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[LordBaal]

Just pointing that setting up the disk with two partitions does have its merits. You can set up so the documents, pics, videos, downloads and desktop folders are in the largest partition, if your OS got flunked and unable to start, simply wipe the OS partition and reinstall a fresh one without worrying about personal files.

How big is the SSD Sirus?

[Lord Shonus]

It is really unusual to irrevocably fuck up your OS with a problem that doesn't fuck up the entire drive nowadays. A lot of the stuff that you used to be able to avoid by partitioning doesn't care anymore.

[Starver]

And yuu'd becadvis3d to keep a gparted/similar disk at hand for when you find (through some unknowable future quirk of system demands) that the 25%/75% split (or vice-versa) is now thottling your expanded usage of the (usually!) smaller partition, and you need to shift the 'hard boundary' around to accomodate extra installs/data how you'd prefer...

(Not that it helped when I had my computer with two physical 1GB disks... Win95 days, this was. No amount of regular repartitioning could seemlessly lend unused C: space to a nearly filled D:, or vice-versa. And was before more virtualised solutions and too much fuss to try a RAID-like recombination of drivespaces.)


TBH, I was imagining "new machine, new OS" (or install licence, at least). The ability to do Whole Body Transplants is severely restricted by the antipiracy measures MS (I assumed Windows, naturally, anything from XP onwards) has enforced in its systems, never mind the significant driver changes. OEM tools to 'denature' an install (before then re-registering with the approved registration key/etc) always used to be a key part of gettingblegal (and possibly even working) clones. Not see how post-Win8 does it, but never seen any reason to expect relaxed requirements trickle-down from MS. For one thing, the highly deprecated offline validation (8n today's xalways plugged in" world).

As such I was (at the beginning at least) assuming the donated drive would just be a legacy-data carrier once the new machine. For which my advice would be: Physical connection should he easy (with the caveat on the no-IDE headers possibility, if it's an IDE donor drive) and make sure it doesn't usurp Boot Drive position. And all that stuff about non-trivial (e.g. password) data migration that you now need to know you should look at before dismantling/remantling.


If you're doing the WBT (whether all-but-the-disc changes or all-but-the-data...) then perhaps the non-trivial data is not one of your worries, as it is actually more intrinsic to the 'mind' you're transfering between systems. But backup (or copy across to new disc and have original as your backup by default, only to overwrite once there's clearly no further issues arising) would be advisable in one form or other. IMO.



Truly, though, the difficulty is not in the doing, but in choosing which exact method of doing is best suited to you, to avoid the pitfalls you are least capable of overcomng. And for any three IT professionals, you'll find at least seven different opinions on how they would set about it.

[dragdeler]

The funny thing with those w7 updates: if you install a fresh w7 distro, it will not update itself.


If you manually insert the right updates, or slipstream them into your distro, IDK starting from which one onwards, but windows will be able again to use the default update service. It will probably reinstall all the updates once more because microsoft doesn't trust updates it provides itself unless they install them themselves...


And now to the rly funny thing: if you got a w7 that is "self updatable" and leave updates on automatic, use your computer daily and come back in a month to check what happened in your updates, you will notice that it cyclically applies a bunch of patches that are allways named the same code and indistinguishable from the endusers point of view. And one of them is deinitly called "antivirus definitions for windows defender"

[Sirus]

Just pointing that setting up the disk with two partitions does have its merits. You can set up so the documents, pics, videos, downloads and desktop folders are in the largest partition, if your OS got flunked and unable to start, simply wipe the OS partition and reinstall a fresh one without worrying about personal files.

How big is the SSD Sirus?

2 TB, I probably could have gone larger but to be honest this is something of a budget upgrade and I was after all planning to move the HDD over for more storage. Worst case scenario, it shouldn't have any issues storing all my stuff on its own.

As for the OS stuff, trust me I'd like to stay on 7. It's been good to me for many years, very reliable and user-friendly. But Microsoft stopped updating that thing years ago, and although I mostly stay off of the sketchy sites these days and keep browser extensions running to block potentially malicious code it only becomes more vulnerable. The reason I'm (mostly) decided on Windows 10 is because I was told that it (specifically the Pro version) is a lot easier to corral into behaving properly compared to 11. I haven't really touched either OS much so it remains to be seen whether or not it can be done.

(Another suggestion was to switch to Linux, but ehhh. We'll see how 10 works before I go diving into that labyrinth.)

