How to setup new SSD?

[Tweed]

So I recently got a Samsung 970 EVO. And I currently have my Samsung 850 EVO as my main boot drive, with a few games on there (and all the necessary drivers). How would I go about setting up my new SSD? Do I just clone it? Or is there a way to just put windows onto the new SSD? 

 

If there are other/better ways you'd go about this, please let me know. I'd appreciate it.

[kelvinhall05]

Best way to put Windows on a new drive is to do a clean install. Always has been, always will be. Back up anything that is worth keeping and/or isn't cloud saved, then reinstall.

[homeap5]

Best way to put Windows on a new drive is to clone (or to be more specific - image to external drive and restore to new drive) your current OS (I recommend Macrium Reflect and using Rescue USB creates by that program so you can clone offline system, which is safer - or use second computer for made that). Clean install never was and never will be the best option - it's waste of time, unless you don't do anything interesting on your computer and uses only 2 or 3 programs. Clean install is recommended mostly by people who never cloned drives and repeating myths. No offence kelvinhall05, but that is true. Even Linus shows how to clone system in one of his youtube videos. I may be wrong, but he probably knows what he is talking about, right?

 

But in your case the best option is to plug your new m.2 as second drive if you have lot of free space on your current SSD. M.2 gives you no improvement over boot time or loading programs. It's useful for write/reading big files like video processing and all operations that requires very fast transfer. Or you can leave just system on your SSD and use M.2 to install all programs and store pagefile (virtual memory). This will separate programs (at least most of them) and system which may be useful.

 

May be helpful: https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/973577-transferring-windows-to-another-drive/

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

8 hours ago, homeap5 said:

Best way to put Windows on a new drive is to clone (or to be more specific - image to external drive and restore to new drive) your current OS (I recommend Macrium Reflect and using Rescue USB creates by that program so you can clone offline system, which is safer - or use second computer for made that). Clean install never was and never will be the best option - it's waste of time, unless you don't do anything interesting on your computer and uses only 2 or 3 programs. Clean install is recommended mostly by people who never cloned drives and repeating myths. No offence kelvinhall05, but that is true. Even Linus shows how to clone system in one of his youtube videos. I may be wrong, but he probably knows what he is talking about, right?

 

But in your case the best option is to plug your new m.2 as second drive if you have lot of free space on your current SSD. M.2 gives you no improvement over boot time or loading programs. It's useful for write/reading big files like video processing and all operations that requires very fast transfer. Or you can leave just system on your SSD and use M.2 to install all programs and store pagefile (virtual memory). This will separate programs (at least most of them) and system which may be useful.

 

May be helpful: https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/973577-transferring-windows-to-another-drive/

 

I agree with most of what you say. One exception is there are times when a clean install would be better. Cloning is advisable only when the installation you are cloning is in good to excellent operating condition. If not, then a clean install is advisable even if you aren't migrating from one drive to another.

 

I've cloned many System drives when upgrading to another drive, such as HDD to SSD, from a smaller drive to a large one, or even both many times with no problems. Even though it can be used, a restore disk is not needed for cloning; in fact, not using one is usually faster and is perfectly safe since the original drive is read only. It doesn't hurt to make an image first for backup purposes, though. One should always have backups anyway.

 

I've also replaced the OS and programs installation onto a new drive when the old one died using imaging. A restore disk is needed in that case so making one should be the first thing you do when installing cloning/imaging software.

 

I also recommend using Macrium Reflect free.

[homeap5]

4 minutes ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

I agree with most of what you say. One exception is there are times when a clean install would be better. Cloning is advisable only when the installation you are cloning is in good to excellent operating condition. If not, then a clean install is advisable even if you aren't migrating from one drive to another.

 

I've cloned many System drives when upgrading to another drive, such as HDD to SSD, from a smaller drive to a large one, or even both many times with no problems. Even though it can be used, a restore disk is not needed for cloning; in fact, not using one is usually faster and is perfectly safe since the original drive is read only. It doesn't hurt to make an image first for backup purposes, though. One should always have backups anyway.

 

I've also replaced the OS and programs installation onto a new drive when the old one died using imaging. A restore disk is needed in that case so making one should be the first thing you do when installing cloning/imaging software.

 

I also recommend using Macrium Reflect free.

I recommend using Rescue USB to made offline image/restore/clone, because the only one case I have problem with cloned system (and I made lot of that) was when I trusted Volume Shadow Copy service (which is using when you imaging working system) and made image of system that I working on. So I'm trying to not do it again, even if it works perfectly in theory. Fast Boot in Windows works great in theory too.

