Question C drive dying - can’t move C drive to another Drive - System Reserved stuck too

[LDavis213]

hi Tom's.
I have noticed that my c drive is dying. I tried to use a software to clone my C drive (called Macrium) and move it to another drive of the same size.
Something went wrong and now my System Reserved is stuck on my F drive and has only 40mb’s of space, despite the SSD having 111gb’s.

Somehow I managed to delete my F drive from the ‘Devices and Drives’ tab. But it still appears in Disk Management.
I have had no luck trying to move my System Reserved back to my C drive to attempt to clone the C drive to my F drive.

I am very confused and have been at it since Sunday (4/20)

Windows 10. x64. Home. PC.

 

[evermorex76]

I'm very confused by your description of where things are (screenshots of the app would be helpful), but I'd say if it's failing so badly then just install Windows on the new SSD and start migrating your data and reinstalling apps. I don't know where any "Devices and Drives" tab exists, and Macrium Reflect won't "move" anything.

The Microsoft System Reserved partition isn't a critical partition anyway and is normally only up to 128MB in size. It's just a blank partition that Windows wants to have on GPT disks and can be manually created via command line. Is the drive where C is located a GPT disk?

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/w...tration/windows-commands/create-partition-msr

 

[LDavis213]

I'm very confused by your description of where things are (screenshots of the app would be helpful), but I'd say if it's failing so badly then just install Windows on the new SSD and start migrating your data and reinstalling apps. I don't know where any "Devices and Drives" tab exists, and Macrium Reflect won't "move" anything.

The Microsoft System Reserved partition isn't a critical partition anyway and is normally only up to 128MB in size. It's just a blank partition that Windows wants to have on GPT disks and can be manually created via command line. Is the drive where C is located a GPT disk?

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/w...tration/windows-commands/create-partition-msr

Ah sorry. I tried to post images from my phone but It needed a link. So I uploaded them to Imgur.

https://imgur.com/a/dLhnIox

View: https://imgur.com/gallery/computer-drive-issues-dLhnIox


The F drive in the Macruim software is E because it changed to E somehow.

And I am also very confused as well, I don’t know computers much.

My C drive is an SSD I’ve had for years. I believe I saw it said GPT a while ago. It’s dying and caused some issues with my PC. It was very slow and the Macruim software taken over 12 hours to install. I’m currently using my old laptop with windows 7 on it for work.

During the time when it was extremely slow, I was trying to clone the disk with Macruim and move it to my F drive. It failed instantly, but it moved the System Reserved to the F drive. I can’t move the rest of my C drive.

Let me know if you don’t understand and I’ll try to go into more detail as best I can

 

[rgd1101]

unplug all the other drive.

 

[LDavis213]

unplug all the other drive.

Unplug every drive from my computer? I’ll try and open it and see. Why?

 

[evermorex76]

Macrium is listing three drives of the exact same model though with different serial numbers. Is that correct? Just seems odd that you got the exact same model after however long you've had the original and I just want to confirm that.

Your C drive is on an MBR disk (Disk 1 MBR). So there was no Microsoft Reserved Partition which is what I thought you were referring to. The System Reserved partition is actually where Windows stores the initial boot files (the boot loader, the BCD file, etc.) when using an MBR disk. I don't think Macrium Reflect "moved" the partition (it has no such function). I think it's more likely that partition became so corrupted during the clone that it's unreadable on the original SSD, and that this also affected the size that Reflect made the partition on the new drive, and caused the cloning process to end prematurely. (Either that or you didn't select all the partitions to be copied.)

I'm not even sure how your computer managed to reboot, if you have actually done so since that partition disappeared. If you haven't, don't try, because it probably won't start.

If you can download a portable app that reads SMART data, it would be interesting to see what it says about the old drive. (You want to avoid actually installing anything on it at this point, to reduce the usage.) You could get Crystal DiskInfo in portable format or GSmartControl which is already portable, using the laptop, and put it on a flash drive.
https://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/crystaldiskinfo_portable

Downloads · GSmartControl

Downloads Note to article writers: When posting GSmartControl download links, please link to this page instead of the individual files below. This ...

gsmartcontrol.shaduri.dev

First I will point that every moment that you continue using the old drive you are increasing the risk that you're going to lose more data. Since you've been struggling with this for some time I strongly suggest you give up on trying to clone this, and simply do a fresh install of Windows on the new drive, then manually copy files from the old one or restore them from whatever other backup you are using, if any. Yes, you'll have to go through the pain of reinstalling and reconfiguring applications, but at least you won't blow away all your data files.

