No USB to Sata cable with new SSD purchase , other ways to install.

[janitoronmars]

^^This sounds perfect.

 

[jonnyhillow]

I burned the one drive file to disk and booted into Macrium after i transferred the 100 mb partition to the C drive. I am now trying to burn a system image but i have no clue when it asks where do i want to put it .


Doesn't matter where i try to put it i always get the same message ( it won't fit ). Same thing happened the last time i attempted to use Macrium .

Never could get it to work in the past either lol.

 

[janitoronmars]

You said earlier that you had recently done a new install and you didn't have that much data/programs to recreate, right? I guess it is time for that clean Windows install. The Macrium thing sounds to me to do with the size disparity between your old hard drive and your new SSD but WHS might be able to help you more with that. I think there are ways to get around that but just my opinion you are better off just starting fresh. You can then get your data off that old hard drive using a cheap enclosure like the one I linked to in my previous post.

 

[jonnyhillow]

Actually i had a brain freeze due to lack of sleep and frustration , i installed the image to my external drive (of course) and successfully made a system image of C drive with the boot drive also transferred to it .

Unfortunately it made zero difference and i got the same (cannot install ) message.

This is exactly what i was concerned about lol.

I wonder if cloning the C drive would make any difference.

I think i would like to try re installing but am confused how to go about it on a new unrecognized drive , do i still need to go through the command prompts and what about Intel's toolbox stuff ?

 

[jonnyhillow]

OK, I reinstalled and all seems to be good now , I optimized with the Intel toolbox. The below screenshot show the controllers are "ide" , should they be set to AHCI or is that the way it's supposed to look?

I also completed the quick diagnostic and full diagnostic test and both completed successfully.

 

[whs]

AHCI gives you a bit better performance.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/61869-ahci-enable-windows-7-vista.html

 

[jonnyhillow]

Thanks , i made the changes in regedit and when i went to bios, AHCI was already enabled , i recall seeing it was enabled right after i reinstalled so a little confusing because i didn't change anything.

I did not get any of the screens like Barefootkid got after making those regedit changes though. I did restart the computer a few times to make sure .

 

[jonnyhillow]

Oh , one last question , i see in bios that my SSD is the second option and my DVD drive is the first to boot . I switched for the DVD to boot first because i reinstalled Windows , should i change it back now?

Thanks

 

[whs]

No, you are good. The DVD should always be the first.

 

[Barman58]

For historical reasons I always set my system disk as the first device - It just prevents the delay if a bootable DVD is left in the drive, The same applies to USB .

The historical part comes from my system admin background, by password protecting the bios options and booting directly to the OS by default - it prevented users from "accidentally" booting installers, (or live CD's ), once in the OS the devices could be controlled

 

[whs]

The reason I set the DVD first is for convenience when I want to boot from DVD which I do for all kinds of reasons. Then I do not have to go into the BIOS temporary boot menu.

But Nigel is right. When you set your system disk first, booting is a bit faster and you don't hear the click, click in the box.

 

[jonnyhillow]

Thanks , well i was going to start another thread but since this one is already open what is your take on the following info that i found in the "SSD tweaks and optimizations" tutorial?

Go to start/admin tools and select performance monitor. Expand data collector sets. Click on Startup Event Trace Sessions.
With the exception of the following NECESSARY logs (Application, Security, System, Security Essentials) we can stop them from starting. To do so, right click on each one that has a status of Enabled (except the ones mentioned above) and select Properties. Click the Trace Session tab. Unselect Enabled. Click Ok. Repeat for the others (including readyboot).
After your next boot, you will have a lot less writes going to the SSD that are not needed.

I did all that so i hope it's still a good thing to do.

 

[whs]

In my judgement that is a pretty useless exercise. I guess the intent is to reduce the number of write operations. But so what. All you do is lose valuable system information.

I never made any such tweaks and my 6 SSDs are still healthy - even those from 2008. It has been proven that there is no way to wear out a SSD by a normal user. The SSD will long be in the bin before it would die from too many writes.

 

[jonnyhillow]

It sounded like it was for a little better speed since why have all those things start if they are essentially not needed.

I don't know what important info will be lost by not allowing all those options to start but i don't know enough either way , as long as it doesn't hurt anything i suppose.

I rely on the tutorials to be accurate and effective once completed and many seem to be a few years old so i hope they still apply.

Following all the steps in a tutorial and then realizing that most who help others on these forums don't think it's a good idea is disheartening to say the least .

 

[whs]

You have to understand that a lot of those "recommendations" are from the very early days of the SSD where the hardware was a lot more fragile. But the SSD development has come a long way and today's SSDs are quite sturdy and do not really need any tweaks. Not that those tweaks really hurt, but they are superfluous.

The recommendations you get here are based on personal experience and insight into publications that are relevant. But not everything regarding SSDs that you find on the web is relevant - or still relevant today.