Question Very Basic Question, Probably, About Drive Letter Assignment.

[Mommy Alice]

I was given a new computer by my son, it is a very nice Alienware Aurora R10 AMD. My old computer was also an AMD (HP Power Desk Omen).
My question is, why can't you just reassign letters so that programs from slave (my old HDD) work properly and use shortcuts from the new drive?
Why can't you give the slave the letter C and the new boot disk E and just tell BIOS to boot from E, so you don't have to go through reinstalling programs and games with all your settings, usernames, passwords..etc?
It seems silly to have a new disk that is nice and fast because of no clutter - just to clone it and clutter it up again.
Both drives are set to AHCI, both are the same speed - only dif is the new one is SSD, and the old one is SATA.
Even if I had to go into BIOS every time to tell it what to boot from, it would be worth it, as long as the slave was able to point to the correct registry and files because of the letter.
Can this be done, why not, and if not, what's the point of life?

 

[USAFRet]

Unless you take extreme pains to have it otherwise, whatever drive the system boots from will be the C drive.

For programs from the old drive with a different OS...there are many other things than just the shortcut and .exe. When an application is installed, it makes many entries in the Registry and elsewhere.
Dozens, sometimes hundreds.

You usually/often can't boot from an old C drive in a different system. Windows is not as modular as we'd all want.

what's the point of life

Its only a few applications. Not the end of the world...

 

[thx1138v2]

You are confusing "drives" and partitions. "Drive letters" are assigned to partitions, not physical drives. That's only one of the problems you need to address. You can have multiple drive letters assigned to different partitions on the same physical drive. And you can have drive letters assigned to partitions on network physical drives as well so it may not even be in the same case or room or building, for that matter.

 

[Mommy Alice]

Unless you take extreme pains to have it otherwise, whatever drive the system boots from will be the C drive.

For programs from the old drive with a different OS...there are many other things than just the shortcut and .exe. When an application is installed, it makes many entries in the Registry and elsewhere.
Dozens, sometimes hundreds.

You usually/often can't boot from an old C drive in a different system. Windows is not as modular as we'd all want.



Its only a few applications. Not the end of the world...

Thanks for answering so soon.
My new drive has Windows 11 and the old one is Windows 10, I have been using the old one as the Boot, because of the fact that it has all my stuff - my browsers remember my login, passwords, credit cards, etc.. and my games load.
I tried to use the new disk and just shortcuts to the game on the "D drive" and they would only go so far, then stop - turn off completely. No Man's Sky would go to seeing my guy, then ZIP- nothing, no error no drag, the program just ended. I figure Steam ran it to one point, then gave up because files weren't pointing to the right letter... or registry.
- so still I wonder, what's the point of a new drive if you are going to need to clone the old one and dirty it up and have it slow immediately after getting it because you are just passing on the sickness?
Are we all fools to even buy new disks just for cloning? I just don't get it.
When I tried the new drive, my browsers had zero saved information. What do I do to bring that information over - besides cloning?

 

[USAFRet]

Thanks for answering so soon.
My new drive had Windows 11 and the old one is Windows 10, I have been using the old one as the Boot, because of the fact that it has all my stuff - my browsers remember my login, passwords, credit cards, etc.. and my games load.
I tried to use the new disk and just shortcuts to the game on the "D drive" and they would only go so far, then stop - turn off completely. No Man's Sky would go to seeing my guy, then ZIP- nothing, no error no drag, the program just ended. I figure Steam ran it to one point, then gave up because files weren't pointing to the right letter... or registry.
- so still I wonder, what's the point of a new drive if you are going to need to clone the old one and dirty it up and have it slow immediately after getting it because you are just passing on the sickness?
Are we all fools to even buy new disks just for cloning? I just don't get it.
When I tried the new drive, my browsers had zero saved information. What do I do to bring that information over - besides cloning?

Steam games are not really an issue.

A new Steam client on some new PC can be told where games are on an old drive.
Steam games location
In the steam client:
Steam
Settings
Downloads
Steam Library Folders
Add library folder

To move an already installed game
Games library
Right click the game
Properties
Local Files
Move Install Folder
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Not sure where you're going with the 'cloning', but that is used if you wish to change drives.
Size or type.