The first thing I'd do is make backups of your data files and any configuration files on the C drive that you might not be able to recover from any other location if the old SSD just dies suddenly. It looks like you have 100GB of free space on the G drive you could use. If you've got all your things like Documents, Pictures, etc. being synced to OneDrive or something else then those are fine, and you just need to make copies of anything that isn't syncing to the cloud. If your other apps like browsers are syncing to cloud accounts then you're pretty much set there, but if not, then you'd want to make backups of them.

It would be a good idea to download a Windows 10 ISO from Microsoft using the laptop, in case you need to put it on a flash drive for recovery on the dying computer or decide to do a fresh install.

Below is what I think ought to work, assuming Reflect has any chance of copying those partitions. Note that even if it succeeds, there is a chance that you will be copying corrupted files which may include either operating system files or your application or data files. Cloning a partition also copies any "bad sector" data that the filesystem recorded. These are additional reasons to just do a fresh install.

Right now you don't know if that System Reserved partition is any good, since it may have cloned bad data. But, you can use Disk Management to just shrink it back down to say 50MB (1MB less than it was on the original drive simply for leeway). Then Reflect can attempt to clone it back to the original drive. Hopefully the old drive can write the data and will reallocate blocks to prevent writing to bad ones, but no guarantee. This drive seems very far gone, so this is still risky, but if it works, then your system will be able to start up if it reboots assuming the data being cloned wasn't corrupted. (If DM won't let you shrink it, I'll advise what to do.)

After that, you can try cloning the C drive and the additional partition. That's the Windows Recovery Environment; if it fails to clone that's not a problem as you can recreate it. The System Reserved partition can also be recreated, but if it cloned with bad data then I'd assume other OS files are bad as well and simply say you need to do a fresh install.

 

[USAFRet]

Something went wrong and now my System Reserved is stuck on my F drive and has only 40mb’s of space, despite the SSD having 111gb’s.

You did the clone operation wrong.

IF, and only if, the system still boots up from the original drive, redo the clone.

-----------------------------
Specific steps for a successful clone operation:
-----------------------------
Verify the actual used space on the current drive is significantly below the size of the new SSD
Both drives must be the same partitioning scheme, either MBR or GPT
Download and install Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Magician (which includes Data Migration), if a Samsung target SSD)
If you are cloning from a SATA drive to PCIe/NVMe, you may need to install the relevant driver for this new NVMe/PCIe drive.
Power off
Disconnect ALL drives except the current C and the new SSD
Power up

Verify the system boots with ONLY the current "C drive" connected.
If not, we have to fix that first.

Run the Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration)
Select ALL the partitions on the existing C drive

[Ignore this section if using the SDM. It does this automatically]
If you are going from a smaller drive to a larger, by default, the target partition size will be the same as the Source. You probably don't want that
You can manipulate the size of the partitions on the target (larger)drive
Click on "Cloned Partition Properties", and you can specify the resulting partition size, to even include the whole thing
[/end ignore]

Click the 'Clone' button
Wait until it is done
When it finishes, power off
Disconnect ALL drives except for the new SSD. This is not optional.
This is to allow the system to try to boot from ONLY the SSD

(swapping cables is irrelevant with NVMe drives, but DO disconnect the old drive for this next part)
Swap the SATA cables around so that the new drive is connected to the same SATA port as the old drive
Power up, and verify the BIOS boot order
If good, continue the power up

It should boot from the new drive, just like the old drive.
Maybe reboot a time or two, just to make sure.

If it works, and it should, all is good.

Later, reconnect the old drive and wipe all partitions on it.
This will probably require the commandline diskpart function, and the clean command.

Ask questions if anything is unclear.
-----------------------------

 

[LDavis213]

Macrium is listing three drives of the exact same model though with different serial numbers. Is that correct? Just seems odd that you got the exact same model after however long you've had the original and I just want to confirm that.

Your C drive is on an MBR disk (Disk 1 MBR). So there was no Microsoft Reserved Partition which is what I thought you were referring to. The System Reserved partition is actually where Windows stores the initial boot files (the boot loader, the BCD file, etc.) when using an MBR disk. I don't think Macrium Reflect "moved" the partition (it has no such function). I think it's more likely that partition became so corrupted during the clone that it's unreadable on the original SSD, and that this also affected the size that Reflect made the partition on the new drive, and caused the cloning process to end prematurely. (Either that or you didn't select all the partitions to be copied.)

