

It currently has 2 1TB hard drives, one with Windows, My Docs, programs etc and the other with photo and video back up, both are getting a bit too full, but not too bad yet.

So I will put a nice clean install of Win 7 on the new SSD and put the programs and games I use most on there too, have one of the old HDDs to put other games and programs on and keep the back up one. The extra 500Gb will keep me going for a while.

Clearly the PC I have, though so slow, is set up as I like it, and has all my e-mails in Outlook, a lot of bookmarks and saved passwords etc in Firefox and Chrome, and other apps like Display Fusion looking after my dual monitor desktop.

Do you have any advice for the easiest and most painless way I can achieve what I want? Any pitfalls to avoid?

Many thanks

Easiest way is to ghost copy your hdd system and root to the ssd. If you cant do that you are going to need to reinstall everything.

 

[Bob007]

Emails, outlook, Backup the PST file. Add that back when you install outlook later.
Bookmarks, FF, use MozBackup to backup your profile, restore it after install. Chrome, sync your bookmarks/passwords when you are logged into Google.
Display fusion, displayfusioncommand.exe -settingsbackup "X:\filelocation\filename

http://www.displayfusion.com/KB/CommandLine/

This will create a .reg file to import into your reg afterwards.

 

[Trem]

Register with Firefox and Chrome and sync all your stuff RB, that way all your bookmarks, passwords etc will magically appear on your new install when you install the browsers again. You can also back up all of your outlook stuff, a quick Google search will tell you how (I don't use Outlook, never liked the idea of my emails being PC side rather than Hotmail side).

I will disagree with Moriath I'm afraid, I would say the easiest way is to avoid cloning and do a total clean install, it will cause less headaches in the long run, it really will.

Edit - bob replied same time as me, albeit in some sort of alien language

 

[caLLous]

Because you're installing onto a new SSD (and therefore you don't have to format either of the 1TB disks), you can keep the 2 hard disks around (untouched) until you're happy with how your new Win install feels. You can still access all of your old Documents, Program Files and AppData folders so you can pick through and retrieve settings after you've set up the new install. You can do what @Trem said or just manually backup the pertinent bits from your profile folder (or backup the entire profile so you can just import it into the new Firefox install and carry on as if nothing had happened).

Yes, what @Bob007 said but for the sake of everything do a nice fresh install first. I would never ever ever recommend cloning a hard disk install onto an SSD, especially one that's 5 years old!

 

[ECA]

Just do a clean install and use https://ninite.com/ to make it simpler.

 

[Rubber Bullets]

Brilliant Guys, thank you very much. I'll be back when it all goes tits up

RB

 

[Rubber Bullets]

By the way, is there a way of not having to download the whole of GTA V again, or Photoshop or Lightroom for that matter. They all have their own installers and so I never downloaded a whole .exe for them as such.

RB

 

[caLLous]

I know with GTA V you can just back up the folder and then restore it and run the installer, point it to the restored folder and it will (or should) do checksums on the files to find out what needs to be downloaded. I know that's how it works for the disc version, anyway (I've only got experience with the Social Club version, not Steam). I went through it because I reinstalled Windows after installing GTA and really didn't want to have to re-download the 5GB disc-version patch so I copied the "update" folder from my previous install across and it worked a treat.

Photoshop and Lightroom aren't particularly big downloads (probably 1GB between them) but I don't know what you can do re: saving or exporting an already installed version.

 

[Rubber Bullets]

Thanks Cal, you're right about PS and Lightroom actually, no problems there.

I have got the Social Club version of GTA V, but bought a download version. That should work though, thanks.

 

[caLLous]

Thanks Cal, you're right about PS and Lightroom actually, no problems there.

I have got the Social Club version of GTA V, but bought a download version. That should work though, thanks.

Just to be sure though, there is a migration tool that somebody put together that will make sure the game verifies all of the files in the new directory.

 

[Rubber Bullets]

That does look useful Cal, thanks.

 

[Jupitus]

I have had trouble in the past with files and directories not showing up easily when an ex-OS HDD was installed to try to copy files from... had to keep opening folders using an admin password or something like that - can an expert comment in case RB has something like that happen?

 

[Rubber Bullets]

Thanks Jup, I would have an option to remove the disc completely and connect via a USB 3 caddy if this was the case, then perhaps I could delete the windows folder from there? I will be disconnecting both drives before doing the install anyway, then reconnect once the PC is up and running.

 

[Syri]

I think it only causes problems if said admin account was password protected. Never tried it the other way, but I was able to access my folders without problems after changing drives, just had to click ok to the admin permissions box the first time. That was without a password on the account though, like I say, it might be different if there is one. No harm in removing the password before you shut down the last time though.Well, unless some armed terrorist squad bursts through the window at that moment and nicks the hard drive, leaving a thank you for exposing the data for them...