HOW TO MAKE YOUR SSD YOUR BOOT DRIVE HOW TO
HOW TO MAKE YOUR SSD YOUR BOOT DRIVE INSTALL
HOW TO MAKE YOUR SSD YOUR BOOT DRIVE FULL
HOW TO MAKE YOUR SSD YOUR BOOT DRIVE WINDOWS 8
HOW TO MAKE YOUR SSD YOUR BOOT DRIVE TV

SSDs are, technologically, the new kid on the block. Remember, since your new hard drive is smaller than your old one, youвЂ™ll need to find a new permanent place to store them, so pick the solution that works best for you long-term. Once youвЂ™ve moved all your stuff over to your cloud folders, you can unsync them to free up that drive space. Just keep in mind that if you donвЂ™t have your personal files stored to the cloud yet, it might take a while (like days or even weeks) to upload them, so just be prepared.

Cloud storage: If you donвЂ™t have any extra hard drives, you could move those extra files toВ a cloud-based solution like Dropbox or OneDrive.

HOW TO MAKE YOUR SSD YOUR BOOT DRIVE HOW TO

RELATED: How to Save Drive Space by Offloading Local Files to the Cloud You can even move the location of your Documents, Music, and other foldersВ after you migrate, so Windows never skips a beat.

A second internal drive: This usually isnвЂ™t an option available to a lot of laptop users, but if youвЂ™re a desktop user, you could buy a large, cheap extra hard drive and move your files to that.

You will need to move all your precious files over to it in order to slim down your Windows partition.

An external hard drive: If you have an external hard drive lying around (that you arenвЂ™t using for important backups!), nowвЂ™s the time to use it.

If you run out of things to delete, it means youвЂ™llВ have to find a new place to store personal files such as your pictures, documents, movies, music, and more, because they wonвЂ™t fit on your new drive. ThatвЂ™ll help a little, but in some cases, it may not be enough. You may even want to run a program like CCleaner to make sure everything is squeaky clean. Uninstall any programs you donвЂ™t use anymore, then run Disk CleanupВ to get rid of any other junk on your system.

HOW TO MAKE YOUR SSD YOUR BOOT DRIVE TV

That means old movies, TV shows, music, old backups, and anything else that takes up a lot of space. Start by deleting any files you donвЂ™t need. RELATED: 7 Ways To Free Up Hard Disk Space On Windows So, before you migrate your data, youвЂ™ll need to clean up your current hard drive. YouвЂ™ll probably encounter something similar. In the two screenshots below, you see our old driveвЂ™s (left) used space (141 GB) is larger than what our new drive (right) can hold (118 GB). right-click on each drive and select вЂњPropertiesвЂќ.

To check the capacity of each drive, plug your SSD into your computer and wait for it to show up in Windows Explorer. There isnвЂ™t enough room on your destination drive for all your files! If youвЂ™re migrating to a drive thatвЂ™s smaller than youвЂ™re current one-which is often the case if youвЂ™re moving to an SSD-youвЂ™ll run into a problem right off the bat. Step One: Tidy Up Your Current Hard Drive Burn that CD and print that article-having it on hand will save you the hassle of finding another computer to create the boot CD on if you need it.

HOW TO MAKE YOUR SSD YOUR BOOT DRIVE WINDOWS 8

Follow these instructions for Windows 7, and these instructions for Windows 8 or 10.В DonвЂ™t forget to print off a copy of our guide to repairing the bootloader so youвЂ™re ready to fix it if you need to. On the off chance that your Master Boot Record gets corrupted, youвЂ™ll be able to pop in the Windows repair disc and fix it in a matter of minutes.

HOW TO MAKE YOUR SSD YOUR BOOT DRIVE FULL

Check out our guide to backing up your computer, and make sure you have a full backup of your important data before continuing.

ItвЂ™s completely foolish to start messing around with your hard drive without a backup.

HOW TO MAKE YOUR SSD YOUR BOOT DRIVE INSTALL

WARNING: Make sure you click the вЂњCustomizeвЂќ links on the вЂњInstall Additional SoftwareвЂќ page and uncheck all the boxes-otherwise EaseUS will try to install some bundled crapware along with its disk cloning tool. ( UPDATE: As of 2020, the free version of EaseUS Todo Backup no longer offers this feature.) Its free versionВ has all the features we need to accomplish the task in front of us, so download the free version and install it like you would any other Windows program. If youвЂ™re using a laptop, however, this usually isnвЂ™t possible, so youвЂ™ll need to buy something like a SATA-to-USB cableВ (shown right), which will let you connect a 2.5вЂі hard drive or SDD to your laptop via USB.В You can also install your SSD in an external hard drive enclosureВ before you start the migration process, though thatвЂ™s a bit more time consuming. If you have a desktop computer, then you can usually just install your new SSD alongside your old hard drive in the same machine to clone it.

A way to connect your SSD to your computer.

Apart from your SSD, youвЂ™ll need a few other things for this process to work.

How to make your ssd your boot drive