I'm not even sure how your computer managed to reboot, if you have actually done so since that partition disappeared. If you haven't, don't try, because it probably won't start.

If you can download a portable app that reads SMART data, it would be interesting to see what it says about the old drive. (You want to avoid actually installing anything on it at this point, to reduce the usage.) You could get Crystal DiskInfo in portable format or GSmartControl which is already portable, using the laptop, and put it on a flash drive.
https://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/crystaldiskinfo_portable

Downloads · GSmartControl

Downloads Note to article writers: When posting GSmartControl download links, please link to this page instead of the individual files below. This ...

gsmartcontrol.shaduri.dev

First I will point that every moment that you continue using the old drive you are increasing the risk that you're going to lose more data. Since you've been struggling with this for some time I strongly suggest you give up on trying to clone this, and simply do a fresh install of Windows on the new drive, then manually copy files from the old one or restore them from whatever other backup you are using, if any. Yes, you'll have to go through the pain of reinstalling and reconfiguring applications, but at least you won't blow away all your data files.

The first thing I'd do is make backups of your data files and any configuration files on the C drive that you might not be able to recover from any other location if the old SSD just dies suddenly. It looks like you have 100GB of free space on the G drive you could use. If you've got all your things like Documents, Pictures, etc. being synced to OneDrive or something else then those are fine, and you just need to make copies of anything that isn't syncing to the cloud. If your other apps like browsers are syncing to cloud accounts then you're pretty much set there, but if not, then you'd want to make backups of them.

It would be a good idea to download a Windows 10 ISO from Microsoft using the laptop, in case you need to put it on a flash drive for recovery on the dying computer or decide to do a fresh install.

Below is what I think ought to work, assuming Reflect has any chance of copying those partitions. Note that even if it succeeds, there is a chance that you will be copying corrupted files which may include either operating system files or your application or data files. Cloning a partition also copies any "bad sector" data that the filesystem recorded. These are additional reasons to just do a fresh install.

Right now you don't know if that System Reserved partition is any good, since it may have cloned bad data. But, you can use Disk Management to just shrink it back down to say 50MB (1MB less than it was on the original drive simply for leeway). Then Reflect can attempt to clone it back to the original drive. Hopefully the old drive can write the data and will reallocate blocks to prevent writing to bad ones, but no guarantee. This drive seems very far gone, so this is still risky, but if it works, then your system will be able to start up if it reboots assuming the data being cloned wasn't corrupted. (If DM won't let you shrink it, I'll advise what to do.)

After that, you can try cloning the C drive and the additional partition. That's the Windows Recovery Environment; if it fails to clone that's not a problem as you can recreate it. The System Reserved partition can also be recreated, but if it cloned with bad data then I'd assume other OS files are bad as well and simply say you need to do a fresh install.

Hi. Yes, I have 3 of the same brand SSD drives.
And yes I have a windows 10 disc, so I’ll reinstall it with that? Rather than downloading windows iso?
I did make the System Reserved 49mb on the other drive to clone it back to my C drive, but that kept failing.

So I’ll backup my c drive importants and then reinstall windows. What can I do with my F drive with the System Reserved stuck on it? I was hoping to put my C drive on that, so I’d need to install windows to that, but it’s not appearing on my ‘Drives and Devices’ as I done something to try to delete it in hopes to clear it to clone the C drive to it.

 

[USAFRet]

Hi. Yes, I have 3 of the same brand SSD drives.
And yes I have a windows 10 disc, so I’ll reinstall it with that? Rather than downloading windows iso?
I did make the System Reserved 49mb on the other drive to clone it back to my C drive, but that kept failing.

So I’ll backup my c drive importants and then reinstall windows. What can I do with my F drive with the System Reserved stuck on it? I was hoping to put my C drive on that, so I’d need to install windows to that, but it’s not appearing on my ‘Drives and Devices’ as I done something to try to delete it in hopes to clear it to clone the C drive to it.

Forget any cloning.

Create a new USB to install with. The disc you have is likely ancient.

Remove ALL drives except whatever one you want the OS on.

How To - Windows 10 clean install tutorial

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[evermorex76]

Remove ALL drives except whatever one you want the OS on.

