Ok so I just bout a 120GB SSD and a 500GB HDD and im looking to set up the SSD as the boot drive and the HDD as a data drive.when i look up how to do it though the only way the comes up is through manually movin each file over after loading windows onto the HDD. is this the easiest or best wat to do it? or am i missing somthing entirely.
Do you want all your old files to be transfered to your new HDD cause the simplest is to first install windows on to your SSD. Then plug in your two HDDs (You'll have to reboot) and transfering the files onto your new drive. When installing windows just have your SSD plugged in. nothing else it simplifies everything do you don't have to mess with the boot priority in the BIOS
Installing windows on an SSD is exactly the same as on an HDD. The way you're describing is what you do when moving an existing installation of windows from one drive to another. You don't have to do that. Just do a fresh install on the SSD.
I used this guide, it's three parts. The first part is one page, the second part is two pages, and the third part is three pages. It's kind of long but it has some good tweaks for an ssd setup with a second storage drive. It'll show you how to setup your windows so you video, photo, and music folders are directly linked to your other storage drive. I did a fresh install so your setup might be different. It also opened up alot of space on the ssd so I could install BF3, CSS:GO, and Skyrim on the ssd which is really nice for loading.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/windows-7-and-ssds-just-how-fast-are-they/2902
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/windows-7-and-ssds-setup-secrets-and-tune-up-tweaks/2910
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/windows-7-and-ssds-cutting-your-system-drive-down-to-size/2941
nope its a complete;y fresh install