Question I installed Windows on the wrong drive ?

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
J

jsfd26

Distinguished
Apr 2, 2015
22
0
18,510
To make a long story short:

I just built my new rig with an M2 SSD and a HDD plugged in to it. When I went to go install Windows, it only recognized 1 of the 2 drives and I automatically assumed it was my SSD without paying much attention but it turns out it was my HDD. So I installed Windows on it.

Today when I was going through Disk Management to add what I thought was my HDD I realized that I was actually adding my SSD instead.

My question is, what is the best and easiest option here to do a fresh reinstall or whatever I need to do to get Windows on to my SSD and clear out my HDD. Today I even made my HDD a GPT drive (not sure if that matters).

Thank you in advance.
 
I'd do whatever took the least time of these:

Clone or image the HDD installation to the SSD

or

Start over and make a fresh install to the SSD with ONLY 1 drive connected.

Depends on how much configuration time you've already put into the HDD installation. If you have spent say 5 or 10 hours on that, maybe do a clone or image. If only 0 or 1 hours, maybe just start over.

Factor in whether or not you have any experience in cloning or imaging. There is a learning curve to that, but it is not extreme.
 
  • Like
Reactions: falcon291 and jsfd26
Lafong said:
I'd do whatever took the least time of these:

Clone or image the HDD installation to the SSD

or

Start over and make a fresh install to the SSD with ONLY 1 drive connected.

Depends on how much configuration time you've already put into the HDD installation. If you have spent say 5 or 10 hours on that, maybe do a clone or image. If only 0 or 1 hours, maybe just start over.

Factor in whether or not you have any experience in cloning or imaging. There is a learning curve to that, but it is not extreme.
Click to expand...
I haven’t done anything to this PC except download drivers and Windows updates. I’ve been busy. Lol

Never done cloning or imaging. 😅
 
Last edited:

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...
forums.tomshardware.com forums.tomshardware.com

How To - Windows 11 clean install tutorial

Windows 11 Clean install tutorial This tutorial is intended to help you, step by step, to perform a clean install of Windows 11, version 23H2 or newer but can be equally applied to earlier versions which may have some basic differences in the screens you see but will largely remain similar in...
forums.tomshardware.com forums.tomshardware.com
 
  • Like
Reactions: jsfd26
Thank you everyone who took the time to post.

I was able to take care of it.

I ran into a small hiccup during setup saying something about partitions but it was sorted out.

Thank you again. It’s finally up and running with 0 issues.
 
jsfd26 said:
Thank you everyone who took the time to post.

I was able to take care of it.

I ran into a small hiccup during setup saying something about partitions but it was sorted out.

Thank you again. It’s finally up and running with 0 issues.
Click to expand...
Details of what you did?
To possibly assist others in the future...
 
punkncat said:
This can lead to the recovery partition being left unless you utilize disk part, etc.
Click to expand...
An explanation for the benefit of others would help. Multiple recovery partitions is a problem that many people have and many of us have multiple EFI system partitions. There are not clear answers about why and what to do about them. Anything relevant to this thread that you have to share would help.
 
Sam Hobbs said:
An explanation for the benefit of others would help. Multiple recovery partitions is a problem that many people have and many of us have multiple EFI system partitions. There are not clear answers about why and what to do about them. Anything relevant to this thread that you have to share would help.
Click to expand...
Just a "format" in File Explorer does not get rid of all the partitions on the drive.
In particular, the original boot partition.

Commandline function diskpart, and the clean command will wipe the entire drive.
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/format-hard-drive-command-prompt,37632.html

How to Diskpart Erase/Clean a Drive Through the Command Prompt | Seagate US

This article explains the Microsoft Diskpart Erase utility. The command that erases the drive during this process is "Clean". In this article "Clean" and erase are used interchangeably. Cleaning or erasing a storage device removes all data and partitions from the drive.
www.seagate.com
https://searchwindowsserver.techtar...t-to-create-extend-or-delete-a-disk-partition
 
Sam Hobbs said:
An explanation for the benefit of others would help. Multiple recovery partitions is a problem that many people have and many of us have multiple EFI system partitions. There are not clear answers about why and what to do about them. Anything relevant to this thread that you have to share would help.
Click to expand...

Probably a moot point covered by at least one of the links left above, but basically that if you go into Disk Manager and attempt to delete all the partitions, the recovery partition will not delete that way. It requires going into disk part as a administrator with elevated permissions to delete. That can be a bit involved and/or confusing so the easy button is to use the USB installer during a 'pretend' install session to wipe the drive of all back to unallocated.
The reason to disconnect other drives is so that the installer doesn't pull its famous trick of installing partitions like cache on other installed and connected drives.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Moonstick2
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom