Upgrading hard drive, want help

Hey, I've looked around the forums but had some trouble finding some clear instructions and full information.

I have an M17x r1 I believe, since it has a core 2 duo T9800 and nvidia gtx 260m GPU's.

Anyway I would like to upgrade my hard drive and was just going to switch out the old 250gb 7200rpm one and put in a 100gb ssd for boot and program speed purposes and moving the old drive into a secondary slot. To do this I find I'd need to reinstall vista etc, so my question is is there an easy way to copy my old stuff onto the new drive, video drivers and all? I read around that you can simply make an image backup using clonezilla or some other program (vista home premium, so no complete backup) and then load it onto the new drive.

1a) Would this be an option given that the new drive is smaller?
1b) Is there a way to only take the OS and program files etc so that programs run from the ssd but the data stays on the old drive? Or would this be something that needs to be done from scratch?

2a) Also, I have a free upgrade to Windows 7, so would it be easier to just upgrade the new drive now and then transfer what I need over from the old one?
2b) Would I need to install vista first and then download the upgrade?
2c) Would upgrading to 7 impact being able to read the old drive?

3a) Finally I read that I'd have to reinstall a bunch of drivers off of the dell website and I'd have to do it in a specific order, in what circumstances does this apply and what is the order?
3b) Would using the recovery discs that came with the laptop alleviate this problem?
3c) I also saw the new theme and GUI and aliensense console on the website and was wondering if that's only for the newer ones or if that's something that can be downloaded and applied.

Basically I have a bunch of game files, pictures, torrents mid dl, movies, steam etc that I don't want to lose. I have an external hard drive as well to back some of this up onto but I'm not entirely clear on the process for a recovery/upgrade type situation. Would it be recomended to just put all the saves etc on the external then start the ssd from scratch?

I would appreciate answers or at the very least a nudge towards where I can find out for myself.

Thanks.

p.s. the r2, what's the difference? is it just a new mobo? and can one be bought and placed into an r1 without everything exploding?

 

You have a few q? here lol

First, I suggest you Back up all your files you want to the external drive.

I would do a fresh install of Win 7 on the SSD drive, it is so much better than VISTA. It should just install on the new drive with no issues (with out installing VISTA first)

Yes you have the R1, and I should go to the Dell site and download the updated drviers for Windows 7 64 bit.

as far as order goes

Chipset Ricoh, and NVIDIA (do not install the NVIDIA Storage Driver)

IDT Sound Driver, GPU Driver

OSD and AW Control center




Quick awnser No you can't ugrade a R1 to an R2 without changing allot of parts making it not worth while. (new Mobo, CPU, and GPU's)

When your sure you have all you files backed up, and your new OS setup on the SSD drive you may want to format the old second drive and copy the backed files to it.

 

Fantastic, thank you so much.

And I can do the fresh install of 7 without a disk? I haven't even had time to check anything as I've been running around the past few days, so sorry if that's an obvious one.