Reinstall Windows 7 - What happens to software/games on other HDDs?

ScarySquirrel · 29 Aug 2012 at 16:07

Hi all,

My current setup is:

60Gb SSD - Win 7
1Tb - Apps/Storage
250Gb - Steam
1tb - Storage

I've just bought that £43 120Gb SSD because it was so cheap and I'm wondering, if I replace my 60Gb SSD and do a fresh install of Win 7 on the new drive; will any of my installed software on the other drives work? Or does everything have to be installed again?

If so, is there a tool I can use to mirror the current install of Win 7 from the 60Gb SSD straight to the new 120Gb SSD?

Thanks

bremen1874 · 29 Aug 2012 at 16:16

ScarySquirrel said:
If so, is there a tool I can use to mirror the current install of Win 7 from the 60Gb SSD straight to the new 120Gb SSD?

The free version of Macrium Reflect will handle it. About 15 minutes to clone the drive, and few seconds to expand the partition aftewards.

Quicker and easier than reinstalling.

ScarySquirrel · 29 Aug 2012 at 16:17

bremen1874 said:
The free version of Macrium Reflect will handle it. About 15 minutes to clone the drive, and few seconds to expand the partition aftewards.

Quicker and easier than reinstalling.

Nice one, I'll check it out

j.col · 29 Aug 2012 at 17:48

not sure about your settings but.
i have 3 hard drives,
C: windows
D: games
E: movies/backups.

i have installed my games on to the D drive.
i just reinstalled windows, i formatted C and done the install.
everything else on the other drives were untouched.
obviously if you installed something on C, like steam, but have the games stored on a diffeerent drive, then the reinstall will affect steam.

also windows has a built in system image program
http://www.shivaranjan.com/2009/05/20/windows-7-how-to-create-a-system-image-of-a-hard-disk-partition-or-windows-7-partition/

Kronos · 29 Aug 2012 at 18:38

I to have games on a separate HDD as is Steam. With Steam it is little more than a repair install. To be honest I would imagine that you might need to reinstall games but I am not sure. but j.col says he has just done it so I bow to him but I am not certain.

Wang Computer · 29 Aug 2012 at 19:13

Depends on what services\registry keys your software installs. My experience is a reinstall of most games\software is required (although not in the case of some inhouse Valve stuff).

Kronos · 30 Aug 2012 at 11:48

Wang Computer said:
Depends on what services\registry keys your software installs. My experience is a reinstall of most games\software is required (although not in the case of some inhouse Valve stuff).

I thought that was true also.

Confused · 30 Aug 2012 at 13:01

Cloning your drive will be the easiest and quickest method.

However, if you fancy a fresh install of Windows, then use something like GameSave Manager to take a backup of all of your game saves/settings, because these can be spread across many different folders on the hard drive. If you've got any GFWL games, be sure to backup your GFWL Profile using the tool too, and restore these when you reinstall Windows.

If you've got Steam on another hard drive, then all you need to do is run steam.exe from the Steam folder and you're good to go. Some games may need to run through an initial installation process, but this shouldn't take too long.

apatia77 · 30 Aug 2012 at 17:50

Last time I reinstalled windows 7 all my games on another hdd/partition including all steam games worked just fine without doing anything (steam will reinstall itself with all games in it already).