• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

Noob installing 840 Pro and 840 EVO SSD need help please

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.

klrman

Registered
Joined
Sep 15, 2014
I want to use my Samsung 840 EVO 120GB SSD for a win-7 boot drive and the 840 pro 256GB for everything else. Each SSD came with a disc, PRO with ver 3.2 and EVO with ver 4.0.

Do I need each disc for each SSD to set things up? My mobo should arrive in two days, so I'm trying to understand it all as this is my first build. Still learning how to set these two SSD's in bios on my MSI Z97 U3 Plus board so that they run at full speed and trying to make sure win-7 doesn't slow them down.

So far I have learned to set them both as AHCI in Bios so as I go along over the next week or so putting everything together, I will post in this thread for help when panic mode sets in if I can't figure it all out :D
 
Hello, and welcome to the forums! :welcome: You did your research well, AHCI mode is pretty much the sole stumbling block in the installation process with ssds. Some boards (older ones, mostly) will just run the drive in IDE mode, which is much slower.
I think your board will default to ahci, though.

The disks are not needed. They probably have samsungs ssd magician software on them, which (I think) let's you see how far into the lifespan of the drives you are, and may set up a ram cache. I'm not certain what all they have, beyond those. You don't need it for the installation, that's for sure.
 
you will only need to install the magician software once and it can access both drives to do what it does
 
Here is what you need to do with an SSD...

1. Install it on the Intel ports (see motherboard manual for details on which is which).
2. Be sure you are in AHCI mode in the BIOS
3. After installing Windows, install your chipset, ME, and GPU drivers. Reboot and run Windows WEI (if W7). After that, install the rest of your drivers and software then enjoy.
 
That is a lot of good advice everyone, really appreciate the help, thanks!
 
Is it a good idea, once I install win-7 home premium 64 bit with SP1, to turn off windows automatic updates?
 
Just google "SSD Optimization" for steps you can take after the Windows install. Pretty simple all in all.

Enjoy SSD glory :)
 
Just google "SSD Optimization" for steps you can take after the Windows install. Pretty simple all in all.
With the guides, be careful. They tend to be overkill (worried about tweaking this that and the other thing to minimize writes to the drive which may have been a worry four years ago. About the only tweaks needed for installation are for space savings outside of running the WEI (which sets up the drive).
 
Thanks for the advice everyone. Just got my mobo in the mail this afternoon and am excited to see if I can make it all work today or if I get a dozen blue screens :D
 
Last edited:
If your using more than one hard drive, just make sure that when you do your os install, that you only have your ssd hooked up.
 
The more stupid proof the better :)

Good advice for someone like me :) I have no HDD, only two SSD's. I'll install win-7 on the smaller one. Well, I got it all hooked up so now I will read the mobo manual a little more as I don't quite understand how to update the bios yet. Once that sinks in, I guess I will give her a test ride and she if I notice any smoke! I say this, as I just read it on newegg about someone's board's smoking, so that made me a little nervous.
 
Thanks EarthDog. I just powered on everything and in the setup menu. Sytem recognizes my two SSD drives, cd/dvd drive and BD drive, so at least it looks like I connected everything.

Win-7 installed fine and so fast. Already love the SSD. I installed win-7 on the first SSD and was wondering..... for all the other drivers for the mobo, graphics etc etc, should I install them on the second SSD so that win-7 sits by itself?
 
Last edited:
Back