 

I may agree with you, except I don't fully understand "excellent operating condition". If something is wrong with system, user should fix that, know what is wrong, made it better etc. I assume that if someone has problem with Windows like blue screen every boot and don't know how to resolve it, then he will never consider cloning that system anyway.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

3 minutes ago, homeap5 said:

I recommend using Rescue USB to made offline image/restore/clone, because the only one case I have problem with cloned system (and I made lot of that) was when I trusted Volume Shadow Copy service (which is using when you imaging working system) and made image of system that I working on. So I'm trying to not do it again, even if it works perfectly in theory. Fast Boot in Windows works great in theory too. ...

The rescue media (USB or disc) is necessary to restore from an image but is not needed to make an image or to clone a drive. I've never had a problem imaging directly from the drive being imaged rather than using the rescue media (disclaimer: I'm still using Win 7 on all my machines).

 

The only time I had a problem cloning a drive was when the source drive, a data only drivve, had become corrupted even though I could access all the data on it. Fortunately, I had a backup (actually, multiple backups; color me paranoid) to save my bacon data.

 

13 minutes ago, homeap5 said:

...I may agree with you, except I don't fully understand "excellent operating condition". If something is wrong with system, user should fix that, know what is wrong, made it better etc. I assume that if someone has problem with Windows like blue screen every boot and don't know how to resolve it, then he will never consider cloning that system anyway.

 

Methinks we may have had "a failure to communicate" and actually are pretty much in agreement. 

 

A System can be less than optimal but still be functional. As you said, it shoud be fixed anyway, even when not doing a clone, with a clean install often being the only practical, albeit time consuning way to do so. The same is true before cloning a suboptimal system although one might as well do the clean install on the new drive and eliminate the extra step of cloning.

 

Another situation that warrants cloning instead of a clean install applies for computers, usually laptops, that have proprietary drivers need for the machine to be fully functional but can not be downloaded for installation after a clean reinstall. Cloning would be the answer here, then, after cloning, a repair install may retain the elusive drivers while (hopefully) correcting any OS issues.

[homeap5]

As I said (about cloning working system) - it uses VSS that I don't trust because of my personal experience. Other clone software (Paragon if I good remember) made clone while restarting to prevent that type of problems. It's kind of extra safeguard - not needed, but I recommend that just in case.

[AdroG23]

It's bothersome but back up any data you can, do the clean install in the new SSD and format the old bad boy. Then reinstall games and programs.

I learnt the hard way that the slower, cleaner way is always the better way

[homeap5]

59 minutes ago, AdroG23 said:

It's bothersome but back up any data you can, do the clean install in the new SSD and format the old bad boy. Then reinstall games and programs.

I learnt the hard way that the slower, cleaner way is always the better way

One bad experience should not be a reason for step back. It's like play instrument - you cannot suggest that learn is pointless, because you tried once and sound awful. Believe people who made it lot of times. Proper way, using good tools. I stll believe that people who asking don't need us to confirm that they can install Windows - everyone can do this, with zero or minimal knowledge. I believe that people want to know better options and those who knows how to do it shoud help.

 

Personally I wouldn't trust someone who repair car once without success and recommend me to buy new car if my old one is broken. I will choose good mechanic who knows a little more.

[AdroG23]

1 hour ago, homeap5 said:

Personally I wouldn't trust someone who repair car once without success and recommend me to buy new car if my old one is broken. I will choose good mechanic who knows a little more.

Yeah, it wasn't once. There is always files hanging around that get left behind there from thousands of installs and uninstalls.

And when cloning, there is always the chance that something goes wrong and you have to format and do it all over again.

I like my installs as clean and tidy as possible. So if i break open a new ssd, plug it in,  again, brand new, shinny and everything AND it's going to be my main drive, i'm doing a clean install of everything there, move photos, videos, music, documents, whatever i consider valuable to a usb stick and then format the hdd and install my X main game/s in the ssd along with essential programs and averything else to the hdd, with proper folder naming and everything. 

The car analogy doesn't work, because it's not the case, i didn't say throw the old drive away and buy a new one. The idea is make a clean install of everything in the new drive that you already bought.

If i take my new car to the mechanic for a good tuning and he says "ok, i'm going to make this one look like the used car you already own, bumps, scratches and old smell and everything" you can bet your ass that i'm not allowing that animal to put a finger on it.
New car, new accesories, new tunning.
New ssd, new installs, new tunning.
Everything clean, everything tidy. Just a little more time (and if you're in this forum, spending time on your machine is kinda something you love anyways)

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

1 hour ago, AdroG23 said:

Yeah, it wasn't once. There is always files hanging around that get left behind there from thousands of installs and uninstalls.

Always? You must be doing something wrong or using inferior software. A clone is a bit by bit copy of the original. I've cloned drives more times than I can remember and never had that problem. What were you using to make the clones and how were you doing it?

1 hour ago, AdroG23 said:

And when cloning, there is always the chance that something goes wrong and you have to format and do it all over again.

