[SOLVED] should i clean install or clone windows to my new ssd and how?

[eziowar]

hi, my cpu i5-4670k, gpu - 1050ti, mobo- gigabyte z87x-ud3h, bios version F10b, psu corsair cs650 , ram 4x4gb @1600 mhz, windows10.
i have a 1 tb sata hdd, now i have decided to add a 500gb sata ssd. i will run windows and games on that ssd. my old hdd have 3 paritions - drive c,d, and e. windows is installed in drive c. now i wanna protect data in drive d and e . i dont mind if i have to do clean reinstal of windows and do clean format of drive c. but dont wanna lose anything from drive e or d. plz suggest me how should i proceed. which scenario is possible among these-

1. is it possible to clone only that drive c which has windows to new ssd and then clean format(/completely delete everything) old drive c and boot from ssd? after the cloning process can i change the name of old drive "c" to some other alphabet and assign ssd as "c" cause i think it will b easier if windows stayed in drive named "c" cause most of the program's deafult path is C:\Program Files.
2. is it possible to do a clean install of windows to my ssd and clean format(/completely delete everything) old drive c and boot from ssd? after clean install of windows can i change the name of old drive "c" to some other alphabet and assign ssd as "c" ?

also 1 more thing, currently my hdd is attached to sata 0 slot and dvd rw to sata 1 slot. should i insert ssd to sata 0 slot and move hdd to sata 1 and dvd rw to sata 2 ?

btw i'm not gonna use raid, i'll use ahci. please help me out on this matter, your inputs very much valuable to me

 

[Lutfij]

Just reinstall the OS from scratch.

Here's how I'd do it.
1| Download all the necessary drivers for your platform/motherboard and have them on a pen drive.
2| Using another pen drive, create a USB installer for Windows 10(or any other OS). If WIndows 10, use Windows Media Creation Tools to create your installer.
3| Install the OS. Make sure you don't have more than the partitions created by the installer on your SSD. Essentially you should be only having C drive, the other small partitions created by installer are related to the OS.

In this day and age, an ODD is moot. you should have the SSD on your first SATA port that is native to the chipset.

 

[SkyNetRising]

is it possible to clone only that drive c which has windows to new ssd and then clean format(/completely delete everything) old drive c and boot from ssd? after the cloning process can i change the name of old drive "c" to some other alphabet and assign ssd as "c"

Probably possible. Can you show screenshot from Disk Management?
(upload to imgur.com and post link)
If cloning is done right, drive letters get changed automatically. You'll always have your active windows partition letter as C: .

is it possible to do a clean install of windows to my ssd and clean format(/completely delete everything) old drive c and boot from ssd? after clean install of windows can i change the name of old drive "c" to some other alphabet and assign ssd as "c" ?
also 1 more thing, currently my hdd is attached to sata 0 slot and dvd rw to sata 1 slot. should i insert ssd to sata 0 slot and move hdd to sata 1 and dvd rw to sata 2 ?

Sure. You can do that too.
Disconnect old drive, connect new drive, install windows, reconnect old drive. Windows partition on new drive will be C: .
Sata stots do not matter. You change boot priority settings in BIOS, to specify, which drive is used for boot.

 

[eziowar]

Probably possible. Can you show screenshot from Disk Management?
(upload to imgur.com and post link)
If cloning is done right, drive letters get changed automatically. You'll always have your active windows partition letter as C: .


Sure. You can do that too.
Disconnect old drive, connect new drive, install windows, reconnect old drive. Windows partition on new drive will be C: .
Sata stots do not matter. You change boot priority settings in BIOS, to specify, which drive is used for boot.

thank you for replying. after installing windows to ssd what happens to my old hdd C drive wich currently have windows? will the old C drive renamed automatically? will any data from my old Hdd gets erased in this whole method
Imgur

 

[eziowar]

Just reinstall the OS from scratch.

Here's how I'd do it.
1| Download all the necessary drivers for your platform/motherboard and have them on a pen drive.
2| Using another pen drive, create a USB installer for Windows 10(or any other OS). If WIndows 10, use Windows Media Creation Tools to create your installer.
3| Install the OS. Make sure you don't have more than the partitions created by the installer on your SSD. Essentially you should be only having C drive, the other small partitions created by installer are related to the OS.

In this day and age, an ODD is moot. you should have the SSD on your first SATA port that is native to the chipset.

thank you for replying. after installing windows to ssd what happens to my old hdd C drive wich currently have windows? will the old C drive renamed automatically? whill any data from my old Hdd gets erased in this whole method

 

[SkyNetRising]

after installing windows to ssd what happens to my old hdd C drive wich currently have windows? will the old C drive renamed automatically? will any data from my old Hdd gets erased in this whole method

Cloning is possible there. You'd have to clone bootloader 100MB partition and C: partition to the new drive.

If you perform clean install of windows on new drive, windows partition will have letter C: assigned.
After you connect any other drive, partitions on that drive will have random different drive letters assigned.
C: drive letter will not be available anymore, it can not be assigned to partitions on your old drive. You can change drive letters for non windows partitions as you want.

Nothing happens to your old windows partition. It stays untouched. Nothing gets erased (unless you manualy erase it).

 

[DSzymborski]

I'm more concerned about why you're worrying about your data being erased. If completely wiping your hard drive would make you lose data, then you have a serious problem with lack of backups of your data. If this is the case and you do not have multiple backups if your important files, you have a neglected upkeep issue that you should be fixing as the top priority, not moving stuff to your new SSD.

If a meteor struck your house while you are away at work, would you lose important data? If so, then you have important work to do to remedy this.

 

[eziowar]

Cloning is possible there. You'd have to clone bootloader 100MB partition and C: partition to the new drive.

If you perform clean install of windows on new drive, windows partition will have letter C: assigned.
After you connect any other drive, partitions on that drive will have random different drive letters assigned.
C: drive letter will not be available anymore, it can not be assigned to partitions on your old drive. You can change drive letters for non windows partitions as you want.

Nothing happens to your old windows partition. It stays untouched. Nothing gets erased (unless you manualy erase it).

thank u so much for clearing this up, 1 last thing do i have to remove my old hdd when i install windows on new ssd ? cause i wanted to clean format my old hdd's c drive during windows installation.

 

[USAFRet]

thank u so much for clearing this up, 1 last thing do i have to remove my old hdd when i install windows on new ssd ? cause i wanted to clean format my old hdd's c drive during windows installation.

Yes. Have ONLY the SSD connected when you do the 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

Reconnect the HDD later, and manage its partitions as desired.
And of course, before ANY messing around with partitions, have a known good backup of all data.

 

[eziowar]

Yes. Have ONLY the SSD connected when you do the 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

Reconnect the HDD later, and manage its partitions as desired.
And of course, before ANY messing around with partitions, have a known good backup of all data.

thank you, but there's a boot partition of 100 mb already in my hdd, so after installing windows to my new ssd when i connect my old hdd and boot the system then the old boot partition of my hdd wont make any trouble right?

 

[USAFRet]

thank you, but there's a boot partition of 100 mb already in my hdd, so after installing windows to my new ssd when i connect my old hdd and boot the system then the old boot partition of my hdd wont make any trouble right?

As long as the new SSD is before the HDD in the BIOS boot order, the system never sees or tries to boot from that partition on the HDD.

 

[eziowar]

As long as the new SSD is before the HDD in the BIOS boot order, the system never sees or tries to boot from that partition on the HDD.

thank u o much