Installed Windows to wrong disk

[TheAtomicGoose]

I reinstalled Windows 7 a couple of months ago. I have a laptop whose storage consists of a 32GB SSD and a 500GB HDD. I thought that I had installed Windows to the HDD and was using Intel Rapid Storage Technology (see this thread), but in fact I just installed Windows to the SSD, so I have very little storage. I just noticed this today, when I went to download some songs on iTunes, and my disk was too full to do so. If I try to wipe my disk and start again, I will end up destroying my Linux installation, which I've put much more time into than Windows. Is it possible to somehow copy my Windows install to the correct disk without destroying and reinstalling? I'm afraid if I try to reinstall Windows I'll end up killing my Linux install by accident since I'd be installing Windows to the same drive as Linux. Thanks!

 

[Berton]

The whole idea, to me, is that installing Windows on the SSD makes things faster than using an HDD. And Yes, it will be easy to break your dual-boot setup. I'd think what you need do is redirect where your downloads go, several ways to do that, one would be to move your iTunes music to a Folder on the HDD then on the download screen direct it to that Folder. Maybe uninstalling iTunes then reinstalling on the HDD would work. Most programs have an Options or Preferences for setting the location for saving their data files.

 

[TheAtomicGoose]

It is a problematically small amount of room that's left on the SDD. There's only about 120MB of space left on it. Should I just install programs to the HDD from here on out?

 

[Berton]

Yes, and it may help to uninstall some non-Microsoft applications and re-install on the HDD. Microsoft Office seems to work best when installed on the same partition as Windows. You may also want to consider a change to Virtual Memory [paging file] and put the bulk of it on the HDD and about 2GB on the SSD. Some programs/updates installations rely on having the Virtual Memory on the same partition as the OS, I have set 2GB on my C: and 12GB on my D: [1.5 times the 8GB RAM].

 

[TheAtomicGoose]

If you have more Virtual Memory than RAM, does the extra take up storage space? How would I change the placement of the paging file?

 

[Berton]

If you have more Virtual Memory than RAM, does the extra take up storage space? How would I change the placement of the paging file?

Yes, it is a file on the HDD or SSD which is why it gets mentioned when trying to save space on the drive. The setting is in Control Panel, System, System Properties and the Advanced tab, Performance section.

 

[gregrocker]

Unless you really want to juggle so little space because of how much faster the SSD is, then I'd correctly reinstall according to http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/306285-install-windows-msata-ssd-drive.html
or http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/307529-install-windows-system-msata-isrt.html.

To try to keep it on the SSD you can trim the paging file to 2 gb and turn off Hibernate:
Virtual Memory Paging File - Change
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/819-hibernate-enable-disable.html

Set up a new set of User folders on the HDD and link them to related Win7 http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/585-library-include-folder.html then set the HD as the default save location: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/595-library-set-save-folder.html

 

[TheAtomicGoose]

I'm going to try to juggle the small amount of space before I try reinstalling, because I'm very wary of screwing up my Linux install. I'm guessing I should leave drivers installed on the SSD? Could I just relocate the paging file instead of making it smaller? Also, is Hibernate the same as Sleep?

 

[gregrocker]

What are you asking about leaving drivers installed on the SSD? Win7 is a driver-complete OS that gets its drivers during installation or via Windows Update. Leave the drivers alone unless you need to supply one that is missing. This is not XP where you need to manage a bunch of drivers.

If you have Linux on the hard drive then it should not be affected by Win7 on the SSD if you didn't use GRUB to Dual Boot Win7. You should be choosing which HD to boot using the BIOS Boot menu key, with the preferred set to boot first in BIOS Setup.

 

[AddRAM]

With 8 GB of ram you don`t even need a page file.

 

[TheAtomicGoose]

@gregrocker: I mean drivers like the Intel and NVidia graphics things that I thought were called drivers which I had to install in order to get my graphics working properly right after I reinstalled Windows, or the programs that make peripherals work which I also thought were called drivers.
I did install Linux using GRUB because there's a bug with my laptop that makes it so that boot loaders such as Gummiboot don't work.

@AddRAM: Oh, good to know, are paging files more for computers that are likely to run out of RAM?