So what? Stuff happens. So you have to redo something. Deal with it if and when it happens. In the case of cloning, it only takes a minute or less to start the clone, then the computer does all the work for you. As I've said before, the only clone I've had fail was due to an issue in the source drive. I would have needed to reformat and restore data anyway.

 

You can't depend on everything to go right every time. Hardware can fail. Software can have glitches. People can make mistakes. The only thing you can do about that is to "have a plan B" in place for when it happens. In my case, I already had backups waiting in the wings before that one clone failed (I always have backups on hand). My total time spent was around ten minutes. The computer needed several hours (it was a 75% full 4TB HDD) but so what? I just let the computer do its thing while I did other things (including using the computer).

[homeap5]

More important - people so often using "clean install" term, because they think that it makes somehow "cleaner" installation. I always have fun of that. This way even copying files make them worse - pictures are less bright, music not so good as before, ebooks less interesting etc. Somehow people forgot that it's binary copy, not analog. The same libraries, folders, photos, plugins and all other files will be the same "fresh", no matter if copied, install from zero or cloned. Bits will looks the same, zeros will be zeros and ones will be ones. I can't understand why people so defend "clean install" as the only good solution. I suspect that is the only solution they know, but then people who knows only one way to do something, should not say that is the best way. It's the only way they know.

 

On this forum you can find every week someone who f***d up fresh installation. Based on that, we should say that fresh install is risky, bad and not recommended in any case. But because I know that people can do wrong many things - fresh install and clone including - I don't say that fresh install is bad. It's just not method to move system to another drive. It's masochism or, for some people, the only entertainment on computers. I prefer using programs and create something, work on computer, do interesting stuff - and installing Windows is not one of them.

[AdroG23]

Wow, sorry guys, i didn't know you were sponsored by cloning software.

Or that you were too lazy to do things yourself or that didn't care about how things go, as long as "the machine does it itself".
I use a lot of files i copy and erase a lot of stuff constantly and, from time to time, files get forgotten, lying around somewhere in my pc. Cloning my system will only make the same file stay lying around in the same place where i forgot i left it, taking up space.

One file might be insignificant, but when they keep piling up they amount to some considerable space.

Moreover, reg keys that remain from older programs that were erased, obsolete drivers, projects that were finished, rar files... wasteful data that gets carried over on a 10 minute cloning.
And if by some reason it goes wrong (GOD FORBID!!! OR THE ZEALOTS WILL GO MAD) you will still have to do the thing that i suggested and format and clean install.
Sure, you can clone if you like then take a couple hours checking for trash files around your system, uninstalling the old drivers, reinstaling the new ones and in the end have a tidy environment, and there is nothing, NOTHING, wrong with that (see? i'm not against cloning ). Or you can straight forward clean install and be done with it.
As they say in my country: Dead the dog, over with the rabies

 

Oh and btw "Clean install" is not a term. You grab a blank drive, you install something from 0, you clean install. 
It's not like talking about the Graphics card and call it GPU. 

 

But again, yeah, you can clone your drive if you prefer it.

I don't. 

And one last thing... This post isn't "Argue with the guy that would rather CLEAN INSTALL Windows". It was helping out a dude that wanted to know if there was an alternative to cloning, well to the OP, yes there is, Clean Install.
And Homeap5, cloning is faster and everything and Linus shows how to do it and everything is cool and dandy but did you bother asking the guy if the new 970 he bought is the same size of the previous drive? 

He did say that he had "a few games" with needed drivers. Anybody asked size of games? how many? steam or battlenet? 
Hmmm... no? Oh, ok. Nevermind then, keep arguing with me. I don't mind, and honestly there is not much you can do to change my mind, nor me to change yours

[homeap5]

1 hour ago, AdroG23 said:

And Homeap5, cloning is faster and everything and Linus shows how to do it and everything is cool and dandy but did you bother asking the guy if the new 970 he bought is the same size of the previous drive? 

He did say that he had "a few games" with needed drivers. Anybody asked size of games? how many? steam or battlenet? 
Hmmm... no? Oh, ok. Nevermind then, keep arguing with me. I don't mind, and honestly there is not much you can do to change my mind, nor me to change yours

 

I'm using common sense instead of asking unnecessary questions. This guy bough new SSD and he has one already, so I assumed that he don't buy new, smaller drive. It is the same size or greater size then. And imaging/restoring is absolutely possible when new drive is bigger. Damn, it's even possible if it's smaller, as long as amount of data stored on old drive is smaller than capacity of new drive. You should know that if you know everything about cloning.

 

You should know that some other important things:

1. Registry is database, it's not that programs search registry for their entries; programs read entries directly from specific point from registry, that is how database works. Otherwise this forum will be slower and slower every post. And Facebook will be dead now with their huge database.

