How To Restore Performance Of A Secondary Ssd Drive Inside Windows
Oct 12, 2012
I have an SSD drive mounted as a secondary master on my motherboard that has lost performance. I did have some things on the drive that I ended up deleting because load times were painfully long. I did not format the drive using the format options in Windows as I know this further degrades performance for SSDs, but there is nothing on the drive at all right now.
My question is, is there a way to secure erase the drive while still inside Windows? All the info I've found regarding secure erasing a drive has to to with having to boot the computer with some disc (insert title), unplugging the sata cable to the drive and plugging it back in, running said program, and erasing the drive. I understand this if the drive is the Primary Master and Windows is to be installed on the drive, but this is not the case for me.
Is there a way to do this inside Windows since its a secondary drive, meaning Windows is on a completely different drive, or is there a program or something for SSDs where you can restore performance inside Windows.
I'm using Windows 7 and I have four hard drives in my computer labeled C, E, F and G. A few days ago I got a BSOD and my computer wouldn't start up after that. I've been having a few problems with the C drive lately so I bought a replacement and restored from my Acronis TrueImage 2010 backup. That went fine and my computer now works as it did before with my F and G drives connected, but not my E drive. If I try to start up with my E drive connected my computer just gets stuck on the "Starting Windows" screen. If I look at my BIOS settings with it connected it is not listed. It's a pretty new drive and I've never had any problems with it before. Please can someone tell me how I can start using it again?
I'm using Windows 7 and I have four hard drives in my computer labeled C, E, F and G. A few days ago I got a BSOD and my computer wouldn't start up after that. I've been having a few problems with the C drive lately so I bought a replacement and restored from my Acronis TrueImage 2010 backup. That went fine and my computer now works as it did before with my F and G drives connected, but not my E drive. If I try to start up with my E drive connected my computer just gets stuck on the "Starting Windows" screen. If I look at my BIOS settings with it connected it is not listed.
I wanted to do a bare metal restore aka Restore my Windows 7 hdd to another hdd for a different system with dissimalr hardware form the original rig it was on. The new rig is a ASRock N68C-S FX Motherboard. the old rig was a MSI K9A2GM. Everythig else is the same (hardware wise). I use the Acronis Backup Restore Cd (latest version) to restore my Windows 7 image and I downloaded all the latest drivers from Nvidia's site (b/c they are the manufacturer of the motherboards chipset..Geforce 7025/nForce 630a. I always get an error after the revovery (which is in the log I pasted below towards the very end). For some reason it cant find the driver for PCIVEN_10DE& DEV_03F1 SUBSYS_03F11849 REV_A3' and 'PCIVEN_10DE & DEV_03F2& SUBSYS_03F21849 & REV_A3' . Whihc I found out are my usb 1.1 and 2.0 controllers made by Nvidia. I would imagine the drivers I downloaded would have covered this. So when I try to boot up windows 7 on the new restored target drive it still restart loops when loading the ATIpcie64.sys driver. If I delete it from the Windows 7 driver folder, windows just starts into Windows start up recovery mode attempting to repair the problem to no avail.
Current setup: C: Boot, Corsair SSD D: Files, samsung HDD
D:/boot files/user/(all user account directories moved here, when possible) I'm wondering if it's possible to install games such as Assasins' Creed or Skrym, but install all game data to this folder?D:/boot files/programs/* Many installers allow you to define a custom installation path, But I am unsure if these games would ask for one or force me to install to the default directory?
I installed windows 7 on my computer that has two hard drives and I tried to remove the secondary drive ( it was used as storage) when I removed the second drive I was then unable to restart my computer. I tried to repair start up from the install disk (3 times) it did not work. when I plug the second drive I am able to start up again. I would like to remove the storage drive and replace with a larger. I bought a wireless seagate 2tb free agent goflex hard drive and wanted to put the 2 tb hard drive into the computer and take my 1 tb drive from the computer and use it in the wireless system.
