Installing SSD to use with HDD

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SLEEPN

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I just got a Crucial M4 128 GB SSD to install in my rig, and using along side my current 250 GB HDD. I plan on backing everything up everything necessary, and doing a fresh install of Windows on the SSD, then use the HDD as just another disk drive, not the boot drive.

Any tips on the best way to go about doing this? I'm assuming I should wipe my HDD in order to just start fresh in tandem with the SSD. What's the best way to wipe my current HDD once I've backed up all the necessary data?

If anyone can provide any tips for transitioning my setup from a single HDD to an SSD and HDD, where the SSD is the boot drive, that would be great.

Motherboard: ASUS P8Z68-V Pro
CPU: Intel i5-2500k

Thanks everyone.
 
You can leave the HDD alone, just unplug it before you install on the SSD so the Windows install doesn't get confused (and put the boot loader on the wrong drive, which can happen). Once you get the SSD up and running, you can plug the hard drive back in, move any data back tot he SSD, and then erase the HDD. Be sure to use the SATA 6GB ports on the Z68 board and turn AHCI on in the BIOS before you install on the SSD.
 
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as said, leave the HDD alone, no reason to touch it,

NOW< i would disconnect the HDD when you install on SSD just to be sure no temp folders and crap are put on your HDD as said above
 
If you are certain you want to reformat the hard drive, here are the steps under Windows 7:

1. Right click "My Computer"
2. Choose "Manage"
3. On the left tree, select "Disk Management" (under "Storage")
4. Pick the correct disk on the bottom half of the screen (it should read something like "Disk 1 Basic 232.88GB Online")
5. Delete the corresponding partitions on that disk by right clicking on its blue bar and selecting "Delete volume..."
6. Once a partition is deleted, its bar turns black and is labeled "Unallocated"
7. Delete all partitions on your desired drive and the whole drive becomes "Unallocated"
8. You can create a new partition from the unallocated space by right clicking the black bar and selecting "New Simple Volume.."
9. Follow the wizard by clicking next until finished
 
Ah yes. I likely won't completely wipe my HDD now that it's been brought up. Once I've installed the OS on the SSD and made sure it's selected as the boot drive, I'll just removed the OS from my HDD and transfer over some documents of the documents, etc.

Is there any proper way to remove the unnecessary OS from my existing HDD once it has been installed on my SSD?
 
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