PC Gurus?

dazdmc

dazdmc

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I know it's not strictly photography related but I'm wondering if someone can help? I know there are a few clever pc people on here.
I have a pc set up purely for photography, the 120Gb ssd is almost full so I now have a new 1Tb ssd waiting to go in. I want to run the OS (win10) from the 120Gb ssd and have nothing else on that drive, then run all my software and store photos on the new 1Tb ssd, with keepers backed up to an external HDD. Now, I can remember doing this before many moons ago and it was a right PITA, I'm sure I had to go through the registry and do all of it manualy after copying all the required folders onto the new drive. I know I can easily clone the whole lot from one to the other but I really want to have a seperate drive just for the OS. Is there an easy way of doing this nowadays? I don't mind paying for software if it makes life easier and less time consuming.
ps, a lot of the software has been installed/downloaded from the tinterweb so I don't have the exe files to reinstall from, I would have to redownload. This would be fine on decent broadband but I get 3mb on a good day so it would take a serious amount of time to download it all again (as in weeks)
 
Why are you 'installing' a larger SSD. Years ago, I bought a 1TB external hard drive and it was an easy plug and play so simple and no need to open up the computer. it was in the age of Windows XP and it has not been affected by the various operating systems brought out since then (7, 8 and now 10) To make searching easier I am strict in the way I catalogue them by date order year and then month. I also have a folder right at the top of the date order list that gives me an alphabetical list to compare with the file date order and I only very rarely struggle to find a topic I want.

Some of the files are quite large and even after all this time the external drive is still just over half full.
 
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Beacause I was building the system into an old tower case I had lying around and there is space inside for 5 drives. Why have external drives cluttering my rather small desk when I can put them inside?
 
Fair enough but mine lives on top of the tower so doesn't get in the way and I don't have a lot of space either. The room is shared with my darkroom set up, and all the extra gubbins that entails.
 
dazdmc said:
a lot of the software has been installed/downloaded from the tinterweb so I don't have the exe files to reinstall from, I would have to redownload. This would be fine on decent broadband but I get 3mb on a good day so it would take a serious amount of time to download it all again (as in weeks)
Click to expand...
Unfortunately, Windows apps have to be installed with all their ancillary files by an installer exe, so it would be extremely difficult to do anything other than reinstall them from scratch. And, if my memory serves me correctly, a lot of them need to be installed in Program Files on the boot drive.

Which is where Mac computers win because installing apps is a simple matter of copying an app "bundle" from one place to another ;)

On the other hand, once you have re-downloaded the installation exe file, you could keep them in a downloads folder on the larger drive.
 
John King said:
Fair enough but mine lives on top of the tower so doesn't get in the way and I don't have a lot of space either.
Click to expand...

My coffee mug sits up on top case to keep it out of the way, I'm too clumsy to have it on the desk!!! I know that sounds wrong but the case is on the desk so I have easy access to DVD writer and USB, which puts the coffee at head height and out of elbows reach
 
Joanna Carter said:
Unfortunately, Windows apps have to be installed with all their ancillary files by an installer exe, so it would be extremely difficult to do anything other than reinstall them from scratch. And, if my memory serves me correctly, a lot of them need to be installed in Program Files on the boot drive.

Which is where Mac computers win because installing apps is a simple matter of copying an app "bundle" from one place to another ;)

On the other hand, once you have re-downloaded the installation exe file, you could keep them in a downloads folder on the larger drive.
Click to expand...

I created a folder on the secondary SSD called Program Files, manually copied all the software over. Formatted the smaller SSD and done a clean install of windoze. Then made some registry edits to point to the correct location . Everything working fine since I created the post in July and it wasn't as difficult as I thought it was going to be
 
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