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Moving OS to new SSD

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gregers05

Member
Joined
Mar 4, 2009
alright need some help with a total newb question

i have 2 WD Blacks setup in raid 0,1. I am switching over my OS to a SSD drive. My question is, what is the easiest way to get OS off the blacks?

#2, will my data off the blacks still be there when I move my OS to the SSD or will I lose whatever is on the blacks?

I would move everything to a backup drive but a lot of it is gopro videos which takes up more space than I have.


Any help would be great!
 
WD has a free Acronis package you can download from their site. I find it excellent.

However, I also find the older version 11 is better, especially under Windows 8.1

Windows 7 I haven't tried the new version (it's 16), but it should be great there.

Anyway, make a backup of your OS using Acronis. You can then restore it to the SSD.

You'll then have it in two places at once!

And a backup! Which, you should always have anyway.

Oh, small catch.

No matter how you do this, if you've assigned drive letters in your source OS (from the blacks)....it CAN be a little confused when it boots from the copy as to what drives it's REALLY booting from.

I'd suggest, at first test after you "restore" the OS to the SSD, boot from the SSD with the blacks disconnected.

Let it wake up...THEN, shutdown, connect the blacks, and boot.

Next...if you keep the OS on the blacks, DOUBLE check that Windows is in fact using the SSD for directories like USERS and PROGRAM FILES.

I had one case where it would go back to the original, in your case the blacks, for that.

So....maybe you're going to want to remove the OS from the blacks (likely)....post if that gives you a puzzle.
 
thanks man.

I wasnt planning on backing up windows as I have the misfortune of having some bad malware that I cant get rid of. Was going to just do a fresh install
 
thanks man.

I wasnt planning on backing up windows as I have the misfortune of having some bad malware that I cant get rid of. Was going to just do a fresh install

I thought switching the OS to an SSD was retaining the existing install, but sometimes there's no better option than a fresh one.

That said, I haven't done a clean Win7 install in a while, but the last Win 8.1 I did required 3.5 Gbytes of updates.

I highly suggest you consider preserving a backup of the fresh, upright state of your new OS installation once you get drivers, updates and maybe your preferred anti-virus...that way you have a fully installed OS of fresh stature, updated to at least about now, which can be dropped into place within 10 minutes or so.

I'd then recommend a second one after you get your application collection installed, if that's a lot.

Personally I append new backups of my OS at major update points. That situation, of being stricken with malware, may become even more frequent as the malware becomes more advanced and entrenched.
 
I thought switching the OS to an SSD was retaining the existing install, but sometimes there's no better option than a fresh one.

That said, I haven't done a clean Win7 install in a while, but the last Win 8.1 I did required 3.5 Gbytes of updates.

I highly suggest you consider preserving a backup of the fresh, upright state of your new OS installation once you get drivers, updates and maybe your preferred anti-virus...that way you have a fully installed OS of fresh stature, updated to at least about now, which can be dropped into place within 10 minutes or so.

I'd then recommend a second one after you get your application collection installed, if that's a lot.

Personally I append new backups of my OS at major update points. That situation, of being stricken with malware, may become even more frequent as the malware becomes more advanced and entrenched.

yeah, I definitely need to do better at backing up stuff. Will definitely do OS backups, just wasnt sure of the best way to do that.

fortunately I don't have a ton of programs install on my computer as it is used mostly for gaming and office work. Do you think it would be worth switching to windows 8?
 
yeah, I definitely need to do better at backing up stuff. Will definitely do OS backups, just wasnt sure of the best way to do that.

fortunately I don't have a ton of programs install on my computer as it is used mostly for gaming and office work. Do you think it would be worth switching to windows 8?