This isn't 100% required but is a good idea so that you can be sure you don't overwrite any of your drives that have good data on them. Before anything else, you can use Disk Management to delete the System Reserved partition that was created on the new drive. You can do it during the Windows install process as well when it asks where you want to install. It doesn't show up in File Explorer because there is no drive letter assigned to it even though you keep calling it the F drive, and even if there was, that's not how you would remove it.

Incidentally that other SSD with the Fallout partition is nearly full, which will be affecting the performance when writing data to it. SSDs need to have at least 10% free space, preferably 20% or even more, to reach maximum speeds when writing. Without free space, the drive can't perform several functions intended to avoid performance limitations of flash storage, or management functions intended to extend the lifetime of the drive. (If you don't actually write much data to that drive, just reading it, you may not notice the performance difference.) Depending on how heavily you've actually used that Fallout drive, and if it's the same age as the current C drive, it could be nearing failure as well. You should check the health of it with DiskInfo once you have the new installation of Windows done.

Your current C drive is also suffering from being too full, which may have contributed to the failure. With a fresh install of Windows you'll inherently have more free space on the new C drive, but then when you restore your data files and install your applications the final total may not be much better than it is now unless you manage to avoid restoring a lot of junk you don't really need. It would be advisable, if you can afford it, to get a 250/256GB drive for the C drive (after doing the reinstall now, you would be able to clone it to the larger drive) and if possible for the Fallout drive. They aren't really that expensive now for that size. It would be more cost-effective to just get one 500/512GB drive and combine everything into one, but I don't know what you're really using that Fallout drive for and whether it needs to be separate.

Edit: man, Kingston doesn't even acknowledge that a version of that drive that is so small even exists. The smallest they have specs for is 240GB, though the specs for the 120GB model can be found elsewhere. And the write speeds on all sizes of that drive were ridiculously low to start with. Any current 250/256GB model will be much faster than the Kingston drives. These are some that would be a good replacement.

https://www.amazon.com/Patriot-P220-Internal-Solid-State/dp/B0BS9WKNXV

https://www.amazon.com/Silicon-Power-Performance-Internal-SP512GBSS3A55S25

 

[LDavis213]

This isn't 100% required but is a good idea so that you can be sure you don't overwrite any of your drives that have good data on them. Before anything else, you can use Disk Management to delete the System Reserved partition that was created on the new drive. You can do it during the Windows install process as well when it asks where you want to install. It doesn't show up in File Explorer because there is no drive letter assigned to it even though you keep calling it the F drive, and even if there was, that's not how you would remove it.

Incidentally that other SSD with the Fallout partition is nearly full, which will be affecting the performance when writing data to it. SSDs need to have at least 10% free space, preferably 20% or even more, to reach maximum speeds when writing. Without free space, the drive can't perform several functions intended to avoid performance limitations of flash storage, or management functions intended to extend the lifetime of the drive. (If you don't actually write much data to that drive, just reading it, you may not notice the performance difference.) Depending on how heavily you've actually used that Fallout drive, and if it's the same age as the current C drive, it could be nearing failure as well. You should check the health of it with DiskInfo once you have the new installation of Windows done.

Your current C drive is also suffering from being too full, which may have contributed to the failure. With a fresh install of Windows you'll inherently have more free space on the new C drive, but then when you restore your data files and install your applications the final total may not be much better than it is now unless you manage to avoid restoring a lot of junk you don't really need. It would be advisable, if you can afford it, to get a 250/256GB drive for the C drive (after doing the reinstall now, you would be able to clone it to the larger drive) and if possible for the Fallout drive. They aren't really that expensive now for that size. It would be more cost-effective to just get one 500/512GB drive and combine everything into one, but I don't know what you're really using that Fallout drive for and whether it needs to be separate.

Ah yes. My C drive has ran out of space a lot. Somehow reaching zero mb free. (I can’t remember exactly what it said)
I do have a Kingston software that tests drives, and all are healthy except for my C drive. It says Degraded.
I also installed that GSmartControl thing and it says all my drives have passed the basic health check.
I clicked on the c drive on the software and done a 2 min self test, and it completed without error.

I forgot to mention that my pc is running smoothly. Since Sunday when I turned it on after Easter events it was running horribly. And it was extremely slow for days. I was too afraid to turn it off and I was using the Macruim software, as I had mentioned. And that did take half a day to install. And taken forever to try and clone. But I messed up and then I turned off my pc and searched for my c drive and disconnected it and rebooted to see if I did disconnect the C drive as I dint know which is which within my pc box. Then out of curiosity I plugged it back in and booted it and it was fine.

