[SOLVED] Installing Windows on a used drive without losing data?

[uknowumoe]

Hi,

I've had problems with freezing / crashing lately and I think the issue is my current system drive.
To check if that's the case, I want to unplug the current one and install Windows on one of my other drives.

My current system drive is a 250 GB SATA SSD, the one I want to install Windows on is a newer 1TB NVMe SSD. However there's already data on the NVMe, which I'd prefer not to lose.

Is there a way to get Windows on my NVMe without formatting? Would cloning be an option or does that require a formatted drive as well?


Would appreciate any help.

 

[USAFRet]

It is far far better to move that data OFF the desired target drive.

Sure, it is mostly possible. Partitions, etc.
However...one misclick...all data is gone.


Never go down a road like this with the only copy of your data. Ever.

 

[uknowumoe]

@USAFRet it's no important data. Mostly games, but as there are some quite large ones on there (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is around 200GB alone for example) and my connection isn't the fastest, I don't really want to download everything again.

The only thing I could do is to move all the games on my 3rd drive, a 1TB HDD, install Windows + format and move everything back on there. I suppose moving it over takes a while though.

 

[USAFRet]

@USAFRet it's no important data. Mostly games, but as there are some quite large ones on there (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is around 200GB alone for example) and my connection isn't the fastest, I don't really want to download everything again.

The only thing I could do is to move all the games on my 3rd drive, a 1TB HDD, install Windows + format and move everything back on there. I suppose moving it over takes a while though.

A couple of hours, vs risking losing it all and/or having a weird OS install.

Do it right.

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