Upgrading Windows onto a new SSD

Hello,

I am currently running Windows 7 Home Premium on a basic HD.

I recently purchased a new SSD and a full installation of Windows Ultimate.

I would like to install Windows Ultimate to the SSD and use my old HD as a secondary storage device. Most importantly, I do not want to lose any of my documents or personal files currently stored on the old HD.

I'm looking for advice or recommendations on the best approach here. Should I do a full Win7 Ultimate install to the SSD and leave Win7 Home Premium on the secondary drive? Or, is there a better way to migrate files from the secondary drive to the new SSD and then format the old HD?

Any suggestions would be very much appreciated.

Thank you,

The SSD manufacturer probably gave you a way to move your install to the new drive, or at least many do. But I would always prefer to do a new clean install on the new Hard drive. You also would not be able to upgrade your Windows version from another one.

If you want to make sure the data on the old drive is intact, I would suggest disconnecting it during the install to the SSD.

After you install, you can reinstall the old hard drive. Just remember, the system will boot to the first primary partition it comes to, so make sure the old hard drive is not listed as primary in the bios. It should not be once the SSD is seen as primary.

Thanks for the response.

To confirm - I plan on installing Windows 7 Ultimate to the SSD.

Will it cause any problems when I plug the old HD in and Win 7 Home Premium is still installed on that drive?

Thanks,

No Problems will occur. If it does end up booting to the old drive, just change the order in the bios.

FYI, when you install Windows 7, it will put its boot files on the Primary hard drive and the OS where you tell it. Thus my suggestion to remove the old hard drive prior to install, just to be safe.

Does it make sense to uninstall win7 home premium from the old HD at some point? Or should it not really matter?

Thanks,

It shouldn't really make any difference whether you uninstall Win7 Home from your old disk... in the first place, but like others have noted, it would be wise to disconnect it. Later on, when you get your new one started, I would think it would be good to re-organize your disks, and get rid of the old installation. Meaning:

1. Re-partition the disk with your old OS / together with
2. Moving files and folders, if necessary hence and forth --- you may need to move them to the new disk --- partition the old disk --- move them back to the old disk --- it may be a task. BE CAREFUL THERE, I just lost some 250Gb doing it... not funny!