Advice on replacing hard drives

[Glayn]

Hi all, sorry if this isn't the right place to post this,

I've recently ordered a PC from PCSpecialist with only a 4TB Samsung 870 QVO 2.5" SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (up to 560MB/sR | 530MB/sW) as I want to use the Samsung 960 Evo I have in my current PC (that has my OS on it) and a Samsung 980 Pro someone gifted me (unused so far).

All in all I'll have 1x 870 with the new OS (that I want) on it, 1x 960 with the old OS and files I want to keep on it, and 1x 980 empty and unused.

What would be the best way to go about ending up with the 980 with OS, and files shared between the 960 and 870?

 

[SpyderTracks]

Hi all, sorry if this isn't the right place to post this,

I've recently ordered a PC from PCSpecialist with only a 4TB Samsung 870 QVO 2.5" SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (up to 560MB/sR | 530MB/sW) as I want to use the Samsung 960 Evo I have in my current PC (that has my OS on it) and a Samsung 980 Pro someone gifted me (unused so far).

All in all I'll have 1x 870 with the new OS (that I want) on it, 1x 960 with the old OS and files I want to keep on it, and 1x 980 empty and unused.

What would be the best way to go about ending up with the 980 with OS, and files shared between the 960 and 870?

The easiest way would just be to clean install on the 980 Pro, only takes about 30 minutes.

You could clone the 960 Evo across to the 980, but time wise and stability wise a clean install would be better.

 

[Glayn]

Thank you for the reply,

Is there a good way to remove the OS from the 960 without deleting files? I've never gone so far as to delete an OS before, is it simple enough and I imagine it's simpler for the 870?

 

[SpyderTracks]

Thank you for the reply,

Is there a good way to remove the OS from the 960 without deleting files? I've never gone so far as to delete an OS before, is it simple enough and I imagine it's simpler for the 870?

It's the same on any drive, you just format it. The larger it is the longer it will take, but it's literally 2 clicks in windows.

Cloning is just a copy operation, it doesn't remove anything.

 

[Glayn]

Thank you very kindly!

 

[Glayn]

A bit of a followup to my previous question, since my PC is supposed to be arriving today and I want to know exactly how to set it up properly, how would I delete only the OS from a drive? And I've heard people say you should always uninstall all programs and then re-install them when changing computers, is this true?

 

[Dan.C]

Load all drives into the pc.
Set the 980 drive as boot priority 1 in the BIOS. Install windows here.
The 4TB and 960EVO will just show up as normal drives in Windows File Explorer where you can access the files.

I would suggest moving all the files you want to keep onto the 980 and formatting the 4TB and 960EVO, then you can move the files back if you wish. Sometimes windows can try booting into the wrong drive when two ore more are bootable and can cause other issues, the formatting of the drives will fix this.

The short of it is yes, fresh install all new programs, they may have different drivers among other issues that could have you hunting weird problems for months. Anything that comes on the new computer is fine.

*Cleared up