Fresh install of Windows 7 "problems"

[prosthotoothist]

Hello all,

I need help in deciding how to proceed from my current setup. Currently I have several drives in my computer and all are HDD except for a new 1TB Samsung 850 EVO SSD onto which I cloned the “C” drive from my old HDD. I used the migration software that came with the SSD and it worked well and all of the programs that were migrated work as well.

I have a huge number of programs and files on the original “C” drive and now on the “C” partition of the new SSD. I am running Windows 7 Ultimate with SP1 installed. Windows 7 was installed very soon after it became available and before the SP1 was made available. I downloaded the SP1 file and installed it and it shows up in the Windows properties.

Since I had only HDDs when the Win 7 was installed, the storage configuration was set to IDE. Now that my system drive is an SSD, I have tried to change the IDE to AHCI since this is supposed to provide much improved performance for SSDs. I have tried everything that has been found on the internet as well as information provided by members of multiple forums and none of them have worked. It seems that I am now faced with a dilemma, either leave things as they are in the IDE mode or do a fresh install of Windows 7 to get to the AHCI mode for the SSD.

I still have the original HDD from which the OS, programs, and files were migrated. The SSD is partitioned into a 100 MB System Reserved partition and a 737 GB OS and programs partition. There are 194 GB of unallocated space on the drive. Now here is where I would like to have some help to determine if I can do the following: (1) Do a fresh Win 7 install on the “C” partition which would wipe out all that is on that partition and hopefully get rid of any problems. Then (2) install the SP1 files and finally, (3) use a program such as Paragon Hard Disk Manager Suite 15 to migrate all of the programs and files from the original “C” HDD onto the SSD. If these steps can be done successfully, then I should be able to select the AHCI drivers during the new Win 7 install and my problem would be solved.

Does anyone think that what I have suggested can be done successfully? Because my machine is used for a multitude of different purposes, there are many programs on it that have taken hours and hours of time to get properly configured and working properly, so that is why I have resisted doing a fresh install of Windows 7. But now, I have to face the fact that the “simple” act of changing IDE to AHCI is not going to work for me, so a new install has to be done.

If you have read this far, thanks and I hope that you might give me some guidance in this process.

Regards,

Tom

 

[carnageX]

H
I still have the original HDD from which the OS, programs, and files were migrated. The SSD is partitioned into a 100 MB System Reserved partition and a 737 GB OS and programs partition. There are 194 GB of unallocated space on the drive. Now here is where I would like to have some help to determine if I can do the following: (1) Do a fresh Win 7 install on the “C” partition which would wipe out all that is on that partition and hopefully get rid of any problems. Then (2) install the SP1 files and finally,

Combine these 2 steps by just getting a new Win7 disc with SP1 integrated into it:
[Legal Download: Windows 7 with SP1, 13 languages
Download the ISO that matches the version you have already, and burn that to disc or put it on a flash drive.

(3) use a program such as Paragon Hard Disk Manager Suite 15 to migrate all of the programs and files from the original “C” HDD onto the SSD. If these steps can be done successfully, then I should be able to select the AHCI drivers during the new Win 7 install and my problem would be solved.

You won't be able to just "move" programs over for the most part, because some have dependencies scattered throughout the system that get put in place during the install, as well as registry keys that get written during install.

See if you can backup the softwares' configuration files and then import them onto a fresh install of the software.

 

[prosthotoothist]

Hi CarnageX,

Again, I want to thank you for taking the time to read my post and give me a very informative response. As you indicate, it seems that there is not as "simple" a solution to the IDE/AHCI issue as I would like, so I have finally decided that since I have a working computer, I will leave well enough alone! However, I have a new issue that hopefully you can shed some light on. First a little history: I decided to be brave and downloaded the Win 10 Technical Preview and to do a dual boot install along with the Win 7 that I have on the SSD. My idea was that the Win 10 install would give me the opportunity to activate the AHCI drivers during the installation and I could see how much difference it would make in the performance of the SSD. In setting up the SSD for the migration, I had a 115 GB partition left after creating the partition for the OS, so that is the partition that I tried to use for the new installation, but I simply could not get it to work and tried all kinds of reconfiguring of the partitions on the SSD. I deleted the extra partition and had just free space which did not work, I increased the size of the partition, again this did not work. I made these types of changes many times hoping for something to work, but alas, nothing did. I just gave up on the Win 10 idea because each failure was because the install could not update the System Reserved Partition. I assumed that it was because there was only about 6 MB of space in the partition.

When I originally migrated the OS and programs/files from the old HDD using the Samsung Migration software, a 100 MB partition was created as DATA "E". Actually I think it should have been called "System Reserved", but I don't remember if I named it or if it got named automatically by the software. About 94 MB of the 100 were used and apparently most of it is in the "System Volume Information" folder, but its contents are hidden so I can't see them. Yesterday when I was working on a project in 3ds Max, I got a message at the bottom of the screen indicating that drive "E" was getting low on space. I thought that was strange since I was not doling anything with drive "E", so I checked and sure enough, there was virtually no space left in the partition. As I continued to work on my project, the message appeared several times and now as I am typing this message, it just appeared again. Since the "E" partition is for system stuff, did my changing (repeatedly) the partitions/free space situation on the SSD affect this partition. The message says to see if I can free up some space on the "E" partition. I am at a total loss as to what I should do since everything in this partition must be important or it wouldn't be there. Expanding the partition is not an available option, so do you have any suggestions and to how I should handle this problem? I keep thinking that lurking around the corner is a problem that could get serious. As I am finishing this message, I have counted 4 more times that the "E" space issue has popped up. What is going on?

Regards and help,

Tom

 

[carnageX]

Post a screenshot of your Disk Management screen, please.

You can get to Disk Management by going to Start -> right click 'Computer' -> Manage... -> click 'Disk management' on the left-side panel

 

[prosthotoothist]

Here is the screen shot:

 

[carnageX]

You don't need a drive letter assigned to the System Partition (what you have labeled as E: currently). That is used only by the system, which contains boot record info. So remove the drive letter off of that and you won't receive the low storage notification anymore.

Also, you have unallocated space on your 1TB drive...you could expand your C: drive over (unless that was the space you tried to allocate for Win10?).

For reference, here's my Disk management screen

 

[prosthotoothist]

CarnageX,

Thanks for the latest info. I have removed the "E" and renamed the partition to System Reserved and also expanded the "C" to include all of the unallocated space. So, now I should be good to go and just forget about the IDE/AHCI issues. Once I installed the new SSD, I could tell an immediate speed-up in my machine, so I will just be happy for that and continue to do my work.

Many thanks for your help.

Tom

 

[carnageX]

No problem.