But the Kingston software says it’s degraded and has a 0% wear indicator (all other drives are in the high 90’s) and it is the only one which is degraded and has warnings.

I do have a 256 SSD unopened I’ve had for a while which was to replace my Fallout drive. I can use that for my C drive instead?

 

[LDavis213]

Forget any cloning.

Create a new USB to install with. The disc you have is likely ancient.

Remove ALL drives except whatever one you want the OS on.

How To - Windows 10 clean install tutorial

If you are looking for the Windows 11 Clean install tutorial, you can find that here: Windows 11 Clean install tutorial (Click here) Otherwise, welcome to the Windows 10 Clean install tutorial This tutorial is intended to help you, step by step, to perform a clean install of Windows...

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Hello yes I am forgetting cloning for now thanks

 

[evermorex76]

I do have a 256 SSD unopened I’ve had for a while which was to replace my Fallout drive. I can use that for my C drive instead?

You can, but whether you want to depends on how you use the two drives and whether you might be willing to spend the small amount to buy a second 256GB drive. What model is the 256?

If there's a chance that the 120GB drive will actually have a lot more free space after you reinstall everything, then you don't necessarily NEED a bigger drive immediately. If your need to give more space to the Fallout drive is more important, then do that and upgrade the C drive later on.

But given how little a 256GB drive costs and the fact that you weren't in a rush to replace the Fallout drive, I'd go ahead and use your 256GB SSD for the C drive right now, and then get another one for Fallout. Even if the C drive would be okay with 120GB right now, it's inevitable that you'd fill it up again during normal usage and have to go through cloning it to a larger drive in the not too distant future if you wanted to avoid this problem and the performance losses.

You could also use that 120GB drive with an external drive enclosure to start performing backups of your C drive at least, so that you're protected from a sudden failure and won't have to do a full reinstall again. It will be plenty of space to store one full backup and then a chain of incrementals going back a week or two. (I back up 260GB of data and the full backup and one week of incrementals uses 174GB on the external drive.) After you replace the Fallout drive with a larger one, you could wipe that 120GB drive and use it to backup the Fallout drive, too. Although when you add the costs of buying external enclosures it might be cheaper to just buy one big external drive to backup both, and not have to have two external drives hanging out of the PC.

 

[LDavis213]

You can, but whether you want to depends on how you use the two drives and whether you might be willing to spend the small amount to buy a second 256GB drive. What model is the 256?

If there's a chance that the 120GB drive will actually have a lot more free space after you reinstall everything, then you don't necessarily NEED a bigger drive immediately. If your need to give more space to the Fallout drive is more important, then do that and upgrade the C drive later on.

But given how little a 256GB drive costs and the fact that you weren't in a rush to replace the Fallout drive, I'd go ahead and use your 256GB SSD for the C drive right now, and then get another one for Fallout. Even if the C drive would be okay with 120GB right now, it's inevitable that you'd fill it up again during normal usage and have to go through cloning it to a larger drive in the not too distant future if you wanted to avoid this problem and the performance losses.

You could also use that 120GB drive with an external drive enclosure to start performing backups of your C drive at least, so that you're protected from a sudden failure and won't have to do a full reinstall again. It will be plenty of space to store one full backup and then a chain of incrementals going back a week or two. (I back up 260GB of data and the full backup and one week of incrementals uses 174GB on the external drive.) After you replace the Fallout drive with a larger one, you could wipe that 120GB drive and use it to backup the Fallout drive, too. Although when you add the costs of buying external enclosures it might be cheaper to just buy one big external drive to backup both, and not have to have two external drives hanging out of the PC.

The 256 ssd I have is the same Patriot one you linked. 🇺🇸🫡
I do have a 2tb Samsung external drive, but I lost the special usb thing that slots into the back of it. It’s a regular usb type b for the PC, but in the back of the drive, there’s a very unique one I’ve never seen before.

So I think I will go with the 256 drive for my C drive. As it has filled up a lot over the years and I’ve struggled with deleting and moving things and then I run out of space completely and the task bar vanishes for a while.

I have a 2020 build windows 10 disc. I’ll have to disconnect a drive to connect my dvd player and then unplug my C drive and put the new drive in. I’m out of the SATA plugs on my motherboard.

