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How to reformat HD without reinstalling Windows.
I've reformatted drives plenty of times, but it's always been in the windows setup boot.
I'm building a new computer and want to use my current HD as a secondary data drive. An SSD will be my main drive, which I will install windows 7 on.
So what do I do? Restart, get to a command prompt, and format c:?
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I would advise against using the SSD as your OS drive, use it as your dedicated gaming drive but keep your OS on your standard HD. SSD's are fast access great for gaming but tend to burn up quick if you constantly access them the way an OS would do.
Add the SSD drive to your system and then move your gaming folders to the SSD drive and your all set.
Win7 is a great OS and already pretty fast but if you want a bit faster bootups then also pick up 2gig flash drive an add it to one of your USB ports and then dedicate the flash drive for ReadyBoost will greatly increase your shutdown and boot times.
mm!ssd and regular hard drive
primary game on ssd
os on regular hard drive
deactivate paging file(6 gig of ram or more)recommended
with these tweak your ssd should last fairly long and be speedy gonzaless!
Wtf? No. You want your OS to be on your fastest drive period. That's where everything in your computer lies that makes it work. If you have it just as you're gaming drive, then you're STILL going to be constantly accessing your slow drive while you're playing a game. DX files, Page Files, major background processes, etc. etc. etc. Resulting in nothing more than a few hundred (or thousand) bucks spent on a marginal increase in loading times. Where as if you install your OS on the SSD, you're going to see a pretty major increase in everything you do on your computer, not only just the 10-30 FPS increase you're going to see in most games. Not to mention, compared to a game, the OS is pretty small. (20gb for 64bit win7)
You don't need to format your old drive. Simply set your SSD to be the primary boot in your Bios. You're old drive will be untouched and you can even boot from it as well if you wanted to, not that you would ever want to.
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Yea it'd be pretty stupid not to have my OS on a drive I just spent $700 on.
And I want to format my current drive, all that's on it is games pretty much, which I will install on my SSD (it's 256gb). All my media is on an external.
So I do I get it all ready to go to be a secondary hard drive when I first turn the new rig on?
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You want to move your OS over to your new drive, like just copy the files?
Like Norton Ghost ? It migrates everything on one drive to another, you can't really just copy the files, there is a little bit more work that needs to be done with the HD.
Sorry, I'm confused now.
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No, I just simply want to reformat my current drive without reinstalling windows. Nothing else.
It sounds basic, but everytime I've reformatted i've done it through the windows installation CD, which reformats and then immediately reinstalls windows. I just want it reformatted. Just like it came out of the packaging, ready to be a secondary drive.
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If you plan on using your old drive as a secondary drive (no OS, just storage) you can just format it through windows using the Disk Management option (Right click My Computer > Manage >Disk Management>format the drive).
Just make sure you take whatever you want off that drive before hand.
The Disk Managment does take a bit longer than formatting through a drive utility program, but it does work.
There are 3 types of people in the world.
1.) Those who make things happen
2.) Those who watch things happen
3.) And those who wonder "What the %#*& just happened?!"
Couple of things. If your current HD is fine other than its not your SSD... then use Acronis and mirror it. Otherwise formatting out of the setup is hell of a lot easier than during. Click Computer, right click the drive, Format, done.
Oh sure, do it the easy way :P
But yeah, its easy to format your spare HDD be it through windows or using the drives utility disc (or a download from thier site)
There are 3 types of people in the world.
1.) Those who make things happen
2.) Those who watch things happen
3.) And those who wonder "What the %#*& just happened?!"
Oh, you can't until you get your new one and get windows installed on it to boot. (of course)
But when you do, it's really easy to format the drive. There are a ton of different ways, I go into
Control Panel -> Administrative Tools-> Computer Management -> Storage
From there you should be figure out how to format the drive.
