New SSD

[kenneth18278]

Welcome to the wild and wacky world of Computer Upgrades. Before you know whats what you'll be subscribing to computer magazines, eagerly awaiting the release of the latest graphics card and obsessing over cable management and airflow. [/COLOR]:hehe:

I will, I will. I'll get right on that! Oh, hang on - the pub's open, my promotion to computer expert will have to go on the back burner:'(

Ken

 

[lewisner]

I will, I will. I'll get right on that! Oh, hang on - the pub's open, my promotion to computer expert will have to go on the back burner:'(

Ken

Hope you haven't got a smartphone. My nightmare is going into the pub and bumping into my friends Mr Stella and Mr Heineken who point out to me how easy it is to order expensive things for my PC on my phone. I resist but the more time I spend with them........

 

[kenneth18278]

Hope you haven't got a smartphone. My nightmare is going into the pub and bumping into my friends Mr Stella and Mr Heineken who point out to me how easy it is to order expensive things for my PC on my phone. I resist but the more time I spend with them........

Yes, I do have a smart phone, but luckily I'm not smart enough to use it. So I leave it turned off so I'm not interrupted during the serious business of catching up with my old mate Carl Sberg.

Ken

 

[fran1]

Installed a vertex 3 for my O/S and drivers etc, boots up in seconds. Great stuff.
Went to the OCZ site for firmware update and get this message (see below). Now apart from the obvious how do I update ?

*CURRENT FIRMWARE RELEASE is v2.25

Updating the firmware from the toolbox is not supported when Windows is running off the drive you are trying to update.

-Toolbox will not update a primary system drive (e.g. drive letter "C:"). You must run Windows from another drive and then update your SSD using Toolbox.

 

[clam1952]

Effectively you don't unless you install Windows on a different drive, or put the drive in another PC so you can update it. OCZ recommend not updating unless absolutely necessary, I read that as only if you have problems. Ideally you do any updating before you have installed an OS on it by booting on the existing system drive and updating it first.
Could probably do it if you have a Linux Live CD and boot from that.

As far as I'm aware the latest update after 2.2 is only applicable to some minor errors in the Smart reporting that probably won't be understood by most people and has no effect on actually using the drives or their life.

 

[fran1]

Basically leave well alone then unless there are problems.

 

[kenneth18278]

I think Malc and fran1 are right. I've just been on to the website to check for my Vertex Plus, and it recommended not bothering unless you have to, and the fixes seem to be nothing to get excited about. So not worth the hassle. I only have Trainz on my SSD anyway, as my OS boots fine on the original platter disk. Somewhere under a minute, so I'm happy with it. Might one day get another SSD for the OS, but that would mean a reinstall of Windows and I can't be bothered doing that and then formatting the old HDD, and then reinstalling everything else that was on it. It ain't broke, I ain't gonna fix it.

Ken

 

[fran1]

Might one day get another SSD for the OS, but that would mean a reinstall of Windows

Ken

And the joys of all the updates and re installing drivers and more updates et al.

 

[clam1952]

Very easy solution to the "reinstall" Windows problem, I didn't, I used Paragons free backup and restore made an image of the system disk while still in the PC, hooked up the SSD and restored the image to the SSD boot into bios and change the boot order, or swap the cables round, reboot and you are on the SSD, If all OK format the old disk and use for something else. It's a lot quicker than reinstalling and you don't need to reinstall any applications whatever drive they are on, advantage is now I have disk images for all my three current PC's I can restore in 20 minutes. Image is a lot smaller than the actual size this PC's is about 20GB for a disk that contains around 55GB of data. Paragons program can restore on any size disk or partition so long as it's big enough so putting the OS on another drive is easy.

 

[fran1]

I very nearly left my old drive in and copied everything across, I did with trainz.
Clam, anything special about a format for an SSD ? As per an HDD.

 

[clam1952]

No difference, just format as normal.

 

[fran1]

No difference, just format as normal.

I'll transfer content then, quite a bit of stuff I've found I need.

 

[clam1952]

Careful just copying doesn't work with programs that uses the registry, as the registry from the new install won't know the stuff exists that's why you need to clone the original disk and then restore so it retains the correct registry entries, MBR, boot record etc.

 

[kenneth18278]

Very easy solution to the "reinstall" Windows problem, I didn't, I used Paragons free backup and restore made an image of the system disk while still in the PC, hooked up the SSD and restored the image to the SSD boot into bios and change the boot order, or swap the cables round, reboot and you are on the SSD, If all OK format the old disk and use for something else. It's a lot quicker than reinstalling and you don't need to reinstall any applications whatever drive they are on, advantage is now I have disk images for all my three current PC's I can restore in 20 minutes. Image is a lot smaller than the actual size this PC's is about 20GB for a disk that contains around 55GB of data. Paragons program can restore on any size disk or partition so long as it's big enough so putting the OS on another drive is easy.

Malc,
Paragon looks like it might be well worth looking into should I ever decide to bite the bullet, but couldn't I do it from within backup in Windows 7. Or is that just to restore to the same physical drive? Reason I ask is that if eBuyer put a decent SSD on special, I might be unable to resist the temptation. And despite the fact that I usually manage OK with this computer stuff, some things are still new to me, indeed some things are still new. The pace of progress sometimes outpaces me!

Ken

 

[fran1]

Careful just copying doesn't work with programs that uses the registry, as the registry from the new install won't know the stuff exists that's why you need to clone the original disk and then restore so it retains the correct registry entries, MBR, boot record etc.

I'll download paragon and use that. Cheers.

 

[kenneth18278]

Actually, I've just checked my programs, and I have Easus Mini-Tool Partition Manager which has a Wizard for copying a complete disk installation to another disk.

Ken

 

[clam1952]

I'm pretty sure Windows backup will only restore the disk contents, don't think it will recreate the MBR and boot sector, may be wrong though to be honest, I've never looked at apart from turning of the you haven't backed up nag, I backup using other means. Easus is pretty nifty as well got a copy of that somewhere.
Ebuyer, my favourite store, bargains is why I now have 3 SSD's and a completely, apart from PSU and case, rebuilt PC, final bit, the GTX 680 arrived on Tuesday.

 

[fran1]

I find Ebuyer a bit addictive at times, every now and again I just can't resist the price.

 

[kenneth18278]

Just a quick update for anyone interested. eBuyer tempted me with a Sandisk 240GB SATA3, and I fell to that temptation. Easus Partition Manager's "Copy Disk" function did the business (once I had all the connections, uh, connected properly) and my machine is now turbocharged. I've not yet formatted my old drive installation just in case of problems. Point is, Easus is free, does the job and the benefits are worth the time and expense (to me, anyway) - and I don't have to bother DLing updates and drivers and updates for drivers.

Regards to all, and thanks for your input and advice. Very much appreciated, and a great help.

Ken