Installing A New SSD Has Driven Me Into A Rage!

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Marc42

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Jan 24, 2016
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I recently went back to Windows and I am now regretting it BIG TIME. All I want to do is put a new, blank SSD in my Dell laptop. It has caused me over three round the clock, not sleeping days and I'm still no better than I was when I started. I've already broken another laptop taking the HD in and out and getting so frustrated that I punched it one too many times, trying internet tutorial after internet tutorial after internet tutorial on how to install a new SSD on a Win10 machine.

It wouldn't clone because my old HD is actually broken, with bad sectors, so it won't let me copy it, I get constant read errors. After staying awake and fighting with this madness for three days, I was finally able to get to the install screen of Win10 from a Win10 recovery drive. I select reset, from the recovery drive and I get a message from Windows telling me that it can't install the OS because an essential partition/s are not present. I've looked up at least a hundred articles, videos on partitioning, but all they tell you is how to do it. NO ONE tells you what the STANDARD partitioning of a Windows 10 machine is. Is it two partitions, three partitions, four partitions? What is the standard and what goes in each partition, what size should each partition be? Why can't ANYONE just tell me how your average, off the shelf machine is partitioned for Win10?

I tried putting just ONE partition in and then all I got was a message telling me that the drive wasn't "initialized"??? What does that even mean? Is that the same as formatting? I cant find ANY option in Windows to "initialize" a drive?

Why is it SO HARD to just simply install a new SSD? This experience has caused me SO many hours of lost sleep, screaming, cursing, frustration and RAGE that I'm ready to go screaming back to Apple. If the damn drives need to be partitioned to install an OS, WHY DON'T THEY SELL THEM ALREADY PARTITIONED? Just finding disk management in Windows is a tragic nightmare! Why do they hide it in sub menu's? Can't we just have a simple icon for "disk utility" for gods sake?

So, after 72 hours of no sleep and breaking another completely good 1k machine, I STILL have a laptop with an SSD in it, with NOTHING on it. So now, I get to break down and go to Best Buy and pay Geeksquad to do what SHOULD BE a straightforward, user friendly thing to do, and I can't even get to Best Buy for another two days! So... lord knows how long I will be without my business computer, but this has taught me a valuable lesson. Just pay the extra 2k for an Apple and don't try to "upgrade" a Windows machine EVER, unless you just want to do something that will ultimately end in you having a violent raging meltdown and throwing your machines into the nearest walls. No more Microsoft and NO more Windows for me EVER!
 
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Are you asking a question or making a very poor statement?

1) You should be able to simply install Windows 10 onto a new SSD. That's been done plenty of times. You need to initialize it? That's done when installing. Or perhaps you may want to do Shift+F10 into a command prompt while at the partitioning stage. Type diskpart, select disk 0, clean, create volume, and then exit.

2) You are hating on Windows because you don't do your own research. It's only a five minute browse on MSDN or Microsoft KB and you find out a lot on the partitioning scheme of Windows. By the way, it's EFI partition, System Reserved, Recover, Windows, which is a total of 4 partitions. And as for Disk Management, it's Win+R, then type "diskmgmt.msc". It's not complicated. You just made it that way for yourself.

3) Don't go to Apple. Aside from the hefty price tag, good luck to you when your Apple machine doesn't boot to login screen. If you can't handle the research on Windows, just wait till you turn to Macs. The thing is so much more complicated than simply which driver isn't working. You'll have fun just dealing with deciding which kext is the problem. That's not to mention the numerous ACPI tables that could cause problems. Best of all, you still deal with partitioning issues when you use OS X. This time, it's more complicated than initialize or NTFS or partitions: HFS+ doesn't sit well NTFS, HFS+ permissions have errors, you chose HFS+ instead of the HFS+ Journaling option, BIOS or UEFI or GPT or BIOS or Protective BIOS and now your OS X or Boot Camp doesn't work...

NOW is Apple computers easier to deal with than PCs? xDDD
 
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You sound insane lol. All You had to do was plug in the SSD and stick the Windows DVDs you were instructed go make when you got the laptop in and follow the instructions. it would tell you how to do all of it.

If YOU failed to make them than order them from the manufacture. It's extremely simple to install Windows. You are getting all bent out of shape because you are messing with recovery stuff on a dead drive which is obviously not going to work.
 
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IF your $2000 apple machines HD died and you didn't make any AppleOS backup or install media, and tried to put a new SSD or HD in it, the exact same thing would happen. All you need is a copy of windows on a USB key or DVD drive and your windows install key and you could have been back and up in no time. Windows 10 takes like 20mins to install, less than that with a USB 3.0 speed key.
 
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My laptop doesn't even have an optical drive to make DVD's with. I made a Windows recovery drive with a flash drive. Is that the same thing as you are talking about?

