Question New m.2, new windows install

[saltlife97]

Hello forums,

I just ordered a new m.2 to install windows on. It will be replacing my 8+ year old Samsung ssd, which is currently where windows is installed. I will be removing that ssd along with another one from my system, and will be running the new m.2 along with another m.2 I purchased about 3 years ago (all my games are installed here). My question is, do I need to wipe the m.2 with my games on it for the fresh install? Can I get away with not wiping the m.2, or could this potentially cause instability issues?

Side note, is it worth it to upgrade from windows 10 to windows 11? Will I see any performance gains? If it’s marginal I will just stick to windows 10.

Thanks.

 

[Lutfij]

If the second drive that houses your games is technically a Steam library drive, then you merely need to locate the drive with the game's folder in Steam's app.

Side note, is it worth it to upgrade from windows 10 to windows 11? Will I see any performance gains? If it’s marginal I will just stick to windows 10.
Please list the specs to your build like so:
CPU:
CPU cooler:
Motherboard:
Ram:
SSD/HDD:
GPU:
PSU:
Chassis:
OS:
Monitor:
include the age of the PSU apart from it's make and model. BIOS version for your motherboard at this moment of time.

As for your upgrade question, are you going to upgrade to Windows 11 through the internal upgrade path? If so, once the upgrade is completed, you 're advised to reinstall Windows 11 after recreating your bootable USB installer.

Lastly, I tend to use a slower SSD for the OS, app's and launchers while a larger faster drive houses the games on it as you won't notice the difference while you're doing day to day tasks but for games it helps with load times(most often is the case).

 

[VizzieTheViz]

I always just migrate the old drive to the new one with something like Samsung magician or equivalent, has basically always worked.

Is there any reason to do a fresh install of windows?

Personally I haven’t noticed much difference between windows 10 and 11 performance but as windows 10 support (or at least free security updates) is ending this year it might be a good time to switch to 11.

 

[saltlife97]

If the second drive that houses your games is technically a Steam library drive, then you merely need to locate the drive with the game's folder in Steam's app.

Side note, is it worth it to upgrade from windows 10 to windows 11? Will I see any performance gains? If it’s marginal I will just stick to windows 10.
Please list the specs to your build like so:
CPU:
CPU cooler:
Motherboard:
Ram:
SSD/HDD:
GPU:
PSU:
Chassis:
OS:
Monitor:
include the age of the PSU apart from it's make and model. BIOS version for your motherboard at this moment of time.

As for your upgrade question, are you going to upgrade to Windows 11 through the internal upgrade path? If so, once the upgrade is completed, you 're advised to reinstall Windows 11 after recreating your bootable USB installer.

Lastly, I tend to use a slower SSD for the OS, app's and launchers while a larger faster drive houses the games on it as you won't notice the difference while you're doing day to day tasks but for games it helps with load times(most often is the case).

CPU: R7 7800x3d
CPU cooler: Corsair H150i Elite LCD
Motherboard: Rog Strix B650E-F Gaming Wifi (BIOS ver.1636)
Ram: Corsair Vengence DDR5 64GB 6000mhz
SSD/HDD: Samsung SSD 860 EVO 1TB
Samsung SSD 860 EVO 500GB
Samsung SSD 980 1TB
WD Elements 2667 5TB HDD (external through USB)
GPU: RTX 3080 10gb (MSI)
PSU: Corsair 1000W RMX Gold (installed 3 years ago)
Chassis: Corsair iCUE 4000X Mid-Tower
OS: Windows 10 ver. 22H2 (OS Build 19045.5608)
Monitor: Asus PG27AQDM (Main)
LG 27GL850-B.AUS (Secondary)

The plan is to remove the 860 EVOs, as both of them are 8+ years of age. About a year ago I had a lot of issues with blue screening, and I was able to get it fixed by just completely re installing all drivers. I'm getting these issues again, but not nearly as bad as before. All drivers are up to date currently. Most of my current blue screen errors are memory related, but they only happen when playing Escape from Tarkov, which is a terribly optimized game and has memory leak issues. Back when I had the problems a year ago, someone mentioned to me that my old SSDs could be causing some problems. Anyways a new M.2 wasn't that expensive so I have purchased one for my OS to be installed on.

As for the other drive where my games are installed (Samsung 980), Steam is installed there, along with Escape from Tarkov, League of Legends, and World of Warcraft. I'm sifting around my storage devices right now, and seems like Riot Vanguard is on local disk along with some different files for other games.

I think I would use Window's upgrade feature. I guess I could perform the upgrade and install the OS onto the new m.2 instead of my 860 EVO, or would I need to upgrade first, then install windows boot onto my USB, then re install windows onto the new m.2?

