Installing new SSD drive - what to do?

[Lafaso870]

I am upgrading my OS drive to the OCZ Vertex 2 120GB SSD. I am excited to see how this goes with the rest of my new items. I am dissapointed to know that the best way to start off with a new drive is fresh OS & applications install. I don't want to ghost and create any issues that would slow the drive down at all.
So..I thought that I would unplug my other SATA Mechanical drives while installing Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit to the SSD so there are no conflicts. Is there anything I need to do in the bios? Do I need to set the SATA option in my bios to AHCI? Will my DVDRW that is not SATA become useless?
Once the OS is installed, what 'tweaks' are necessary for the SSD to be at it's best?
Thanks for any advice on this.

[neurofen]

hi, i upgraded to ssd's about 2 years ago and have a vertex in my main machine (i had a copy of xp installled on a ram drive about 4 years ago) as the boot/system drive. i'd be a little wary still though, although theyre coming of age, there's definately still teathing problems ....

You will need to change the hd controller in your bios to ahci, although you're better setting it to RAID, since AHCI is enabled by default with this setting.

You will need a flash drive/floppy with the drivers on it when installing windows, load them when youre given the option of which drive to install to.

your' none ahci' devices should work correctly, they just wont use the additional fucntions that the advanced host control interface provides.

As for your other drives... do you have any raid arrays set up? if so this might cause issues, otherwise, data only drives should load up as usual when you plug them in, i'd maybe do them one at a time, rebooting inbetween.

i've found that the 64bit drivers for my intel hhd controller give me gyp when runing windows 7 64bit as my os from an ssd, keep your files backed up.

what motherboard do you have and whats the controlelr chip?

check for motherboard bios updates, have a look to see if any of the fixes are related to your controller, update if nesecary.

SSD's are fast, but you better keep an eye on it.