Preping new SSDs, reload of Windows 7

[Skibo2012]

OK, I have gone through some of the posts here, but just want to verify before proceeding with the 2 840Pro 128G drives that I will be getting in soon. Right now I have Win 7 64 bit installed and have SATA in BIOS set for EIDE. I plan on reloading a fresh install of Win 7 on my computer using one of the SSDs as the Win 7 drive and the other as a games drive. Before I reload Win 7 I will be changing the BIOS setting to AHCI.

1. Before I change the setting to AHCI and reloading Win 7 I figured I'd connect the SSDs to my presently setup computer and verify firmware with Samsungs Magician Tool and upgrade if necessary. Any thoughts on my not doing that?

2. When I usually start a fresh install of Windows, I usually do a full format of the drive I will be loading it on. Is this done with SSDs also, or do you never do a "FORMATTING" of SSD drive?

3. I have seen some posts that optical drives don't do well when SATA is set for AHCI. I have an ASUS BW-12B1ST bluray drive in the system. Will it be OK with this setting? Also a 150G raptor drive and 2 1G WD black drives which I believe should be OK with this setting change.

4. On Samsungs web page for compatible versions of Windows and running their Magician Tool, it states Win 7 32 bit, but not Win 7 64 bit. Has anyone had problems running this with Win 7 64 bit?

Sorry if I'm duplicating previous posts questions, but it's rough trying to sift through so much. Thanks.

[mikeford]

One of the other threads mentioned doing the Win7 install with ONLY the target drive connected. Otherwise the claim is that Win7 may put some files on the other drive whether you like it or not.

I've been using Win7 64 for a couple years, program files automatically install in either a legacy 32 bit folder or 64 bit, and no issues yet from stuff in either.

Doing my SSD install soon, so watching this thread.

[Dstoop]

1. My rule of thumb with SSD firmware is that if you're not having any issues, don't update it. SSDs are still having so many firmware-based issues across the board, there's no reason to risk system instability if you dont have to.

2. Yes, SSD's should still be formatted. If I recall correctly, windows won't let you install on a partition that already has a windows installation on it unless you at least do a quick format first. It's defragging that shouldn't be done on an SSD, as the firmware handles file allocation on its own and a defrag just moves everything around all willy-nilly.

3. I've never had an issue with optical drives and AHCI personally, but with older drives you never know. Worst case it may need a firmware update, but something as modern as a blu-ray drive should work fine. The only way to really know is to do it and find out.

4. It should work just fine.

[kleinkinstein]

Everything you need is here.

[cantholdanymore]

I have the same ASUS BW-12B1ST, no problem.

[iluvdeal]

I did not use the Windows 7 installer to format my SSD as I wanted to align my SSD with a 4096 partition offset rather then the default 1024. I also didn't want the hidden 100MB partition Windows 7 makes on the system drive. So I partitioned the drive ahead of time on an existing Windows 7 with diskpart. Direction for doing that can be found here: http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=366473