For instance...changing from a spinning HDD to a SSD.
Or running out of space on a 250GB drive, and moving up to a 1TB.

But if there are 'issues' with whatever is on the source drive (a "sickness"), then cloning is not recommended.

 

[Lafong]

Programs on the HP hard drive are beholden to the Windows installation on the HP hard drive.

If you simply had a new hard drive for your HP, cloning from the old drive to the new drive would be appropriate if the old drive was in good order. But you have an entirely new PC (Alienware), not just a new drive.

Not recommended, but you could always replace the SSD in the Alienware with the HP drive and see what happens. Probably wouldn't be pretty.

As for "what's the point of life?"..........there's an old Willie Nelson song "A Lament On The Futility Of All Human Endeavor" that should explain it all to you.

 

[Mommy Alice]

Oh

Steam games are not really an issue.

A new Steam client on some new PC can be told where games are on an old drive.
Steam games location
In the steam client:
Steam
Settings
Downloads
Steam Library Folders
Add library folder

To move an already installed game
Games library
Right click the game
Properties
Local Files
Move Install Folder
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Not sure where you're going with the 'cloning', but that is used if you wish to change drives.
Size or type.

For instance...changing from a spinning HDD to a SSD.
Or running out of space on a 250GB drive, and moving up to a 1TB.

But if there are 'issues' with whatever is on the source drive (a "sickness"), then cloning is not recommended.

Oh great! Thank you! That will take care of one problem...
Now the browsers with all my usernames, passwords, credit cards, addresses...? Is there a way to move that information over?

 

[Mommy Alice]

Programs on the HP hard drive are beholden to the Windows installation on the HP hard drive.

If you simply had a new hard drive for your HP, cloning from the old drive to the new drive would be appropriate if the old drive was in good order. But you have an entirely new PC (Alienware), not just a new drive.

Not recommended, but you could always replace the SSD in the Alienware with the HP drive and see what happens. Probably wouldn't be pretty.

As for "what's the point of life?"..........there's an old Willie Nelson song "A Lament On The Futility Of All Human Endeavor" that should explain it all to you.

I figured they were both the same speed, both coming/going to AMD.. it would be fine. <sigh>
Thanks for the "Meaning of Life" -

I am already using the old drive as the boot, and the new one as "slave" (obsolete lango there).. so far no problems.. I just want it the other way around, with all my information brought to new one, minus the crap and clutter.

 

[USAFRet]

Oh

Oh great! Thank you! That will take care of one problem...
Now the browsers with all my usernames, passwords, credit cards, addresses...? Is there a way to move that information over?

(this is why I don't 'store' data like that in my browsers)

But, if the old OS actually boots up, you can almost certainly Export the whole profile, and then Import into a new OS and its browsers.
Each browser has its own procedure for that Export/Import.

 

[Mommy Alice]

(this is why I don't 'store' data like that in my browsers)

But, if the old OS actually boots up, you can almost certainly Export the whole profile, and then Import into a new OS and its browsers.
Each browser has its own procedure for that Export/Import.

Dang USARef, you rock. Good critical thinking.. I am just so "not with it" --- I will check it out see what the browsers have for me. It wouldn't be so bad if websites didn't make you change your passwords every month or whatever.. and they all insist it can't be the same one .. at this point, I am so confused, and at 60, my memory sucks! I am glad my browsers ask if I want it to remember them for me

 

[USAFRet]

at this point, I am so confused, and at 60, my memory sucks!

hehe...60 is a tiny speck in my rear view mirror...

 

[TerryLaze]

- so still I wonder, what's the point of a new drive if you are going to need to clone the old one and dirty it up and have it slow immediately after getting it because you are just passing on the sickness?

Well on one hand you call it a sickness but on the other hand that sickness is all the info of your websites and all of your games and all the settings of all your software.
The only two ways are to either copy everything or start over.

If your steam games start up and crash it means that there probably are dependencies that need to be installed, some of the sickness is needed to run all your things, that's why at least some of it is there.
Steam has a big common redistributable package that it will download once in a while but no mans sky, and others, might need other ones as well.

Common Redistributables (Steamworks Documentation)

partner.steamgames.com

Also if you login to your browser and do a sync it will have all bookmarks and passwords available again, works at least for chrome and firefox.