 

2. Few unnecessary files on drive is nothing wrong - it's not that files are flying out of the computer and land on the desk makes big mess. If you want to have every file under control, then you should never buy drive bigger than 64 GB, because after some time you'll end making nothing but searching for thousand of files to clean. It's called obsessive-compulsive disorder.

 

3. Some people makes lot of things on their computers. Maybe you just use one program, but after years of working on my computer I have LOT of useful stuff, programs, settings for them, registered plugins for them etc. I have everything configured to made my work faster. It's not that clean, new Windows can give you that. Faster computer is not one that can boot 2 seconds faster. Faster computer, in my opinion, is computer that allows you to make everything faster, because have installed many tools for many operations. Believe me - for some people like me, clean install means weeks of finding everything, reinstalling programs, configuring everything as I like etc. And because I work on my computer, I cannot afford to waste time by installing everything again and again every time I change hdd, mousepad or pc case. Sure, if @Tweed uses only few programs and never configure anything, then he may even made fresh install every week, but somehow I doubt that he asks for that.

 

4. What drivers or other stuff is needed to erase if we're talking about simple ssd change? It's the same computer with the same components, so what are you talking about?

 

It's obvious that your experience is small or even none, but you try to defend your point of view. Unfortunatelly, this looks like you repeating only myths and false informations you can find on internet. It's pointless to arguing with you since you knows better how everything works, even if you don't.

 

And last point - if we're sponsoring by cloning software, then you must be sponsored by Microsoft. The same false logic.

 

1 hour ago, AdroG23 said:

And if by some reason it goes wrong (GOD FORBID!!! OR THE ZEALOTS WILL GO MAD) you will still have to do the thing that i suggested and format and clean install.

So, if something goes wrong with fresh install, you'll start recommending cloning?

[AdroG23]

Straight forward answers then.

Your common sense MIGHT be wrong. For example you don't know the guy, you don't know what is he going to do with his pc and what income does he have.

He bought an NVMe and was using SATA. So maybe he can't afford a bigger or even same size drive, i don't know but neither do you, perhaps you should stop assuming if it's your intention to help.

And of course all that matters is that the data you are cloning fits in the drive, then again you can just assume without knowledge.

 

1.- if you install-unisntall a lot your pc will be filled with old reg keys and useless files that get left behind. that consumes space. And in an ssd, space is not cheap.

2.- Sure, i never said i wasn't obsesive about my system. Btw i know exactly where everything is in it and once every 3 month (give or take a few weeks) i run it down to erase old unused files.

3.- i do make a lot of stuff on my pc and, for the sake of not losing configs and presets i save them on my hdd drive and export them to my cloud drive so if i change system or even rig i don't have to remake everything. Just, like i prefer, install windows, browse for the configs i want and put them in their due folder. It might be obsesive, but i can live with that.

Then again for people LIKE YOU who do everything on their pc you might not be able to afford that.. but, as said before we don't know this guy and what he does with his pc... or if he even gives a crap, so you state what's better for you. I state what's better for me. 

4.- i didn't talk about drivers of the ssd i talked about "drivers" he might have changed graphics cards without a clean driver install, maybe switch from AMD to Nvidia and still have the AMD drivers lying around, switched displays and have the old ones drivers or change headsets and have the old drivers still installed. Again, you don't know him, neither do i.

 

It's obvious that, while you might be an all-knowing guru in pc hard and soft, your people's skills are lacking inmensly and want to show-off how much you know about your stuff, stepping overe everyone elses opinion 'cause "you have the ultimate truth" with no knowledge of the other guy's situation.

 

I'm very wellcoming of a good discussion  (not arguing, if you can tell the difference) when the other party is interested in see things from a different point of view.
Not being this the case, i too see that there is no point in trying to discuss with you.
Lastly, sponsorED, not sponsoring. But i never told him that windows was the only and best OS there was. He asked about it and i answered on a normal case scenario of a guy that only games in his pc and not necessarily obsesses over his system. If he wants to install Linux, it's his party.
You said "CLONING IS THE BEST WAY"
So, like with the mechanic, bad analogy

[homeap5]

12 minutes ago, AdroG23 said:

Lastly, sponsorED, not sponsoring.

There are people from many countries here and english is not necessary their first language, as in my case. So forgive me for that mistake - probably not the only one.

 

Still don't know why old, unused drivers are so bad, since in Windows you have thousands of old drivers preinstalled for making plug&play works and you can always remove drivers even using few very nice tools, but nevermind. I would never remove driver for old mouse or monitor just because I don't use it. It's completely unnecessary since Windows do not use it anymore and just keeps few bytes information in registry. I don't care. About Nvidia drivers or AMD - I can remove them when I want. REMOVE, not by made clean install, but by using programs. It has more sense. Maybe you want to reinstall windows every time you change monitor or mouse - I don't.

 

This discussion is pointless - we talk everything we want/can.