So should I put the windows 10 disc in before I turn off the pc, as it still has its power wire connected to it. It opens, but then closes almost instantly after.
Then turn off pc, remove c drive ssd and put in new 256 ssd. Disconnect another ssd for my dvd player.
Then when I boot up pc, will it go straight to the dvd player as if it detects the windows 10 disc? Or will I have to go into the bios to select the dvd player to boot, and then it’ll go to the steps to install windows 10?

Then once it’s installed to the new C drive. I’ll turn PC off and remove the SATA cable from the dvd player and put it back in the drive I taken it from. Turn pc on and select the new c drive in bios?

 

[evermorex76]

I do have a 2tb Samsung external drive, but I lost the special usb thing that slots into the back of it. It’s a regular usb type b for the PC, but in the back of the drive, there’s a very unique one I’ve never seen before.

USB Type-A is the rectangular connector that plugs into a PC. The Samsung drive is likely a micro USB3 connector, which is wide and flat and thin. If you provide the model the necessary cable can be confirmed. That would be an ideal drive to use if it's still good as there's plenty of space to image your C and D drives and maintain a chain of incrementals. (The G drive is a mechanical drive and has so much stuff on it you wouldn't be able to back that up along with the C and D drives.)

I have a 2020 build windows 10 disc. I’ll have to disconnect a drive to connect my dvd player and then unplug my C drive and put the new drive in. I’m out of the SATA plugs on my motherboard.

You really should download a new ISO from Microsoft and burn it to disc or use a tool like Rufus to make a bootable USB flash drive. If you install a 2020 build you're looking at a lot of updates that will need to be installed. (Even though you'll get the bump from build 20H2 or whatever is on the disk all the way to 22H2 in one go, that's another 2.5 years of smaller updates that will have to download, though many of those are cumulative as well. It will just save you a lot of time downloading the latest available build. There's also the fact that installing from a DVD is sloooow compared to a flash drive. And as we suggested, you may want to unplug all the drives except the new C drive while you're doing the installation just to be certain you don't overwrite anything.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

So should I put the windows 10 disc in before I turn off the pc, as it still has its power wire connected to it. It opens, but then closes almost instantly after.

Are you sure the DVD drive isn't bad, too? You don't want to be trying to rush to shove a disc in before it closes itself. But otherwise it doesn't matter if you put it in before you turn it off. When you shut down and remove the old SSD and connect the DVD drive then turn it back on, there won't be any OS to boot. You'll be able to open the drive, insert the disc and close it, then just restart with Ctrl-Alt-Del, and you should then get the "press any key to boot from DVD" message. Even if the DVD drive isn't listed as the first disc in the boot sequence, there won't be an OS on any other drive so it will move down the list and reach the DVD. If there is an issue, you can check the BIOS to make sure the DVD drive appears in the boot menu. Or depending on your motherboard, pressing a key like ESC or F12 as it powers on will bring up a one-time boot menu to select the drive to use.

After the install, remove the DVD drive and reconnect everything except the bad drive, and you shouldn't have to change anything else. If the new drive is on the SATA0 port it will normally appear as the first drive in the boot sequence, but even if it's not, you don't have any other OS drives in the system so it will eventually select it and boot.

 

[LDavis213]

USB Type-A is the rectangular connector that plugs into a PC. The Samsung drive is likely a micro USB3 connector, which is wide and flat and thin. If you provide the model the necessary cable can be confirmed. That would be an ideal drive to use if it's still good as there's plenty of space to image your C and D drives and maintain a chain of incrementals. (The G drive is a mechanical drive and has so much stuff on it you wouldn't be able to back that up along with the C and D drives.)


You really should download a new ISO from Microsoft and burn it to disc or use a tool like Rufus to make a bootable USB flash drive. If you install a 2020 build you're looking at a lot of updates that will need to be installed. (Even though you'll get the bump from build 20H2 or whatever is on the disk all the way to 22H2 in one go, that's another 2.5 years of smaller updates that will have to download, though many of those are cumulative as well. It will just save you a lot of time downloading the latest available build. There's also the fact that installing from a DVD is sloooow compared to a flash drive. And as we suggested, you may want to unplug all the drives except the new C drive while you're doing the installation just to be certain you don't overwrite anything.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10


Are you sure the DVD drive isn't bad, too? You don't want to be trying to rush to shove a disc in before it closes itself. But otherwise it doesn't matter if you put it in before you turn it off. When you shut down and remove the old SSD and connect the DVD drive then turn it back on, there won't be any OS to boot. You'll be able to open the drive, insert the disc and close it, then just restart with Ctrl-Alt-Del, and you should then get the "press any key to boot from DVD" message. Even if the DVD drive isn't listed as the first disc in the boot sequence, there won't be an OS on any other drive so it will move down the list and reach the DVD. If there is an issue, you can check the BIOS to make sure the DVD drive appears in the boot menu. Or depending on your motherboard, pressing a key like ESC or F12 as it powers on will bring up a one-time boot menu to select the drive to use.