Eh....Windows 8.1 isn't much of a step up for much at this point. I use it as my host now, but if I reformat for some reason (which I doubt), I might move back to 7. You have sufficient resources on your existing 920 to try Windows 8.1 in a virtual machine to experiment. It looks different, some of the favorite utilities look "odd" to me, and I had to install Classic Shell to get the Start button back. Otherwise, I can't see any improvement. It's a little more particular about compatibility. There's an older versino of HWInfo64, for example, that locked up my Win8.1 system (had to pull the plug), just trying to install it. Got the newer version, smooth as silk. Other applications without newer versions may have to be installed by executing in the compatibility mode troubleshooter, a different but related concept of compatibility mode in Windows 7 (it does more automatic investigation to make the choices...not just a dropdown selecting the target version).

It's something like: if you're asking the question, you have no reason to upgrade.

Oh, and almost no one backs up. Just the old guys like me that have been through one too d*mn many situations to know better, or professionals (and I'm both :p )
 
Eh....Windows 8.1 isn't much of a step up for much at this point. I use it as my host now, but if I reformat for some reason (which I doubt), I might move back to 7. You have sufficient resources on your existing 920 to try Windows 8.1 in a virtual machine to experiment. It looks different, some of the favorite utilities look "odd" to me, and I had to install Classic Shell to get the Start button back. Otherwise, I can't see any improvement. It's a little more particular about compatibility. There's an older versino of HWInfo64, for example, that locked up my Win8.1 system (had to pull the plug), just trying to install it. Got the newer version, smooth as silk. Other applications without newer versions may have to be installed by executing in the compatibility mode troubleshooter, a different but related concept of compatibility mode in Windows 7 (it does more automatic investigation to make the choices...not just a dropdown selecting the target version).

It's something like: if you're asking the question, you have no reason to upgrade.

Oh, and almost no one backs up. Just the old guys like me that have been through one too d*mn many situations to know better, or professionals (and I'm both :p )

Thats about what I figured. I will keep Windows 7 since I already have it and really dont have any issues with it, has been smooth sailing other than the malware issue.

Actually do, back up, just not the OS. I have a WD passport drive I back up all my files onto every now and then, but definitely not as often as i should. The problem is, I got that passport years ago and it is only 50GB lol. I remember when I got that drive, 50GB was plenty of storage space! It actually works fine for backing up .pdfs and word documents, but not so much once you add GoPro videos in there lol. I need to get a bigger backup drive I guess!
 
Thats about what I figured. I will keep Windows 7 since I already have it and really dont have any issues with it, has been smooth sailing other than the malware issue.

Actually do, back up, just not the OS. I have a WD passport drive I back up all my files onto every now and then, but definitely not as often as i should. The problem is, I got that passport years ago and it is only 50GB lol. I remember when I got that drive, 50GB was plenty of storage space! It actually works fine for backing up .pdfs and word documents, but not so much once you add GoPro videos in there lol. I need to get a bigger backup drive I guess!

These days, 50 Gbytes is "cute" :D

My wife picked up a 1 Tbyte passport for about $60 on sale during the holidays. On USB3, that thing took 100 MBytes per second from my machine for half an hour straight!
 
Alright, got SSD installed on W7 installed on it. However having audio issues. I have no sound when I plug into the mobo. Do I need to re-install all the mobo drivers since I installed a clean OS? I would assume yes, but all my BIOS settings are they same as before, and my overclock is still in place.
 
Alright, got SSD installed on W7 installed on it. However having audio issues. I have no sound when I plug into the mobo. Do I need to re-install all the mobo drivers since I installed a clean OS? I would assume yes, but all my BIOS settings are they same as before, and my overclock is still in place.
 
Alright, got SSD installed on W7 installed on it. However having audio issues. I have no sound when I plug into the mobo. Do I need to re-install all the mobo drivers since I installed a clean OS? I would assume yes, but all my BIOS settings are they same as before, and my overclock is still in place.

Yes, install all drivers.
 
Tried that last night installing all the drivers, but no dice. I started a thread in the mobo section since I guess this isnt really storage related at this point. I havent gotten to around to connecting the two blacks yet, so may have questions about that later on if I have issues there.
 
Control Panel, Hardware, Device Manager, make sure there isn't a yellow triangle alert to a driver/hardware issue. Then Control Panel, Hardware & Sound, Sound, Playback tab, make sure that your preferred speakers are set as the Default.
 
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