A couple of SSD Questions

deadfolk

deadfolk

deadfolk

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So the mechanical HDD with my Windows install finally gave out yesterday. It's time to go SSD.

I'm looking at a ~500MB drive. Which is best for around the £150 mark - Samsung 850 Evo or Crucial MX200?

Also, do you still need to do a new Windows install when switching to an SSD, or will a cloned install work? Maybe I should just go with a fresh install of the Windows 10 preview and let it upgrade to retail at the end of the month. Seems mad to do a clean 8.1 install this close to the release of 10.
 
you can clone your old HDD but depends on what state the failed HDD its in

you will need to have windows 7(SP1) or 8.1 installed first before you can upgrade to windows 10

if I was you, do a clean install of your current OS and then upgrade to W10 once its released at the end of the month.

there isn't much difference between the two SSDs and they are both the same drive. personally I would go for the 850 evo as I have two of the 250GB SSDs in my system.
 
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Thanks - I didn't realise you can't do a clean install of W10. I'll probably do as you suggested and do a clean install of 8.1 and upgrade it.

There was nothing important (beyond saved games) on my drive, and I've managed to recover what was there. I'm also doing a full clone, just in case I missed something.

There seems to have been a lot of discussion about issues with Samsung drives, but I don't know if there is just more noise because they are more popular or they genuinely have more problems.
 
the issues where with the 840 evos and not the 850s. they have fixed the 840s with the new firmware and software (4.6) as well.

you cannot do a clean install of windows 10 (unless you are going to use the preview) with a windows 7 or 8.1 Key unless you have done the upgrade first then after you can do a clean install as your key will be usable with windows 10 as until this is done your key is not set to use with windows 10
 
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also forgot to mention BEFORE you install windows make sure you set the sata ports in the bios to ACHI mode if its not already and all other drives are disconnected to stop windows installing anything on anything but the SSD (OS Drive)
 
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Cloning an existing install will work but you then to ensure the sector boundaries are correct. There are various tools to do this but I'm not sure if any are free.

Chances are the sector boundaries will be correct anyway...I think Windows 7 always uses multiples of 1 MB for boundaries, which is fine for advanced format HDDs and SSDs.
 
I think I'll just play it safe and go with a clean install.

Thanks for the tip about ACHI mode - I probably wouldn't have known that.

Does anyone have any thoughts on the Crucial MX200 that's on sale at the moment?
 
deadfolk said:
Thanks - I didn't realise you can't do a clean install of W10. I'll probably do as you suggested and do a clean install of 8.1 and upgrade it.
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You definitely can clean install Windows 10 preview. I have done it multiple times. Just download the ISO and go from there.
 
ED209 said:
also forgot to mention BEFORE you install windows make sure you set the sata ports in the bios to ACHI mode if its not already and all other drives are disconnected to stop windows installing anything on anything but the SSD (OS Drive)
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even if the mbr goes on the wrong drive you can just unplug it, insert windows cd and have it create a new mbr from the recovery options anyway
 
rotor said:
You definitely can clean install Windows 10 preview. I have done it multiple times. Just download the ISO and go from there.
Click to expand...

yeah, the preview you can but the full version released at the end of the month you cant until the upgrade is done first
 
ED209 said:
yeah, just saves you having to do it
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easy bcd can write the bootfile and mbr to a drive within windows.

cloned my 120gb ssd boot drive to my 250gb and set it up that way.

rebooted fine.

windows files load from d: but all the programs, windows user files etc are still loading from c:
:D

doesn't seem to be an easy fix as apparently you can't just change your drives letter on a boot drive :D

guess I should have cloned the ssd and unplugged the old one for the first boot :( or swapped the sata cables

dunno if I cab be bothered to clone it again, lost my windows 10 upgrade icon as well even on the drive I cloned that I reverted back to lol

EDIT: I got the win 10 icon back :D had to rerun the performance assessments
 
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