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Just trying to give you a heads up, I have yet to see a SSD stand up to the day to day use of OS for more than a few months. As for wanting your OS on the fastest drive possible thats not needed, anything your OS is going to use such as DX files and such are going to cashe in your RAM they are not access over and over during game play just at loadup. Where your bottleneck comes from in gaming is accessing texture and graphic flles used by the game when your loading new content such as zoning or chunking. This is where the SSD drive will speed up your game play but if your thinking your computer is going to be some how faster because your adding your OS to the SSD then your going to be sadly disappointed. The only improvement your going to see is maybe a half second less delay when your load up a program.
Unless your HD is ancient and your running Win98 the performance you think your going to get from putting your OS on the SSD is going to be lacking. It will however end up burning up the SSD from constant access through Indexing, File management, and basic OS functions. The SSD are just not meant for that type of access and when they are used in that manner they are setup with redundant backup drives because they plan for failure. Talk to anyone who builds Gaming or Multimedia rigs on a daily basis and has to deal with warrenty repairs and you will hear the same thing. I tried to think of any sistuation where you would need SSD access rate for and OS applications and frankly I couldnt think of one. Your OS files are just not taxed that hard and if they are then you need more RAM not faster HD access speed.
On the other hand you cant just move your OS files to the new drive and format the old. You can do a mirror image but you will run into conflicts later on and if your looking for sheer speed thats probly not the route you want to go. Best performance and system reliablitiy just take the time and do a clean install of Win7 if your currently running Win7 do a backup first. if not then just save your bookmarks, IM logs, Email dat files, and any other information you want to keep and start fresh. Migrations from any WinXX OS to Win7 turns to mush somewhere down the road.
The easiest way to do it has already been listed above by some other posters, install your new SSD drive, unplugging your old hard drive's data cable at the same time.
You'll want to do this to make sure the SSD gets set as the C drive, sometimes the Windows installation will get confused and mess up the drive letters when you have more than 1 HDD active at the time of installation, so just unplug your old hard drive until Windows is installed on the SSD drive.
I haven't come across this issue during a Windows 7 installation yet, but better to be safe than having to redo the whole installation again because your SSD is set as D instead of C.
After Windows is installed and running turn off the computer and reconnect the data cable to your old HDD.
Reboot again and go into the BIOS to make sure your SSD is set as the primary hard drive boot device.
Exit out of the BIOS and let the computer boot into Windows.
Inside Windows go to Start > Computer > Right click on your old hard drive > Format... > Start.
"There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer."
I don't know when the last time you used an SSD was, maybe a few years ago when they were still fairly new they failed a lot, but everywhere I read people have SSDs as their OS drive. The drives fail sometimes yes, but no more often than a regular. It's fine, I've done my research and it all contradicts what you say about it failing.
Windows 7 was made to support SSDs, look up trim.
Thanks for all the other replies guys, I'll just do it from windows after I get the OS on the SSD.
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op!heres athe way to do it
you pop in the w7 (prefereably 64 bit,everything just works better)
you restart your system follow what it says you will arive at the window screen
one will say custom choose that chose to format your system
this is very important do not use external formating tool only herecan you format w7 nowhere else if you do you might walk into countless issue.
once the partition (2 if you leave it at default,1x 100mb ,for speed,the rest for wil be on 2
install os on the second partitionb as usuall follow instruction
after its downloaded i recommend you to use microsoft security essential it just so much better the all the rest
(thats just me)restart update everything you need from window restart
update dx11 restart
go to graphic card manufacturer update to the latest
restart by this step you should be pretty much covered
make sure to update your bios to the latest version before you do all i mention and make sure its properlly set
since you ll be using ssd i think you might need to tweak your bios
i wouldnt know what these are since i havent installed a new drive on my new system yet(yes i know i should have
but ssd 2 wasnt out not long ago!
any way have fun
ssd is a very good choice by the way
dont play with w7 64 bit setting once its install it works great as it is
i played with countless setting from netsh to file system if its not in w7 there is a reason !TRUS ME!
dont sweat it if w7 need new feature or optimisation ms is quick to do those!
ps:if you can never say yes to any popup windows and you ll have no issue(yes i know it means lot of game wont be on your computer but most use gameguard or xtrap style program that you do not want on your system
if you do make sure to backup your sytem before installing these game that way you can revert to previous that gameguard issue in a jiffy!