I would like to reformat my computer to speed it up again. Does reformatting slow down a computer after already being done? I want to keep some of my files, but I will not be using the windows reformat, I plan to use the "restore to factory settings" option. How would I do this? I have a "recovery" drive and I was wondering if I could store the files I want to keep onto that and when I reformat I could just transfer them over. How should I go about reformatting? I know there is a windows option for "restoring to factory settings." And I know that the last time I reformatted I used an hp tool to restore to factory settings.
I just instaled a ssd and im usen that to boot from and have another drive as slave what do i need to do to play games from that drive? Also can i install games to the secondary the slave and play from that to save space on my ssd?
I just placed an old hard drive into my computer to use as a slave. After I booted up on my current hard drive I went into disk manager and tried to format all the partitions. I formated one easily but the other won't seem to format. The option to format or delete volume are both greyed out.I then tried to boot from my Windows 7 disk to format the drive that way but it said it could not format dymanic drives. I can't change the drive to basic without deleting the last simple volume.
Instead of installing programs on the main OS Drive and installing on a secondary drive or partition, I should still be able to run the programs if I decide to format the OS drive and reinstall Windows. If so, the problem I'm seeing is that Windows won't know those programs are installed (like using the search bar to find programs or the program list) since whatever registry entries the program installer made will be wiped. Is there an easy way to back it up?Or is it advisable to just reinstall everything when I reformat?
When I turn ON (cool boot) I get a message that says "SATA secondary drive 0 not found" press F1 to continue or F2 to set the BIOS. Either way I choose the drive always show up in the Device Manager and works fine, except that I always get the same message when turn ON the computer. It never does it during re-start.
I am having issues with my computer and am planning on reformatting. I have a terabite hard drive which I moved everything to and a half terrabite hard drive which has Windows 7 and all that on it. If I reformat will it remove everything from all the hard drives or just the one I choose to install Windows 7 on?
i recently updated my OS from Windows XP to Windows 7. I have two HDD one for my OS install and one for my documents etc. I wiped clean for a fresh install the OS drive which removed XP and now contains Win7. The documents drive however wont open. I keep receiving the same message which is...F: is not accessible.Access is denied.I have tried numerous tutorials and browsed many forums where people have had the problem. The techniques ive tried include changing permissions from the properties, trying to change permission through cmd and all the rest. Another piece of information is that when i look at the properties of the drive it shows that its empty.
Free Space: 0bytes Used Space: 0bytes Capacity: 0bytes
The drive contains all the files i backed up from my previous OS and all the files that was originally on it.
I've recently uninstalled itunes. When i restarted my PC i noticed that my internal secondary drive was missing. Reboot and still nothing. Powerdown wait 30 sec and swjtch back on: still missing. I finally opened it up unplugged it and replugged it and it found it again.
I then rebooted again and again it was missing repeated steps above same result.
Dont know what to do ant its a hassle to open it up every time. Windows 7 ultimate. Sata Seagate barracuda 2tb
So earlier this year I constructed my first computer, which I sunk about 2k into and made fantastic . But, having no experience, I installed a 32 bit Windows 7 OS, thereby limiting my available RAM. Since I am a gamer, this is a bit of an issue. Now I have a new SSD, and I was wondering if I could simply load a 64 bit OS onto that drive and boot from there, thereby avoiding the reformatting of my current drive.
The primary drive is a 1TB regular hard drive, the secondary is a 64Gig Samsung 830 SSD.
I have a Core 2 Duo PC with 2 SATA internal drives:
Seagate 320 gig, with C and D partitions. C contains a legit retail upgrade version of Vista Home. D is for data.
Western Digital 640 gig, with a single E partition, currently used as backup.
I ordered a Windows 7 Home Premium retail upgrade at the discounted price a few months ago and expect it in a month.
My Seagate drive is running low on space and I want to retire it. I would like to boot to the Win 7 DVD, have my Vista install on the Seagate recognized, and then do a clean install of Windows 7 on the Western Digital drive, currently E.
I hope to buy another considerably larger backup drive shortly to replace the Western Digital as a backup drive.
Will the WD drive be available as a location for the installation in these circumstances?