 

[saltlife97]

I always just migrate the old drive to the new one with something like Samsung magician or equivalent, has basically always worked.

Is there any reason to do a fresh install of windows?

Personally I haven’t noticed much difference between windows 10 and 11 performance but as windows 10 support (or at least free security updates) is ending this year it might be a good time to switch to 11.

So I could just migrate all my files from my Samsung 860 EVO to my new Samsung 990 EVO using Samsung magician? I don't need a fresh windows install? I did a fresh install when I upgraded the motherboard, among other components, a year ago.

 

[VizzieTheViz]

So I could just migrate all my files from my Samsung 860 EVO to my new Samsung 990 EVO using Samsung magician? I don't need a fresh windows install? I did a fresh install when I upgraded the motherboard, among other components, a year ago.

Yes basically. That’s always worked for me, I’d only do a fresh install if you want Toni stall win 11 anyways

 

[saltlife97]

Yes basically. That’s always worked for me, I’d only do a fresh install if you want Toni stall win 11 anyways

Yeah I had no idea Samsung Magician is a thing. Seems to be a neat tool. I just ran a health check on the local disk and it seems like the drive itself is ok and everything is normal. I think I will give the data migration a try once the new m.2 arrives instead of a fresh install, and update firmware for all drives.

 

[USAFRet]

Yeah I had no idea Samsung Magician is a thing. Seems to be a neat tool. I just ran a health check on the local disk and it seems like the drive itself is ok and everything is normal. I think I will give the data migration a try once the new m.2 arrives instead of a fresh install, and update firmware for all drives.

-----------------------------
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.
-----------------------------

 

[JayGau]

If you migrate your Windows from a SATA SSD to a M.2 drive there's a high probability that Windows is not going to boot but fortunately it's easy to fix. Just let it try booting/repair a few times until it goes to the Windows recovery mode and then boot in safe mode. After that it should boot normally.

And yes, you should definitely upgrade to Windows 11 once you get everything working on your new drive since Windows 10 will reach its end of life in October. And YOU DON'T NEED a fresh install after upgrading to Windows 11. That's a tenacious myth that likely comes from the first days of Win 11 when some people had issues after upgrading but there's no reason to do that anymore. I did this upgrade (10 to 11) on countless of computers both at work and for my personal machines and never had a problem. They work just as fine as computers with a fresh Win 11 install.

 

[williamjeremiah]

If you migrate your Windows from a SATA SSD to a M.2 drive there's a high probability that Windows is not going to boot but fortunately it's easy to fix. Just let it try booting/repair a few times until it goes to the Windows recovery mode and then boot in safe mode. After that it should boot normally.

And yes, you should definitely upgrade to Windows 11 once you get everything working on your new drive since Windows 10 will reach its end of life in October. And YOU DON'T NEED a fresh install after upgrading to Windows 11. That's a tenacious myth that likely comes from the first days of Win 11 when some people had issues after upgrading but there's no reason to do that anymore. I did this upgrade (10 to 11) on countless of computers both at work and for my personal machines and never had a problem. They work just as fine as computers with a fresh Win 11 install.

But you WILL NEED A FRESH INSTALL if windows 10 was formatted using MBR (CSM enabled), as Windows 11 requires a GPT - UEFI (non CSM) installation.

 

[JayGau]

But you WILL NEED A FRESH INSTALL if windows 10 was formatted using MBR (CSM enabled), as Windows 11 requires a GPT - UEFI (non CSM) installation.

If you read my comment, I said that if you successful upgrade from 10 to 11 you don't need a fresh install (but to reach this step you need to have a Windows 11 supported system otherwise Windows 10 will not let you upgrade anyway). People are always like "if you upgrade from 10 to 11 recreate your install boot drive and reinstall Windows" but this is totally useless.
And Windows has a built-in tool to convert its own partition to UEFI by the way. I did it several times. It's super easy to do and it works fine:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...ion-from/aa8c2de3-460b-4a8c-b30b-641405f800d7

 

[williamjeremiah]

And Windows has a built-in tool to convert its own partition to UEFI by the way.

Neat tool.

 

[saltlife97]

-----------------------------
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.
-----------------------------

Thank you for this! It will help me out a ton.

 

[saltlife97]

Data migration was successful, and only took me roughly 30 minutes for the whole job. System booted right up without even having to go into the BIOS. Rebooted 3 times before reconnecting my HDD and older m.2 just to make sure.

For now I will forgo the Windows 11 update, and I will do that at a later time. Thanks everyone!