Sorry I cant help but I just have one question.
Why spend 700 bones on a 265gb hard drive if the OS is just going to go on it? The OS takes up like what 20 gigs.No offence or anything just wondering. lol
SSD's MTF is 1,500,000 hours. A standard HDD's MTF is 100,000 hours.
Nuff said.
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I hate to rain on your parade, but you're going to be really let down by the expectation of greater performance from a SSD. As already mentioned, almost all of the operation of the OS is cached in memory already. You're basically already using a SSD.
Not only the OS is going to go on it. Like you said it only takes up 20 gigs.
I'll also be throwing most of my games, photoshop, video editing programs, etc. on to it.
Why would I buy a 256gb SSD and ONLY put the OS on it?
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Wait mountains out of mole hills here, if you have a new drive that your going to master than you have to reload windows, whatever version! Bottom line. Master the new drive slave the old, load Windows, format thru disk management when os is in and reload the games you play the most, dump the old crap, best way to get performance. Fresh clean start! FYI i have formated several hunderd hardrives i build custom rigs, its not rocket science! you can do it with an old win 98 boot disk, or make one from your current OS.... but DOS still rocks!
I also got to add this, check the benchmarks on your SSD, you find that high capacity 32mb buffered hard drives are just barely a wee slower, SSD is not worth the money yet. The primary pro to an SSD IMO is the fact it doesnt use platters, there fore very few errors. But the cost? screw that, Go with a WD 10000RPM and you'll save cash and be happy with speed. SSD tech is about big cash for the GOTTA HAVE IT complusive tech buyer, wait for the manufactures to get resonable with prices.
ok !let me be straight here!ssd is the futur if he does streaming ,gaming at the same time ,with is nice face in a smaller screen of the stream trust me ssd is the way to go whatever naysayer may think
everything is still processed trough the hard drive trough the paging file
the only exeption to this is if you have 8 gig of ram and you disable paging file
you WILL be quicker ,and now most program will work correctly unlike in the past
disabling paging file ended you with all kind of silly problem because they were doing stuff in the background
but today most are trying to keep their stuff in memory yes more ressource hog but its not like ms is a ressource hog lol
and the ram is cheap enough that in my book your better off maxing ram first you can always use more ram evcerything use it
i got a 64 bit and ill add max ram before i add a ssd and ill disable paging file
countless test were perform and disabling paging file is the fastest solution on average if you are a personal computer user
i used to use ramdisk(or ramdrive)this is the second best solution but this method as countless issue that i wont mention here
i booted that fast i dont recommend that solution if you have the choice between paging to a ssd or a ram drive
go ssd!
but even my way isnt perfect !why would that be?because the game is still on my hard drive or ssd
the ideal would be that the whole game be on the ram.but im not sure 16 gig would still be enough to cover our need
so we need a hard drive
and even ssd still take time to transfer said file from point a to point b
so ssd is still needed in the end when all is said and done
my advice to the average user
DONT TOUCH WINDOWS
GET A SSD WHEN YOU CAN!
I wasn't aware that I titled this thread "What does everyone think of SSDs, should I get one?""
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lmfao
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Here's my advice (This is my setup):
Your main drive, that runs your programs, should be your fastest drive. Period. If that's the SSD, then make that your main drive. Do a fresh install of Windows 7 (if its not 64bit, then you are wasting your time) Do not use Ghost or any other program to move the old install over. You will regret it.
Your secondary drive should be your shittier drive- make that your storage drive. Keep your install files, movies, porn, ISOs, etc. there.
If you are worried about losing data, back it up. I really recommend Mozy Backup for this. If you use this referral link https://mozy.com/?ref=AT6DU7 then we both get more free space. That's my free account that I use on my other systems. I actually bought the unlimited version for $5 per month. But, the free version gives you 2gigs (2.5 if you use the referral
which should be enough to backup your docs, saved games, WTF file and addons (if you play WoW) which is what you really want to save anyway.
That's My recommendation, anyway.
A witty saying proves nothing.
-Voltaire