SSD / HDD Disk Management Best practices?

Hello,

I posted this thread earlier today Moved Pagefile.sys to second HHD and old pagefile.sys still on primary. To sum it up, I have a small SSD (C drive) and a large HDD (F drive). I read about the SSD read/write cycles and wanted to move the filepage.sys to my HDD along with saving room on my SSD. The SSD has my OS and processing heavy programs and HDD has everything else. I successfully moved the pagefile.sys to my HDD .

During the thread, SlartyBart brought up a good point that I didn't think about.

Slartybart said:

Looks as though you can delete pagefile.sys on the C:\ drive.
The only pagefile flag is on the F:\ drive.

You might have to change security on C:\pagefile.sys before it will let you remove it.

Your disk configuration is a little different, there is no System Reserve 100 Mb partition and the System, Active flags are set on the F:\ drive.

This will work with one caveat, your system will not boot (or it will BSOD) if you remove the F: drive.
So don't remove the F:\ drive

My F:\ drive is an internal drive,, but what if it fails and I can't load my OS? Is there a way to have my C drive have everything required for booting and put pagefile on my F:\ drive?

Matt

Mark the Windows 7 HD Drive ACTIVE
Partition - Mark as Active
Than
Physically disconnect the all other HDD.
Make the Windows 7 HD, disk0 & first HD boot in BIOS.Also connected to the first Sata port on the MOBO.

Do a Startup Repair
Note: You may need to do startup repair 3 to 4 times.
Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times
When Windows is booting OK, Reconnect the all other two HDD, as Disk1 & Disk2.

Mark the Windows Disk1 HD Drive INACTIVE
Partition - Mark as Inactive

You've been given very good advice and the proven steps for moving your System boot files to C so it boots itself.

Before doing that to move the page file back to C to take advantage of the speed increase which is the point of the SSD, turn it off on F, reboot and then turn it back on System Manager on C: Virtual Memory Paging File - Change

Thanks for the info guys,

I have a question though. I have Win7 64 bit installed and have the discs for 32 and 64. I also have a recovery disc I made ~2 weeks ago, with what I'm assuming to be my current settings of having 2 HD's working to boot Windows. Would it be better to use the Win7 64 bit disc or the recovery image I made?

Matt

A 3rd party PBackup software Recovery disk,

or Start up Repair CD? startup repair disc-create

start up repair disc. I had some problems with Windows ~1 month ago and had to use my backup from an external HDD to restore windows, so I created a repair disc I believe... That's what my ODD says.

Assuming there is a difference between repair and start up repair discs, correct? if so, can I make one now or would that still give me the dual boot situation?

Matt

You use the Windows 7 x64 DVD or the Start up Repair x64 CD for a x64 install.

theog said:

Mark the Windows 7 HD Drive ACTIVE
Partition - Mark as Active
Than
Physically disconnect the all other HDD.
Make the Windows 7 HD, disk0 & first HD boot in BIOS.Also connected to the first Sata port on the MOBO.

Do a Startup Repair
Note: You may need to do startup repair 3 to 4 times.
Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times
When Windows is booting OK, Reconnect the all other two HDD, as Disk1 & Disk2.

Mark the Windows Disk1 HD Drive INACTIVE
Partition - Mark as Inactive

So I followed these steps and I believe I have fixed my problem. Attached is a snippet of my diskmgmt.msc right now. Everything looks good to me, just wanted a verification that things went smoothly.

EDIT:
I wanted to ask about something with the recovery situation. It took two start up repairs to work correctly. I originally used my Win7 x64 disc for the first repair and things went smooth. My computer restarted and loaded the CD again, but when I went to click repair, it said that the version wasnt the same, like it was booted in 32 bit. I poped in my recovery disc (which I should mention is 64 bit), same thing. I then restarted my computer and booted from the recovery disc and repaired start up and everything worked out. Was that just a weird coincidence or what?