Replacing HDD with SSD

shaun_from_Africa

Sorry S0litaire, I wasn't ignoring your suggestion. (I've only just seen it).

Just to update.
I replaced the HDD with an SSD I bought from Amazon (Kingston 120GB for £72), and the cloning and installation was far easier than I expected. I had a small glitch with Windows not starting up but a quick repair with the windows repair program on a USB stick sorted this out.

The computer is running perfectly and the startup and response times have improved greatly. (from pressing the start button, it is fully started up and running with internet access in 25 seconds).

Thanks for all of the advice given.

SFA.

almillar

What version of Windows are you using again? You'll want to check that you're using AHCI on the SSD drive. If you have a google around there's some command line you enter in Windows to find out. Windows 7 onwards checks on INSTALLATION if it's going onto an SSD and activates AHCI, and since you haven't done that it may not be using it.

anotheruser

almillar wrote: »

I've said it before as general advice, but if I was moving to SSD, I'd want to:
Get the BIOS settings right (AHCI?)
Install at least Windows 7 FRESH (don't clone)
I really don't know why people cling so tightly to WinXP whilst using the latest hardware.

THIS

There are many problems when cloning from HDD to SSD; it would be so much better to start again as you might just transfer most of the bloat to your new SSD.

Also consider getting rid of AVG. Look at all those processes it uses. Download Microsoft Security Essentials, which is fine for home use.

Also, you cannot change BIOS settings to AHCI if you have already installed. It is possible but not practical.

But as I see you have already done it then I guess this is just my opinion.

50Twuncle

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

I have a PC that is mainly used for web surfing, and although it's not the fastest in the world, the spec is more that good enough for its intended purpose.
However, I think that the HDD is on the way out (it's about 5 years old) as it occasionally make a humming noise (bearings possibly?), so I'm going to replace it.

As the price of SSD has dropped greatly in the past few years, I was thinking of getting one of these to go in there as the computer does take a fair while to start up. The HDD is 150GB but only about 40GB is used and there are no partitions on the drive.

I can get a 120GB SSD for about £70 but I was wondering about cloning the HDD that is fitted.
I read somewhere that when cloning a drive, it is best if the replacement drive is the same size as the original and I was wondering if someone could let me know if I should expect any problems with what I intend doing.

As only about 40GB is currently used, I can't see why there would be a problem, but I just wanted to make sure before I go ahead and order it.

The PC in question is running XP pro with a 2 core 2.66Ghz processor and 4GB of RAM.

I recently fitted a 240Gb Crucial SSD to my i7 PC and it was a brilliant upgrade - cost £135 to run alongside my existing 1.5Tb HDD - so different size - no problems !!
I also upgraded my RAM from 4Gb to 12Gb - the PC boots up from cold to useable in 10 secs !
I would definitely upgrade to Win 7 though - XP will not prevent the DEFRAGGING process - which kills SSD's.

thor

I echo all the comments advising to ditch XP for windows 7. It will be painful starting from scratch but the advantages far outweighs the negatives.
Also agree with previous poster about making sure you set AHCI rather than IDE during installation. I did not do this and it took a lot of reading around to get it done after Win7 had been installed. Having said that, it doesn't appear to make much of a difference.