Guys, I know we have talked about this somewhere, but what's the basic procedure for installing an SSD.  I mean things like Trim if that's right and so on.  I remember you have to switch off defragmenting...what else was there to do.

I'll be installing XP on SSD too, is it the same procedure.  No major rush, just planning ahead and thanks if you get the time to do the steps I need to consider.  I made this new thread for future reference.

With XP, there's a procedure where you have to "align" the drive first (Vista and later do this automatically), plus there's a special AHCI driver required, and you're right about shutting of defrag. Let me find a reputable article on the subject. BRB

Here we go. What better resource than the manufacturer?

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/wiki/index.php?title=How_to_set_up_Windows_on_a_VERTEX

Thank you Dave.  Presumably it's the same for Agility drives then 

I can do this from Windows 7 then it seems.  I just connect it to my 7 machine and do the align thing.

So I will have to build my 7 machine first then do Mum and Dad's XP PC.

When it says 'SPARE' in capitals like that is it meant to mean something in particular, or just simply connecting it via SATA as with any other drive ?

Note to self : turn off indexing  

Good thing about the refurbished one is it has up-to-date firmware.

They just mean that it's to be set up as anything other than the primary drive. You can certainly name it SPARE if you like, but it's not necessary.

When setting up the drive from Win7, it's still probably a good idea to use the command line to create the partition, though I don't think it's 100% necessary. Best to be safe though.

OK gotcha, thanks Dave 

Just wondering, since my XP SSD would have come from a working Windows 7 machine, shouldn't it already be aligned okay ?  In that case, can I just format it when I install XP on it ?

Yes, that's right. The command line thing is only a "just in case" sort of thing, and while not aligning the drives is a bad thing, it's not a complete disaster.

Ok thanks, I will try that first then 

Was too sleepy last night didn't get the chance to reply to this, however I think Dave has done most of it already. I would have said something like this.

First partition the new drive in a windows 7 machine with AHCI mode enabled. (Note I have always used windows 7 disk manger for that and never command prompt, I think either will do like Dave said)

Then the drive is ready to put in the new machine just make sure you have AHCI mode enabled in the new BIOS.


The XP machine might cause you problems, early versions of XP don't have an AHCI driver on the windows disk, somehow you have to get the AHCI driver in before you can  install windows. There are a few ways of doing that but for an easy life I think I would disable AHCI and install XP without it. XP doesn't fully support SSD, so IDE mode would be fine.

I would delete the partition on the old SSD using your new Windows 7 build machine and format it with FAT NTFS then it will be ready for XP.

That's about it. 

Quote from: Data on July 13, 2013, 11:11:07 AM

I would delete the partition on the old SSD using your new Windows 7 build machine and format it with FAT NTFS then it will be ready for

FAT NTFS? One or the other surely? I would've thought it would be in NTFS already.

It wont have any FAT once Freddy deletes the partition will it ? 

Cool thanks Data.