Replacing primary hard drive on Win7 desktop?
 

I recently got a good deal on a 1.5TB WD Caviar Black drive, and I could use a little advice on the "best" way to swap it with my primary desktop drive. I can handle the physical drive removal and install stuff, but I'm not completely clear on the most effective data swap method.

The desktop is a 1 year old HP running Win 7 Pro 64-bit (previously "Anytime upgraded" from Win 7 Home Premium 64-bit). I do routine drive backups on a Netgear Duo gigabit NAS via 5g wireless N. The NAS is connected via CAT6a to a Netgear WNDR-3700 dual-band gigabit router in a different room. I also have a 50 foot CAT6a ethernet cable I could use to temporarily connect the PC to the router, if that would save any significant time. I also have a 1TB Verbatim Acclaim portable 2.0 USB drive I could connect directly to the desktop to do a backup and restore with, too.

From researching around a bit, I believe the easiest way is to just physically install the new drive and then do a full restore from the backup. I also read that it may be better to do a clean Win 7 install on the new drive, instead, for better OS stability and performance. Any thoughts?

If I did go with the clean install route, would I then need to manually reinstall all other software/programs, and use Windows Easy Transfer for the documents and settings? Sounds like a lot of hassle, if these are indeed the correct steps for this method.

Btw, the current drive is a 640GB WD Caviar Blue, and I plan to keep it in the case and use it as a secondary drive. I'm pretty sure I know what to do with the jumper pins.

Thanks for the help!

I would not replace the drive, but install the new drive as an extra drive. Then move all of your data to the new drive. leave the OS and programs on the original drive. After doing that remember to reorganize the original drive. By sharing data and programs across two drives, you should get better performance. You will need to play around a bit to get programs and Windows to accept default libraries in a different location

I hadn't exactly thought of that option. I was assuming it would be better to have the higher-performace drive (caviar black is 7200rpm with 64mb cache, the blue is 7200rpm with 16mb cache) as the primary, with the OS and programs.

If it helps any, I do plan on doing a bit of video editing once I've gotten both drives in the right place, most likely storing the video files on the secondary drive. I previously upgraded my video card to a GeForce GTX 470 fermi with 1280mb memory, as well as the power supply to 700w.

I agree with DisneyDude. Better to keep the OS on one drive and data on the other. Easier to install that way, too.

I agree, just make this drive secondary. It's the easiest way.

If you don't want to do that, you can just clone the current drive to the new one. Install the new one as a secondary drive, or put it in an external enclosure, anything that will let you access it.

Use Acronis or any of the other cloning software out there and clone your current drive over to it, install it as your primary drive, and you are done.

Thanks, DisneyDude. I googled around a bit and couldn't find any good guidance for "reorganizing" the original drive, like you mention, as well as how to get programs to accept default libraries on another drive. Would you be able to point me in the right direction?

The reorganisation is simply a case of moving files from one drive to the other. As for changing default libraries - that generally has to be done from within the specific program.

Some programs will also move the data automatically when you change the default library but others won't

Be glad this ain't Windows 7 Phone OS, you'd have no choice but reformat and reinstall LOL.

I've used Acronis True Image to swap out hard drives without any issues.

The advice about adding drive as a 2nd drive is a good one. I have always kept my programs & data on a separate drive (or partition). Makes reformatting the Windows partition every 6 months so much easier!

Although very easy to move 'My Documents' in XP, there are some extra steps in moving the data location in Windows 7, however. MS has changed things a bit, so you might have to do some reading to make sure you do it right.

I guess the drive addition vs replacement is a bit easier, but since you have a full backup, it should be easy to restore that to the new drive and just make the old drive a backup for the new drive too, if that's what you want to do. In time, you can retire the redundant stuff on the old drive since you will still have the backups, and use that for something else.

Just another option.

-David

Personally I wouldn't go the backup / restore route. I'd go with one of the two other options that have already been mentioned. Either:

a) Install the new drive as a 2nd drive and move your personal data to it. Pretty easy to do, just right-click on My Documents, click the Location tab, click Move, and point it at a directory on your new drive such d:\jclishe\documents. When you click OK, Windows will ask you if you want to move your data to the new location. Click yes and sit back while your data moves, and you're done. Now anytime in the future when you navigate to 'My Documents' it will bring you to your 2nd drive. Repeat the same process for My Pictures, My Music, and My Videos (if applicable).

b) Clone the old drive to the new one. I've used the free EASEUS Disk Copy several times with great results. I've never used Acronis which was mentioned by Cordelli but I'm sure it works just fine also.

Much good advice above about installing the new drive as a second drive, however ...

If you do decide to use the new drive as primary, WD offers free cloning software. You said you knew what to do with the jumpers. I'm assuming the 640 GB is an EIDE (ATA), because the 1.5 TB is definitely an SATA. So I'd say leave the jumpers alone. The only change you'd need to make is the boot priority in the BIOS.

You indicated there might be advantages in a clean install. This is usually true. However, I would submit that this is much less important with Win 7 as it was with XP. And your Win 7 install is probably not that old. A good registry cleaning and defrag (especially virtual memory file) are the most you probably need.

Thanks to all for the great info and advice! I plan to do the dual drive setup with the OS and programs on one, and data on the other...but I still have a question:

In this dual drive setup, will my PC have better overall performance with the performance drive (caviar black) as the primary/system drive, or as the secondary/data drive? The main differences are the black has a 64mb cache and 1.5TB storage, vs. 32mb/640GB for the caviar blue.

I'll have hefty video editing software on the primary drive, and hefty video files on the secondary.

If the overall performance would be better with the black as the primary/OS drive, it doesn't sound too tough to use that free WD/Acronis cloning program to put everything on the new drive, then format the original drive and finally move the data files from the new/cloned drive to the old/clean one.