-snip for space-

So just to recap these steps (making sure I have them right in my head)
1: build new computer with both drives
2: boot from old HDD
3: download this Partition Master tool
4: clone the C drive (and ONLY the C drive) into the new SSD
5: disconnect HDD and boot from SSD to see it's working
6: reconnect HDD and wipe the C drive from it
7: expand the new SSD C drive and the old HDD D drive so they fill their prospective devices
8: technically optional but will probably happen anyway: upgrade to Windows  10

[Lord Shonus]

Yep, that's what worked best for me. As long as you're real careful, there's no risk of loss if something should go wrong (barring hardware failure that nobody can plan for), because you verify before anything is done.


Also, 2TB is plenty of SSD. Spinny rust is still cheaper by far on a capacity basis, and good enough for most purposes.

[Sirus]

Oh right, I should probably install the partition tool onto the D drive, huh. I don't know if it can clone itself while it's actively working but it's probably better not to risk something like that.

[LordBaal]

It is really unusual to irrevocably fuck up your OS with a problem that doesn't fuck up the entire drive nowadays. A lot of the stuff that you used to be able to avoid by partitioning doesn't care anymore.

Nah, on old windows installs is far too common, and that trick saved time more than once when you had that situation and no other disk or backup devices.

Nowdays is probably not worth the effort, I'll grant you that.

[Lord Shonus]

That's why I said "nowadays". Back in the day it was common to regularly fuck your OS, and a separate partition could help. Nowadays, if something malicious manages to fuck your OS, it is probably going to take everything else out. But it is much harder to fuck up a modern OS than it was in the past. I've been running my current install since early Win7 (upgraded to 10 and then to 11), and I've had two bluescreens. Once because my graphics card was dying, once because I tried to force something to use the wrong driver for some reason.

[Sirus]

So thanks to not having thermal paste (and a few other things) I had to put my build off until today.

I got my most important files backed up onto an external drive (I think I got them all, anyway), but I may hold off on the HDD transfer until I see that the new computer is functional without it. I've got a flash drive set up with that Windows 10 boot tool and will see how things go with that. Also scrounged up a spare monitor and keyboard for initial setup, and my mouse is wireless so it should be easily moved as needed.

[Schmaven]

So thanks to not having thermal paste (and a few other things) I had to put my build off until today.

I got my most important files backed up onto an external drive (I think I got them all, anyway), but I may hold off on the HDD transfer until I see that the new computer is functional without it. I've got a flash drive set up with that Windows 10 boot tool and will see how things go with that. Also scrounged up a spare monitor and keyboard for initial setup, and my mouse is wireless so it should be easily moved as needed.

Thermal paste is such a PITA.  It always takes me like 3 tries to get it right.  The pastes that claim to be the best, also seem to be the most viscous.  So thick, that they're more clay than paste.  I always try them, but end up getting the lowest CPU temps just using the cheap, thin, almost runny thermal paste.  Never has the dot, line, or shape of paste made a difference.  I always have to use 1 of those little plastic spreaders some pastes come with to coat the whole CPU.  YMMV, but good luck.  It is a fun process, despite the seemingly endless possibilities for catastrophic failure 

[wierd]

The usual problem with the premium paste is over application.

Like dippity-do, 'a little dab will do ya.'

If the die area is small, a tiny dot that spreads under pressure of the heat sink retainer is all you need. 'Rice sized drop' is for a full-die contact area!

[Schmaven]

The usual problem with the premium paste is over application.

Like dippity-do, 'a little dab will do ya.'

If the die area is small, a tiny dot that spreads under pressure of the heat sink retainer is all you need. 'Rice sized drop' is for a full-die contact area!

I followed those exact instructions, and it just does not spread sufficiently for some reason that I have yet to identify.  Maybe I just needed to let it run super hot for a while to help spread the paste?  I only gave it like 10 min of alarming temperatures before getting concerned and shutting it down to clean it off and try again.  Little dot, rice size, even triple rice size.  I think the only other possibility is I need to tighten the cooling block connector screws more.  I figured that if it was starting to strain under pressure, that further tightening would cause damage.  I'll get a torque screw driver for my next attempt, and try the little dippity-dos again.  For now, spreading it around with something like a little plastic spatula has my temps in a good range. 

It is pretty cool to see the various splatter patterns the thermal paste makes on the CPU between attempts.  I should take some pictures of it next time.

[Sirus]

I'd like to report that, after many hours of slow and laborious effort, I got the new computer up and running! It is currently going through myriad updates for Windows, after that I'll work on updating the drivers. I've decided that transferring the old HDD can wait until tomorrow or maybe next weekend; right now I am too exhausted to pull the old computer out, open it up, perform the swap, etc

I held off on excessive RGB because that shit's expensive this isn't going to be any sort of display piece, but the GPU does have some glowing bits and they do look rather nice through the tinted glass. Not too much, just enough.

[LordBaal]

Yay!!!!

Thats the best course. Clean install and then pass whatever you need. If you don't have a real need for the old Hdd for extra space you can simply store it as backup!