Tech

Why shift to a new hard disk? How to go about it?

Why shift to a new hard disk

Storage is a precious commodity for all users. Be it a casual user, or enthusiast, everyone understands the importance of storage. Funnily enough, this issue also leaks over to mobile phones, where the issue of storage is always an issue. While the cost of storage is going down in general and capacities are increasing, new technologies such as Solid State Drives are also becoming essential every passing day, driving the cost up. It is important that while shifting your system to a new hard disk, your important files as well as system-critical files like vcruntime140_1.dll are moved comfortably.

While hard disks are the usual nomenclature used in general conversation. The actual practice of moving storage is much more technical than that. Several types of storage devices can be used to boot a computer. With today’s technology, even a simple USB Flash Drive can be used as a boot device on any computer in modern Windows. Going up the food chain, one finds high-end hard drives and solid-state drives, offering extremely high read and write speeds, making operations laser fast. Activities like moving files and loading applications become lightning fast. The most tangible benefit is the plain speed upgrade in booting up the computer. With an enthusiast-level solid-state drive, boot times go into the single-digit seconds! This advantage can be further exacerbated by even higher grade equipment, like nVME Solid State Drives.

It is often felt that the best upgrade for an ailing computer is the addition of a Solid State Drive of any sort. It will offer the most tangible and visible benefit for the cost involved. Even a casual user would notice such a change

How does one shift Windows to a new host drive?

Sadly, Windows is an operating system, it is not a singular file. It needs to “boot” and provide an interface for one to interact with the hardware. At the nitty-gritty level, Windows is a collection of thousands of files that constitute “Windows”. It also needs to be able to “boot” the system up. A computer can not turn on without a properly operating system, which means the demarcation of a boot drive and the constituent files.

As a result, copying is not the solution here. Windows is not a singular constituent that can simply be shifted from a hypothetical C: to a D: drive and the end-user can call it a day.

An ideal way to do so is the following :

(i) Copy all essential files like documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and photos to an external hard drive. This can be anything like a USB Flash Drive, or a proper External Hard Drive. External Hard Drives have fallen a lot in cost recently and come in several convenient form factors

(ii) Format your system, choose the most comprehensive option so that nothing is left, that may interfere with your fresh new install

(iii) Install a new iteration of Windows

(iv) Set up your new installation of Windows, by installing prerequisite software such as MS Office, etc, and other critical files like vcruntime140_1.dll.

Now, one’s system should be ready to go and have a ton of space, ready to store more movies, music, and be able to manage all of this at a brisk pace.

Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Most Popular

To Top