For several months I have been acquiring hardware & plotting out procedures for a major change in my computers environment. Various Forum folks have been very helpful. (And I’ve lost about 5 weeks in the middle due to family crises which leave me with “stuff” spread out around here. But the hiatus gave me an opportunity to modify my approach.)
Let’s say I have PCs A, B, and C.
A currently has the dual video hardware and a lot of data and photo apps, etc. General stuff. At this time it is my on line, general use PC. I will need at some point to remove the video hardware for use by C. I can also permanently or temporarily move the hard drives from A to C which should save some risk of data loss and speed up obtention of access to the photos, documents.
B currently has the photo database (over 50,000 images) and abut of TB of other photo/videp and GIS data and apps. It is currently also tied to the KVMS. It is not generally on-line except as required for updates and so forth. I want to add an SSD as the Boot drive. And I plan to start fresh with re-installs of all the apps needed.
C is a new PC using ASUS’ SABERTOOTH X79 with INTEL Core i7. It will have an SSD boot drive and a separate SSD acting as a cache for the data drive which will handle the database catalogs. (An ASUS mobo feature.)
SAMSUNG’s SSD software is set up migrate data. How do I simply activate a clean SSD on B without migrating the old OS? It appears from the SAMSUNG’s thin directions that I need to be hooked up to the receiving PC (C) in order to set up the firmware and then address the OS. Is that true? Could I simply disconnect all the current drives on B, install the SSD, install the OS, and then re-introduce the other hard drives giving them new drive letters?
What I need is a solution to the Hanoi Puzzle. (Those three poles with different-sized rings that need to be moved around.) I want to end up with two computers, both using WIN7 PRO 64 bit and without loss of data nor capabilities from the current two. The two new ones must have dual video outputs in order to work with a dual monitor KVMS. The mission critical data/apps are e-mail and the Photoshop Elements data base and Editor and Premier Video editor. Mail can be handled by backups. But in both cases the data portions will have to be separated from the apps when they reside on C. I am inventorying apps on A & B, getting some critical drivers, and making sure I have Keys.
I will end up with two hard drives with the WIN 7 OS on them. How do I delete the OS completely from these drives so they can be simply used as data drives. Must I reformat them? And I bought a new new WIN 7 OS so I can avoid the whole issue of installing the OS on both these machines with the XP to WIN7 Pro upgrade disk. Much easier methinks.
C is in pieces at this point on a table. I need the video adapter from A, I think. What’s next? Dragons I haven’t foreseen? Ideas? Thanks!!!
