Windows 7: Upgraded Primary Hard Drive to SSD, but Windows still relying on HDD

I upgraded to a SSD a few months back, and recommend it to anyone that is considering it. It's well worth it.

However, I recently upgraded my HDD (500GB) to a bigger 1TB HDD, and found that Windows is still using system files from the old HDD. Windows will still boot and run semi-normal when the HDD is removed, but attempting to access any system files reports that "the specified path does not exist", even though it gives a C:/ path. I can go through Windows Explorer to that path, and find the files, and they are there, but upon trying to run any of them, the same thing pops up.

Any suggestions?

Also, is it normal for a 1TB drive to be considerably louder than a 500GB drive?

Hello and welcome jered mate just check in the boot priority order which drive is at the top of the list and also for first device boot check the SSD is at the top of the boot order.

In answer to the drive noise no the 1TB should not be any louder or if at all only very slightly louder. In fact I don't like any noise whatsoever from my drives.
Personally I prefer to have two 500GB's instead of a single TB as if the drive goes south you don't lose so much. But that depends on what space you have available.

My SSD is first in boot priority, followed my CD, then the HDD.
The OS is definitely booting from the SSD, with most almost everything running from it, I just found it odd that some of the system tools wouldn't work.

That's what I thought. I also prefer to have my HDDs silent, and this one is far from it. The old drive was a 500GB Western Digital Blue 7200RPM, and the new is a 1TB Western Digital Black 7200RPM. I bought it on sale a few months back and just recently installed it, so it's probably too late to try and RMA it.

Did you have the hard drive plugged in when you installed 7 to the ssd ?

I suppose I should of clarified that.

The OS was moved to the SSD from the 500GB hard drive. The 500GB was then just used for storing data on, but everything remained on it, except for the system partition, so it was no longer bootable.

But it still hasn`t been formatted yet ?

That`s odd, if you used your image to put 7 on the ssd, you shouldn`t be having any hiccups. Still with the alignment and all, I would have done a clean install to the ssd with the hdd unplugged.

Please post back a screenshot of your maximized Disk Management drive map and listings with all drives connected.

1. Type Disk Management in Start Search box.
2. Open Disk Mgmt. window and maximize it.
3. Type Snipping Tool in Start Search box.
4. Open Snipping Tool, choose Rectangular Snip, click New, draw a box around full drive map and all listings.
5, Save Snip, attach using paper clip in Reply Box.

Tell us what is on each partition.

+1 and jered as a rule I don't like WD I much prefer Seagate drives (as spinners) that noise should only be very faintly audible and that with your ear almost resting on it - mate if it is really clattering around maybe time to get the data you need off real quick and ditch it.

But ... if you had a separate boot partition on the HDD, unless you moved that too, you would not be able to boot from the SDD -- which sounds like the problem you're having.

EasyBCD, from NeoSmart Technologies, provides an app that will allow you to "move" the boot loader files from one partition to another. Using this, you can move those files to the SDD, and then, you should be able to boot from it just fine.