Vista on HDD, want to put Win7 on a new SSD to dual boot.

[readers]

Currently have Vista on HDD.

Bought a Samsung 840 Evo 500G.

I want to put Win7 on it and dual boot. I don't mind Win7 has no access to current installed programs(is there even a way to do it?) or not even have access to other HDD.

What's the simplest way to do it?

I am going to move everything to Win7, but unless there is an easy way, I won't have time for it until at least new year.

Also mother board is a P6T Deluxe.

Thanks in Advance.

 

[postmortemIA]

add drive, start with win 7 dvd and select to install to ssd. win 7 will put its bootloader on vista partition, and let you pick between two. if you don't want to see hdd, then in disk management tool just choose to not have drive letter for the vista partition

 

[readers]

add drive, start with win 7 dvd and select to install to ssd. win 7 will put its bootloader on vista partition, and let you pick between two. if you don't want to see hdd, then in disk management tool just choose to not have drive letter for the vista partition

Never had an SSD before, do I need to format it before install the windows? Also keep reading about SSD software, when do I install that? After the Win7?

 

[postmortemIA]

You can format within setup. You won't be able to proceed if you don't pick drive where win 7 can be installed. Win 7 comes with TRIM support, you can install extra software but it is not necessary.

 

[Underclocked]

I think I would go with disconnecting the older hard drive completely for the install of Windows 7 on the ssd. That way you will have two independent drives with operating systems intact. You could then either use bios to control the boot drive or add entries in one or both OS' boot loaders for the other OS (EasyBCD makes that simple enough).

 

[readers]

I think I would go with disconnecting the older hard drive completely for the install of Windows 7 on the ssd. That way you will have two independent drives with operating systems intact. You could then either use bios to control the boot drive or add entries in one or both OS' boot loaders for the other OS (EasyBCD makes that simple enough).

What's the advantage of this compare to just put SSD in?

Also, to do this, I only need to disconnect the HDD with OS on it right?

 

[ViRGE]

What's the advantage of this compare to just put SSD in?

So that each OS has its own, independent bootloader. Otherwise if you only have the one bootloader on the HDD, then Win7 can only be loaded by first booting off of the bootloader on the HDD.

 

[readers]

So that each OS has its own, independent bootloader. Otherwise if you only have the one bootloader on the HDD, then Win7 can only be loaded by first booting off of the bootloader on the HDD.

I see, thanks.

I plan to partition it into 2, so I can have one for OS, one for games. Should I do it before or after install win7?

 

[ViRGE]

I see, thanks.

I plan to partition it into 2, so I can have one for OS, one for games. Should I do it before or after install win7?

After. Leave the SSD unpartitioned and let the Win7 install set it up as it would like. Then you can shrink the partition later to make room for your games partition.