Installing Windows 7 on new unformatted SSD

italianranma

Ok, so I have Windows Vista currently installed on my desktop's HDD, but I just installed a brand new unformatted SSD and bought a copy of Windows 7. I want to install it on the new SSD, and then uninstall Windows Vista without losing any of my files. What are the steps I need to take to do this? The current state is that the SSD is inside the chassis, hooked up, but I haven't applied power since doing so. Do I need to interrupt the regular boot to go to the BIOS, and then load from the W7 CD? Do I do a normal load and install W7 while running Windows Vista? I'm going to need some exact instructions because this is my first time doing something like this. Thanks!

Pariel

All you'll need to do is boot up from the W7 CD and install to the SSD. Once you have it installed you'll want to tweak Windows to work best with your SSD. Just Google a guide, Tom's Hardware has a good one.

I'm pretty sure you'll be able to read off the HDD Vista is installed to without issue, but the fact that it's also a boot drive may cause a problem. I had no issues reading the old Windows 7 boot drive after reinstalling onto my SSD (just make sure it's set as the boot drive in the BIOS).

Ego

You can run the win7 installer from within Vista if you want (unless I misremember and this only works with the 'upgrade' install,) but booting from the CD will probably end up with a faster installation (and, unless your system is already set to attempt to boot from CDs, yes you'll have to go into the BIOS and adjust the boot priority so the CD comes before your HD.) Uninstalling Vista without losing data more or less means relocating your user directories, then deleting the Vista directories (then removing Vista as a boot option --as it obviously won't work-- by running msconfig and hopping into the boot tab then deleting the Vista entry.) But if you aren't desperately short on storage space, I'd recommend you just leave the Vista install. It's kind of handy to have a second installation to jump to in case of murphy's law.

While I expect (buying an SSD) you're already aware, you'll have to reinstall software (this paragraph exists only because to many people for whom I work, 'my files' means 'everything I run' and not just documents/data.) You wouldn't have to if doing a Vista to Win7 upgrade, but that won't end up with your SSD as the boot drive. You could do a bit of work shrinking and cloning your Vista partition onto the SSD then running the win7 upgrade on that, but I frankly wouldn't recommend it --you'll never be as fast as you would have been with a clean install. Windows upgrade options, while convenient, fairly well always deteriorate system performance by some degree or another. And doing that is always a hassle, compared to a 20-25 minute windows install and then just reinstalling your software.

edit: booting from CD after changing bios settings should mean that you don't have to do the msconfig step to remove the Vista boot option, by the way.

Pariel

I used Clonezilla to copy over a lot of data when I installed to my SSD. It's very handy.

italianranma

Thanks it looks like it's installing from the CD without a hitch!