Upgrading XP to Windows 8 with an SSD

Marty999

My wife has a Dell Mini 10 netbook which is about 3 years old and quite slow, despite me having cleaned it up and having upgraded her RAM to 2GB. I was thinking of installing Windows XP on a new SSD to speed things up for her (I built my own desktop PC with W7 on an SSD), but then I discovered it is not recommended to run XP on an SSD due to the lack of TRIM support. I understand I would also need to create a partition using my W7 installation CD to ensure correct alignment before installing XP anyway.

I have now seen Windows 8 upgrade disks available to go from from XP to W8 and these are advertised for around £45, so my question is this: is it possible to install XP on an SSD and then immediately upgrade it to W8 so that it functions properly with TRIM support?

MadTechie

You should be able to use the windows update DVD to boot and install Win8 on a clean PC,

Due to the lack of TRIM support on XP, it means the life of the SSD will be reduced.

Marty999

Thanks MadTechie, but I was hoping that Windows 8 would provide the TRIM support?

System

I would suggest that you run the upgrade advisor on the netbook first just to check. Windows 8 expects some particular BIOS abilities such as NX, EDB etc

MadTechie

Also I got Windows 8 for £25 online. (prices shown in dollars)

after running the program, and paying for it on its form. I seams like its going to install on the PC your running the program on (kinda worrying as I didn't plan on installing yet!,
in any once its finished (didn't install anything) it give you the option to create a ISO, that is did, so i could burn to DVD later

System

be careful with a netbook as the minimum screen resolution for windows 8 is sometimes bigger than a netbook can support

MadTechie

Marty999 wrote: »

Thanks MadTechie, but I was hoping that Windows 8 would provide the TRIM support?

Yes windows 8 does provide TRIM support, windows XP lack TRIM support,

as for the BIOS, if you have SSD and Windows 7+ then turn on AHCI mode prior to install

Depending on the make of the SSD drive you many be able to get a firmware upgrade to allow idle garbage collection on XP, while this isn't TRIM it would mean the drive would live longer under the XP OS

if you need XP on the system ,then you could install windows 8 and then a Virtual PC/Machine and install Windows XP on that.. but thats probably not what your asking

Lum

As others have said Win 7 and 8 have TRIM support, but if you insist on sticking with XP it's not the end of the world if you research your choice of SSD carefully. Ones based on Sandforce controllers don't suffer too badly due to lack of TRIM, for example.

Lack of TRIM does not reduce the life of the SSD, it means that the speed of writing to the disk will degrade over time.

You can manually run a TRIM process once a week or whatever, similar to how you would have to defrag a mechanical hard drive. The drive manufacturer should (hopefully) provide a tool to do this.

That said, getting rid of XP is still a good thing to do, and for £25 it's a bargain.
Just beware that after replacing the hard drive, an upgrade install of Windows 8 needs to be installed on top of XP or it will refuse to activate without a workaround.

The way I'd go about it in your situation would be.
Run the upgrade assistant, pay the £25, download the Windows 8 ISO and burn to DVD.
Write down the product key that they email to you! Double check it!
Shut down, Replace hard drive with SSD
Switch PC on, go into the BIOS, make sure that your disk controller is set to AHCI, not IDE
Boot the Windows 8 DVD and install.
Apply the workaround linked above.
Buy a 2.5" USB -> SATA enclosure, install your old hard drive in it, enjoy your new external drive with lots of data on it

If you don't like the look of that workaround, then it will be necessary to install and activate Windows XP on your new SSD before installing Windows 8.

Marty999

Thanks for your replies folks. My thinking is that if I install W8 on top of XP, that will provide TRIM and it won't matter that XP was ever there in the first place.

Lum

Marty999 wrote: »

Thanks for your replies folks. My thinking is that if I install W8 on top of XP, that will provide TRIM and it won't matter that XP was ever there in the first place.

Correct, however to ensure correct partition alignment, when you're in the Windows 8 setup utility, go to Drive Options (advanced) and delete the XP partition, then choose to install Windows 8 in the unpartitioned space.

The XP installer is not aware of SSDs so it is not guaranteed that it will align the partition correctly.

Personally I'd just save myself an hour by using the workaround I linked and not install XP at all. This is what I intend to do when the SSD for my laptop arrives and I need to reinstall Win8.

Marty999

the_r_sole wrote: »

be careful with a netbook as the minimum screen resolution for windows 8 is sometimes bigger than a netbook can support

Yes you were right about this, I ran the W8 Upgrade Assistant on the netbook and it says the minimum resolution is 1024 x 768 and the best the netbook can offer is 1024 x 576. That's a shame as the £25 upgrade deal is a really good price, and the cheapest I can get W7 for is around £50. The only other problem area is it says the PC's firmware doesn't support Secure Boot (whatever that is) and I wouldn't be able to use it with W8, so it looks like a bit of a non-starter then.