After the install, remove the DVD drive and reconnect everything except the bad drive, and you shouldn't have to change anything else. If the new drive is on the SATA0 port it will normally appear as the first drive in the boot sequence, but even if it's not, you don't have any other OS drives in the system so it will eventually select it and boot.

I tried to run the Media Creation Tool from the windows link you given me for windows 10 on the laptop but it kept telling me there’s a problem running the tool. So I’m going with the disc I have.
I did try it on my computer with the issue as well, but I didn’t have enough space to install the windows 10 iso on my C drive. It didn’t give me an option to install anywhere else.
I was in the middle of copying over important parts of my C drive to the large HDD I had when my pc blue screened and it won’t boot up again now. So I’ll have to do it with the disc now

 

[evermorex76]

Their site will only display the direct download link options if you're not using Windows, or use workarounds like changing the user agent string of the browser or modifying the page code with the developer tools. It's simple to do but at this point you're probably far enough in the process that it would be more of a waste of time to stop and start over.

Option two here: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/9230-download-windows-10-iso-file.html

If you still have important files on the old SSD that you couldn't copy, you could try again after you get Windows running on the new one by either plugging the old SSD in on another port and browsing it, or using a USB enclosure. As long as the new SSD is the first one in the BIOS boot sequence it won't matter that there is an OS on both, and you'll be able to tell immediately whether you booted to the new or old one anyway. You may not be able to get all the data, as obviously the SSD has some failures in the areas that are storing what you want, but it shouldn't crash the computer this time since the OS isn't running from that drive. You could also run a tool such as Victoria hard drive diagnostics with the remap option after you get as much as you can, and it MIGHT be able to fix some blocks so that you can get some of the damaged ones, but it will likely take a long time to complete and there's no guarantee.

 

[Zerk2012]

This isn't 100% required but is a good idea

If you don't do that then windows is known to put the boot partition on a different drive.

 

[LDavis213]

Their site will only display the direct download link options if you're not using Windows, or use workarounds like changing the user agent string of the browser or modifying the page code with the developer tools. It's simple to do but at this point you're probably far enough in the process that it would be more of a waste of time to stop and start over.

Option two here: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/9230-download-windows-10-iso-file.html

If you still have important files on the old SSD that you couldn't copy, you could try again after you get Windows running on the new one by either plugging the old SSD in on another port and browsing it, or using a USB enclosure. As long as the new SSD is the first one in the BIOS boot sequence it won't matter that there is an OS on both, and you'll be able to tell immediately whether you booted to the new or old one anyway. You may not be able to get all the data, as obviously the SSD has some failures in the areas that are storing what you want, but it shouldn't crash the computer this time since the OS isn't running from that drive. You could also run a tool such as Victoria hard drive diagnostics with the remap option after you get as much as you can, and it MIGHT be able to fix some blocks so that you can get some of the damaged ones, but it will likely take a long time to complete and there's no guarantee.

i went ahead with the disc install. It wasn’t bad at all. Only 4gb’s of updates.
Once it set some stuff up, I turned off pc and connected all other drives and the old C drive.
I installed that Victoria software and did the ‘Test & Repair’. I don’t think the C drive was that bad. I can link a photo I taken of the results. There were no errors, and no red rectangles. (If you know what that means.) though there were four orange ones.
I’m currently scanning my HDD as that’s pretty old. Just so see how it is. I’ve lost 2 HDD’s in the last 5 years.

So, with my C drive, I plan on moving everything over. The program files and documents and whatever else was important. Except for the windows files.
Will everything just work once it’s back in the C drive as Winwar is from the C drive and it’s not installed, and other softwares I have. So I can just drag those over to my new C drive and they’ll work as if they were always there?