I still don't understand where/how I'm supposed to "initialize" a drive? When I turn my new Dell on, with the new SSD in it, all I get is a black screen that says "No bootable devices-- strike F1 to retry boot, F2 for setup utility. Press F5 to run onboard diagnostics."

Now, I have NO idea what ANY of that means, but NONE of it says anything like "Let's Initialize Your Drive. Click here to initialize". Nor does anything say "Let's partition your drive with standard Windows partitions. Click here to partition your drive".

Where do these mystery procedures occur? I can't get to BestBuy to return this laptop and SSD drive for another two days, so I'm willing to try until then, but I just don't see how this is actually possible.



 
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I think I have Windows on a USB drive. I made what they call a "recovery drive" on a USB 3.0 flash drive, I'm assuming that's Win10. I don't think I have a Windows install key, as my upgrade to Win10 was free and then I paid $100 to upgrade once again from Home edition to Pro. I remember doing it all online, I don't remember having to put in any key. Do you think there is a key somewhere?

The other major problem is there seems to be no way to "initialize" and "partition" my new SSD. When I turn on the machine, there are no options to do that. When I turn it on, all it says is, "No bootable devices-- strike F1 to retry boot, F2 for setup utility. Press F5 to run onboard diagnostics." There are no options to "initialize" and "partition".


 
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( I shall probably hate myself)

You need to create an actual Windows 10 install USB.
Go here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10
Download that tool
It will give you the opportunity to create the needed USB installation
Do that
Boot from that
Follow the directions, and install on your new SSD
 
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Thank you very much. I downloaded the media creation tool, but I have to do it on a computer with a different version of Windows 10 on it. My Toshiba had Windows 10 Pro and My Dell had Windows 10 Pro. The Toshiba is now in about six pieces by the trash after my rage got the best of me. The Dell has the new, blank SSD in it. I'm having to use the media creation tool on another family members computer, it's just Windows 10 on it. When I go to "Create installation media for another PC" it does not give me the option of Windows 10 Pro. I only get the options "Windows 10", "Windows 10 Home Single Language" or "Windows 10N" and then I can choose 64, 32 bit or both. I paid $100 to originally upgrade my Dell to Windows 10 Pro. Is that just lost now?

 
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If you paid $100 to upgrade to Win 10 Pro, surely you were provided with a license key for that. Right?
During the install, it will ask for that license key. Given a valid Win 10 Pro license key, that is what it will install.

The regular Upgrade from whatever was on it before would have been free.
 
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I've checked my purchase e-mail from Microsoft and I've checked my Microsoft account. All I was given was an order number. I don't remember putting in a license key, the upgrade was all done online through Win10.
 
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OK, so what OS was on the PC before? Home or Pro of something?

Win 7/8.1 Pro would have Upgraded to Win 10 Pro for free.
Win 7/8.1 Home would have Upgraded to Win 10 Home for free.

Changing Win 10 Home to Pro would have involved a new license key for Pro.

But....just to get that Dell thing up and running...
Boot from that USB you created.
Install.
The OS installation routine will create whatever partitions it needs. You do not have specify different partitions and sizes. Let the OS do its own thing.
 
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I think it had Windows 8.1 Home. I upgraded to Windows 10 Home for free, online. I then purchased a digital upgrade to Windows 10 Pro, but it was all done from within Windows 10, online. I was never given a license key number.
 
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OK, so install Win 10 Home on that PC, from the above linked MediaCreation tool.
Then, go through whatever process you did before to go to Win 10 Pro.
 
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Be cool man after you install Win 10 home you can enter the product key to upgrade to Win 10 Pro. If you paid for Win 10 Pro your key should be in your email if you bought it online. Insert your bootable media and follow the instructions. there will be an option to partition/format the SSD since its new and the installer will do the rest. No sense in smashing your laptop to bit and bytes. There is a solution.
 
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A Win10 install gives you everything Win10. It's the license key that gives you the varying permissions.
As for your old HDD, pretty much as long as the platters will spin and they will read, Acronis TrueImage will copy it.
 
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I am supposing your SSD has a capacity of 120 or 128 GB (real usable 119 GB)

Open your laptop and install it in one of the internal HDD trays. If you don't have trays just lay it down in any unused space.

Be very careful with the connection cables. You need only two. One for power and one for data transmission

Ideally your computer will recognize your SSD as DIsk 0.

If it recognizes it as disk 1 never mind. You will just have to change the booting order (1.- Your CD-ROM; 2.- Your SSD disk number)

Install Windows 10 on the SSD (the installation sequence has an option of where you want to install the OS).

Reboot

If you already have Win10 installed in any partition, use a partition software (like Aomei for example) and migrate your OS to the SSD.

You should not lose any personal stuff you may have on other partitions. You will only lose your software programs.

These can be downloaded again.

If you don't have the key for these programs, contact customer support for these softwares. Explain your situation, and usually they will provide you with a new activation key.

I hope I have been of help.
 
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