First go at an SSD- help appreciated!

So, I have never dealt with an SSD before, however now my friend wants me to build him a £1K system I shot at the chance to get a 128GB Crucial M4 in there. I know the basics, obviously installing the OS onto the SSD is a must, but I have never been interested in OS and storage stuff so I could do with a kind of step-by-step guide. What steps should I do beforehand? I would like to create a partition for windows so I can reformat and reinstall Windows without effecting files or programs, how would I do that? Any instructions I should give to my friend for using it?

Your help would be appreciated!

If it was me. I would install the OS on the SSD and then re-direct all your other stuff to a decent mechanical HD (or several in my case). Things like downloads/music/documents/pictures etc. being stored on what is in reality a pretty small storage medium (IE. the SSD) is "in my opinion" not a good use of space and also wont benefit much from the extra speed (most of the time). Changing the "save location" for things like Documents/Pictures etc. in later versions of Windows, is pretty simple. Though I suspect you will realise this anyway. This then means should you need to re-install your OS, that you don't need to restore all this data again. Just point Windows to the relevant place.

Basic stuff.
- Make sure AHCI switched on in the BIOS.
- Make sure SSD runing latest "stable" firmware. If not, probably a good idea to flash it to the latest.
- Only have your SSD connected when installing OS.
- Usually considered best to have it connected to the first Intel SATA port.
- DON'T format it yourself (and NEVER EVER full format an SSD, only quick format if you must), let Windows do it when installing the OS.
- Install latest Intel RST drivers. Though the stock Microsoft AHCI driver would probably be fine.
- Run WEI after OS install.
- If you must run any sort of speed test apps. Do it once and then just use the drive as normal. Sooooo many people get hung up on perpetually running tools like AS SSD and CDM etc. etc. etc.

Plenty of more detailed guides out there if you want.

PS. If any of the above seems like basic stuff to you, then I apologise. It's just not possible to gauge someone's level of experience from a single post

I'm playing with a new SSD for the 1st time, their is a lot more to think about than a normal HDD, it's quite fun to learn some new tech for a change!

What Mikeo says all seems good.

What is WEI though?

Windows Experience Index

Install order.
- Make sure SSD runing latest "stable" firmware. If not, probably a good idea to flash it to the latest. You can plug it into any PC to do this.
- Only have your SSD connected when installing OS.
- Usually considered best to have it connected to the first Intel SATA port.
- Make sure AHCI switched on in the BIOS.
- DON'T format it yourself (and NEVER EVER full format an SSD, only quick format if you must), let Windows do it when installing the OS.
Install Windows, then install chipset driver and vga driver.
- Run WEI after OS install.
- Install lan driver, then check website for driver updates that may be newer than the ones on your m/b disk.
-Install all other drivers and software required.
-Install all windows updates
-Plug in mechanical drives
-Install your fav programs and games
-Create a system back up image on the mechanical drive, with a boot disk

-OVERCLOCK the crap out of it and start playing

That's a pretty awesome guide- thanks!

Could I make a partition on the drive purely for Windows? So if I have a 128GB SSD I can just partition a section off for the windows installation and leave the rest for whatever else to make reinstalls easy. I tried to do this before but never really worked out how! And advice appreciated!

"Could I make a partition on the drive purely for Windows?". Certainly if you want to.

But as I said in my original post... 120GB drive is not going to leave that much room for installing other stuff (not with today's bloatware). Why not just have the SSD as your boot drive and direct / install other stuff to decent mechanical HD's. A lot of stuff that takes up real amounts of room, does not really benefit from the increased speed of the SSD. Only my personal opinon here of course.

My original comments were just directed at the SSD side, if you want really details info regarding installing an OS, then lots of good and detailed guides on the WEB

For example:

http://www.techtalkz.com/windows-7/514412-windows-7-installation-guide-tutorial.html

and as to installing drivers these days. Windows 7 is good at installing the correct bits and bobs pretty much on its own. I would just check Device manager once the OS installed to see if anything missing. Unless you have any really exotic devices, or want specific driver versions installed (Intel RST etc.)

PS. If you do have any sort of problem with your SSD... It will probably be totally FUBAR (unlikely hopefully), so best plan (in my opinion) is to have pretty much everything else on other drives. Having stuff like games, pictures, downloads, music etc. gain hardly any benefit from the additional speed of an SSD. I usually find that if I have to re-install an OS, it's usually because I'm doing a total PC re-build, so use this as an excuse to re pick up the latest versions of any tools etc. that I have installed on the boot drive. Then after re-build / re-install, just point Windows to the relevant other drives. Works for me.