I also had Microsoft Office I bought from Amazon. (Word, excel, PowerPoint and such) which was a one-time thing for my computer. So if I were to enter the code on a new computer, It wouldn’t work.
Would that all just work as well once everything is copied over?

 

[LDavis213]

If you don't do that then windows is known to put the boot partition on a different drive.

Oh ok. Don’t worry, I done it correctly thanks

 

[USAFRet]

So, with my C drive, I plan on moving everything over. The program files and documents and whatever else was important. Except for the windows files.
Will everything just work once it’s back in the C drive as Winwar is from the C drive and it’s not installed, and other softwares I have. So I can just drag those over to my new C drive and they’ll work as if they were always there?

NO.

Most applications do NOT transfer like that.
WinRAR might. Other things, no.

When an application is installed, it makes dozens or hundreds of entries in the Registry and elsewhere.
Your new OS knows nothing about that.

Copying that whole ProgramFiles folder over, and you WILL have major issues.

 

[evermorex76]

So, with my C drive, I plan on moving everything over. The program files and documents and whatever else was important. Except for the windows files.
Will everything just work once it’s back in the C drive as Winwar is from the C drive and it’s not installed, and other softwares I have. So I can just drag those over to my new C drive and they’ll work as if they were always there?

I also had Microsoft Office I bought from Amazon. (Word, excel, PowerPoint and such) which was a one-time thing for my computer. So if I were to enter the code on a new computer, It wouldn’t work.

If it's a portable program that just came in a Zip file that you extracted and then you clicked on the .exe file and it ran, then you can just copy that folder and recreate whatever shortcut you were using to get to it, if any. If you had to run a Setup.exe or Install.exe or anything like that, then you will need to download that installer again and run it (or use the CD/DVD or whatever), and then reconfigure settings in the application back to the way you had them before. (Very few programs just have a single configuration file like config.ini these days, but it's possible some of yours do. And for others, you could mount the Windows Registry files from the old SSD to pull out the settings for some apps to import to the new Registry. But since you're likely not familiar with any of that, it's best to just set the programs up manually the normal way.)

The license key for Office probably can be re-used. Microsoft allows them to be reactivated a few times, as long as they're not done all in a short period. I.e., you can't activate it 3 times in one week because they'll assume you're installing it on 3 machines, but if it's been 9 months then it will usually work because you're probably rebuilding that machine. It doesn't hurt to try. And if it was associated with a Microsoft account, you can log into that account and de-activate the original installation which definitely makes it available to reactivate. Even if automated activation doesn't work, there are options like telephone activation (depending on hold old the version is). This isn't a "new computer", just a replacement of a failed drive, which is explicitly allowed for reactivation even with OEM license keys (and technically works with different computers even if it does violate the license terms), and if it was a full retail key then you're allowed to move it to a completely different computer.

 

[LDavis213]

If it's a portable program that just came in a Zip file that you extracted and then you clicked on the .exe file and it ran, then you can just copy that folder and recreate whatever shortcut you were using to get to it, if any. If you had to run a Setup.exe or Install.exe or anything like that, then you will need to download that installer again and run it (or use the CD/DVD or whatever), and then reconfigure settings in the application back to the way you had them before. (Very few programs just have a single configuration file like config.ini these days, but it's possible some of yours do. And for others, you could mount the Windows Registry files from the old SSD to pull out the settings for some apps to import to the new Registry. But since you're likely not familiar with any of that, it's best to just set the programs up manually the normal way.)

The license key for Office probably can be re-used. Microsoft allows them to be reactivated a few times, as long as they're not done all in a short period. I.e., you can't activate it 3 times in one week because they'll assume you're installing it on 3 machines, but if it's been 9 months then it will usually work because you're probably rebuilding that machine. It doesn't hurt to try. And if it was associated with a Microsoft account, you can log into that account and de-activate the original installation which definitely makes it available to reactivate. Even if automated activation doesn't work, there are options like telephone activation (depending on hold old the version is). This isn't a "new computer", just a replacement of a failed drive, which is explicitly allowed for reactivation even with OEM license keys (and technically works with different computers even if it does violate the license terms), and if it was a full retail key then you're allowed to move it to a completely different computer.

Hi sorry for late reply.
I’ve got it now, thanks. Reinstall everything. It’s not much of an issue.

And that’s good for the Microsoft office package. Just need to find the code lol.

Thanks for your help. Pc is up and running and good 👍😊 🫡🇺🇸