Any previous time I have installed MS operating systems, I always chose to install to the same drive as the existing OS. This time things are different due to little space on the Seagate drive. Windows 7 would certainly fit on my current C, but I want to retire that drive.
Or will this remain a complete unknown until some time after October 22?
Or will I be forced to install to the Seagate and then somehow migrate the install to the WD?
I have not played with the RC, so I don't know what options are normally presented during the install.
I have a bit of a strange question about installing the Windows 7 upgrade. I'll try to keep it as simple as I can. Firstly
1: I currently have Windows XP SP3 Home Edition installed (and activated) on my 160GB WD Caviar Blue hard drive, which has 8MB cache. It's getting a bit full now.
2. This hard drive is one of the few remnants of a Dell machine I bought a few years ago.
Surprisingly, the restore disk still works and activates, even though I've changed the motherboard and a number of other things over the years. My last reinstall was about a year ago, and I had no problems reactivating whatsoever - I didn't even need to phone Microsoft.
However I doubt it'll install and activate on a new hard drive - particularly as I've also changed the DVD drive since my last activation (as the old one broke), literally the only things remaining from the old system would be the RAM and the processor.
2: I have purchased a 500GB WD Caviar Blue with 16MB Cache
3: I intend to buy Windows 7 Pro Upgrade from TheUltimateSteal for £30. I'm a student, but will be graduating soon, so it seems sensible to take advantage of this offer while I can.
4. Clearly I can install Windows 7 in the normal way onto my current drive and use the 500GB drive for backing up my files, which I'll do if that's the only option.
5. However, if I did that I would not be taking full advantage of the extra cache of the new drive. It would be nice if I could use that for my primary installation to speed things up a bit.
So here's my question:
If I start the upgrade process having booted from the 160GB drive, but during installation select my 500GB drive as the target for the installation, will Windows 7 install and activate correctly? Will it recognise the pre-existing installation, even though it was on a different drive?
If not, then:
If I install my Dell restore disk on the new drive, and don't activate Windows (which presumably I won't be able to), and then run the Windows 7 upgrade on THAT drive, will Windows 7 install and activate correctly?
Basically, is there a legitimate way of installing a Windows 7 Upgrade onto the 500GB drive, on the basis of there currently being a valid XP installation on the 160GB drive?
I have no intention of continuing to use XP after the upgrade, if I am able to install and activate Windows 7 to the new drive, then this will serve only as a backup for my files.
Has anybody tried something similar and succeeded/failed?
I've already read the tutorials on here about doing a clean install of Windows 7. I'd like to avoid dodgy workarounds, as I'd rather not run into problems further down the line when it comes to updates and that sort of thing.
Using Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit. W/ASUS P7P55D Deluxe board. Very stable and non buggy. Computer was running great with multiple drives. I substituted one of my 1TB drives with a brand new Seagate 3 TB drive. With the new drive hooked up, the computer will not boot and gives a message that there is no hard drive detected, put media in and hit the key. (something to that effect).
If I enter the bios in the condition, it shows all the drives in their correct order and the boot sequence is the first hard drive, CD, etc. It has detected the new drive as drive #3. But it will not boot. But, if I disconnect the new drive (power and SATA connector), the compute will boot up fine. I have checked all the connectors ad they seem fine. Is there something about the sequence in which the SATA connectors have to be connected?
I recently reformatted my Windows 7 32bit system on my primary HDD (C). When I open My Computer, my secondary HDD (D) appears, but when I try to open it, it shows as empty. However, if I look at the properties of D, it says that only 200gb out of 500gb of free space is available. I booted into a live version of Ubuntu and the secondary HDD appears with all data in it and accessible, so I know there is nothing physically wrong with the drive. I know that I could brute force this problem by making a copy of the drive in Ubuntu, then reformatting it in Win7, but I'm hoping there's an easier solution that I'm just not aware of.
