Question My 120GB boot drive ran out of space, so I bought a 1TB SSD and just duplicated the partition. Now I can't format that drive.

[nivekrolyat122]

It was very stupid of me, but I duplicated the partition and booted to that. After Windows did its thing, it was running off of that SSD. When I realized that I was stupid and now still running low on boot drive storage I booted back on the old drive, it boots perfectly well there.

I tried to format the new drive to restart but it says that I cannot and returns the following error:

https://imgur.com/a/8Kc2UBS

View: https://imgur.com/a/8Kc2UBS


So I tried unplugging the new drive just to make sure I could still boot to the old drive, and I cant. It POSTs but doesn't boot. It goes straight to my BIOS. Plugging in the new drive makes it boot right up again.

Here's a screenshot of my disk management page:

https://imgur.com/a/9ZaYpUn

View: https://imgur.com/a/9ZaYpUn


Can my stupidity be undone?

EDIT: I am creating an installation tool right now if I need it.

 

[Math Geek]

how did you "duplicate the partition"??

something like this should be done with cloning software but it sounds like you did some sort of copy and paste type move. it seems like you moved the partitions but the system reserve is still pointing to the install on your old drive.

you're most likely only fix is to start over. remove EVERY drive but the new ssd and remove EVERY partition so it is 100% empty unpartitioned space. then start installing windows and let it create what it needs as it goes. once windows is up and running, you can plug the old drive in and format it for other uses. all of the partition work can be done from the installer usb by selecting advanced install (or might be called custom install still)

 

[Lafong]

I booted back on the old drive, it boots perfectly well there.....................I tried unplugging the new drive just to make sure I could still boot to the old drive, and I cant.

Confusion.

Confirm:

Can you still boot the PC with ONLY the old drive connected?

If yes, you should be able to recover by then:

1; cloning old drive to new drive

or

2; imaging old drive to new drive

or

3; clean install to the new drive with all other drives disconnected.

 

[USAFRet]

Whatever you did, that was absolutely the WRONG way to do what I think you wanted to do.

 

[USAFRet]

Start over.

Return the system back to original config, without the new drive.

Power up.
Does it boot correctly?

 

[Math Geek]

Can you still boot the PC with ONLY the old drive connected?

he states it will not. you can see it has no boot partition anymore which is why it does not boot

 

[USAFRet]

Can my stupidity be undone?

If the system does NOT boot with ONLY the old drive connected, your only option is a clean OS install.

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

 

[fzabkar]

Can you show us the Partitions window in DMDE?

https://dmde.com/

There may be a simple way to reinstate the System Reserved partition on the old drive.