confirm SSD installation, is it really this simple

I know this question is probably in this forum somewhere, but I could not find it. I just picked up one of the Samsung 830’s that is on sale everywhere. I want to install it in my Dell 14z. I called Dell tech support to confirm the process.

They told me to go into the bios to change the IDE mode to ACHI, and set the boot order so the USB is first (they sent me a USB key that has an image of my computer as it came from the factory). Turn off the computer, install the SSD drive, put in the USB key, turn it on and the computer will do everything it needs to by itself.

This sounds too easy, but maybe it’s not. Feedback anyone?

Thanks

 

I would not change the boot order to USB in the BIOS - can you hit ESC, F12 or F10, F8 (try to see which one works for your system) to get a one time boot option? There I would choose the USB key.

If you change it in the BIOS (permanently, while it is installing...) it will be in a vicious cycle where it will do a partial install, reboot and do another partial install...

Hope this helps.

Good luck.

 

Good point tilleroftheearth, thanks

 

Since the SSD is blank, the notebook should automatically search for other bootable options (maybe) so try it first without changing the boot order.

But yes, if it is a blank SSD and you are doing a fresh install of Windows 7, enable AHCI and proceed to install Windows 7 as you would onto a HDD. Enjoy.

If you would like to have it more difficult to make it seem as if you were doing something useful, I'm sure I can think of various "optimizations" you can perform and convince yourself that they were necessary. Just let me know.

Note that this is for fresh installing Windows 7 onto an SSD. If you were cloning an existing install from a HDD onto SSD or you were using Windows XP, then there really would be some extra steps to take that are kind of optional, but really, really recommended (primarily partition alignment and disabling defrag).

 

i would definitely go for a true fresh install, meaning a windows 7 OEM without the bloatware, and download the drivers of your notebook manually if you can

 

thanks everyone, I did do a fresh install of windows 7. It also installed a Dell program called Data Safe, but that was it (I deleted it). I manually downloaded the drivers to a usb key and installed everything from there. No yellow marks in device manager.

The SSD sure is fast! Boot up time is amazingly fast! I never realized how much crap Dell puts on a computer, glad it's all gone.