Ran into issues on build day 2 days ago with crashing driver issues etc. installing drivers was actinglike fliles were corrupt even off the disks.I replaced cables on drives, swapped the Bios for the SATA ports to mimic IDE, installed new version of windows with the Seagate not plugged in. Installed drivers for Mother Board rebooted to Bios swapped back from IDE on the SATA.Puts around a bit no real issues, installed the data drive rebooted and started to install software from steam and origin as well as Windows updates.BSOD a few times,Logged off ran memtest over night passed all 7 tests, ran again on each stick all passed.Windows is freezing trying to install all the updates that is the latest bsod in the log file.the 2tb drive is still uninstalled but seems stable.Not sure what is causing this, I did run CCleaner a few mins ago and it puked a ton of registery errors cleaned them up ran again found more, cleaned now it says it is clean.Here is the zip I am at wits end and do not want to RMA the Seagate if i dont have to but willing to if you all think that is my problem.
I have a 120GB SSD for system etc. I have a 1TB HDD for everything else. How do I change the default program files folders (x86 and regular) so that when I am installing a program the first choice is on this second drive instead of C?
The past few months, something strange is going on with my external USB 2.0 1TB hard drive which I use for weekly backup. Various activities cause the drive to wake up, which slows Windows 7 (Ultimate 64-bit) down for a few seconds until the drive is fully spun up. Actions include emptying the recycle bin, downloading files in Firefox, and occasionally clicking links in Chrome. I've even turned off recycle bin for that drive, but no difference. There are no references to that drive in the Windows environmental variables or browser configuration. With system/hidden files visible, I see no files on the drive which indicate a temp cache or virtual memory file. C: is the only drive being used for virtual memory. I've got 8GB of system memory and 1GB of video memory, plus plenty of hard drive space. I've been supporting/using Windows for many years, but this has me baffled.
My PC's Windows Experience index rating is currently at 5.9 due to my HDD. It's a Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500GB. Which HDD should I look at to get more performance out of the rig? All the other fields are in the 7.0 to 7.6 range.
Is there a site, much like the video card comparisons, that lets you compare two specific hard drives, in terms of performance?
For example, if I wanted to find out which drive offered better performance, a Seagate 7200.12 1 TB drive, or a 500 GB Western Digital Green drive.
I have a pile of older hard drives like this and I'd love to be able to rank them in terms of performance, to figure out what to keep and what to sell.
I just had a strange experience I don't know how to interpret. I got a used laptop that was distressed and would not boot. I pulled the 500GB SATA II drive and ran some tests on it, and was dismayed to find transfer rates of under 20MB/s. I ran CHKDSK on it, which produced no errors and did not change the performance. The drive passed all SMART and self-tests.So I put the drive back in its machine and began to try to repair the boot. That led to trying to do a factory recovery, but that also failed. Finally I decided to install Windows 7 afresh from a DVD, and as part of that I deleted the two existing installation partitions and let Windows create new ones. That went very smoothly, and after all the dust settled I ran some performance tests on the drive again. Now the drive was clocking somewhere in the 70MB/s range!
I just re-replaced my Segate ST31000340AS with a new Segate ST32000641AS (64m / 600mb) double the old drive. Did a clean install the 5.9 number did not change. Anyone knows why?
I would like to know, if creating another partition, dedicated to media, would increase performance, and screen capture speed, like a separate hard disk would. I don't think it would because its still running on the same sata cable, meaning the transfer speed cant be dispersed, but I figured id ask to be sure. If I would get even a slight boost from this than I will defrag, and shrink my partition and add another for media.
My problem is slow usb transfer rate - at first it start off real good (70-80 mb/s then within 10 sec it drops down to 3 and even 1 mb/s). 1.5 mb file gets into my flash drive in 10 min or so. Now I've formatted flash drives, no change. Write-caching enabled, "best performance" for flash drives enabled... Tried on a Lap-Top - transfer rate is not so high, but stable all the time - 15-12 mb/s. Remote Differential Compression disabled. Transfer rate within the hard drives in my computer is OK (I got 2). I don't know if it's the Windows 7 problem or the motherboard problem or hard drives config problem.
Here is my info: Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit HDD's: Samsung 500bg and ST 320 bg, both 16 mb 7200 mobo - GA-770T-D3L, v.1. RAM - 8gb Phenom IIx6
