Win reinstallation to new drive

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tlustymen

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Feb 26, 2017
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Hey guys, so recently I bought a new SSD. Right now I have 1 SSD with win 10 and some apps on it + 2 HDD with personal data etc. What exactly do I have to do, to reinstall windows from old SSD to the new one, without deleting anything on HDDs? So basically I have an empty old SSD and a new one just with win10. I have win 10 installation flash disk and the .exe file. Thank you
 
Solution
Colif
Me again... how to run Dispkpart/clean from windows (you can't run inside windows though)

From desktop (booting from new ssd)
go to settings/update & security/recovery
under advanced startup, click restart now

That will restart PC in a blue menu
choose troubleshoot
choose advanced
choose command prompt

type diskpart and press enter
type list disk and press enter
this shows all drives available, DVD/USB and hdd, make note of hdd number
type Select disk 2 and press enter
once the drive you want to wipe on is chosen, type Clean (try not to do this to C drive)
To get out, type exit twice

This wipes drive, will need to create partitions in disk management to use it again.
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Is new SSD replacing the other ssd? Simplest way is to unplug all the drives from power except the new SSD and install win 10 on it using installer. When you get to screen asking for licence, click "I don't have a key" and win 10 will continue install and reactivate once completed. Then plug HDD back in.

You may need to take ownership of the files on the hdd and would need to reinstall any programs they relate to (unless they are steam games, then you just need to reinstall the steam client and make the old games library the default library location in the client and it will find the games and not need to download them)
 
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No, the old SSD stays, I'll use it for apps and games. Basically, I just wanna reinstall windows to a faster drive and use the old one for other stuff. Any idea how to do that?
 
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Well, steps above get win 10 onto new ssd. Then you could plug all old drives back in, and make sure not to have old ssd in boot order. This would let you move anything you want to keep off old ssd to new.

Then if you sure that there is nothing on old ssd you want to keep, you can run diskpart/clean on the old ssd to wipe it and then format it using disk management.

In windows, search for "command prompt", right click the desktop app result and choose "run as admin"
type diskpart and press enter
type list disk and press enter
this shows all drives available, DVD/USB and hdd, make note of ssd number (Make sure not to wipe wrong ssd)
type Select disk X - where X is the number of the ssd you want to wipe, change X to that number and press enter
once the drive you want to wipe is chosen, type Clean

there is a chance that won't work in windows, if it refuses. right click start
choose settings
choose Update & security
choose recovery
under Advanced startup, choose restart now

this loads PC into windows recovery
choose troubleshoot
choose advanced
choose command prompt
try the command above starting with Diskpart
 
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And is there any more simple option? 😀 I thought there is something like an option when installing windows from .exe/flash disk to select on which drive do you want to install windows/reinstall. :)


Yes, you follow Colif's instructions as in first paragraph in his first reply -- it doesn't get any simpler than that.
 
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The reason I suggested removing other drives while you reinstall win 10 is that windows tends to put its boot partition on any free space it finds on another drive, so while you can delete contents of old SSD using the installer, windows might use the blank space on it for the boot partition. That is fine until a time comes when that drive is removed or dies, then the PC won't boot.
 
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Ok, so for installation I should remove all drives except the old and new SSD, right? Then just install windows on the new drive and will it give me the option to reinstall? Or how do I get rid of the first one, I don't want a copy of win 10.
 
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don't need to remove the drives, just unplug the power cables from them inside PC

in my 2nd reply, I showed how to run diskpart. You can do that after the install process or you can do it before you start, your choice.

boot from installer
on screen after languages, choose repair this pc, not install.
choose troubleshoot
choose advanced
choose command prompt and follow the diskpart instructions

type diskpart and press enter
type list disk and press enter
this shows all drives available, DVD/USB and hdd, make note of ssd number (Make sure not to wipe wrong ssd)
type Select disk X and press enter (where X is the number of the ssd you want to wipe, change X to that number)
once the drive you want to wipe is chosen, type Clean
Click to expand...
 
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I just did that, and even started the installation from the new drive, but it just reinstalled the old system and so it is still on the old SSD. What now?
 
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That doesn't seem right. What motherboard do you have? did you make USB 1st item in boot order?

it might be that there is a setting in bios where its ignoring the USB drive, so knowing what motherboard you have will let me figure it out

Reactivation is automatic now, all details of licence are stored on Microsoft servers so that is why it happens after installation. You don't need to know it anymore.
 
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I have the MSI Z270 M5 a no, I haven't, cause I didn't know which USB it is, but I'll try it agai. I now tried cloning from old to new with the Samsung's data migration software and now I have 2 systems on both disks. God, I hate this so much.
 
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MSI motherboards have a setting called Fast BOot on boot tab of motherboard, if its set to enabled the PC will ignore any USB at boot apart from mouse/kb.

Its also possible secure boot is on.

USB was likely to have a title called UEFI USB as description in BIOS

so does it boot off the M.2 drive now you cloned the drives?
did you remove the old ssd at end of cloning process? https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/support-software/Data-Migration-with-Samsung-SSDs-699/

 
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No, I've removed all drives again when I wanted to test if the system really is on both drives, so now I know for sure that it's the exact copy on both.
But since it sadly cloned even the programs I didn't want it to, I'll just have to do the clean install anyway. I'll try the USB once more.
 
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If you haven't done the clean install yet, you could just reset Win 10 on the M.2 without using the USB

As usual, only have M.2 attached to any cables in PC
boot from it and go to settings/update & security/recovery
Under reset this PC, choose start
there are 2 choices, you can keep files/settings (Files = library folders. Library folders = Documents, pictures, movies, music (the default folders that come with windows). Settings = logins and desktop)
or Wipe it all - this removes everything on C drive except for Windows, reinstalls windows like it is brand new.

Which ever you choose, PC will restart and reinstall win 10

That fixes the M.2.

you still need to attach ssd by itself and run diskpart/clean to wipe it completely.
 
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I have never seen it ask for that before? is it asking for installation media or recovery? If recovery, that indicates you don't have a windows recovery partition. The solution is to download the recovery media from here - https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/12415/windows-10-recovery-options

If installation, that is very strange.

this is getting more complicated than it really needs to be. It shouldn't be this hard to install win 10 on a new ssd. (somewhere along line I started thinking this was an M.2 drive, I should go to sleep)

this link might help - http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-3334357/set-960-evo-ssd-boot-drive.html as its for installing win 10 on an ssd on your motherboard
 
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I can't find anything to download from the first link. I looked at the thread you sent, but everything there is about new install, not reinstall... :/

 
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Okay so, in the end, I reinstalled the new drive completely, but I still have the old system. I switch between them in boot menu with F11. I have some programs like Steam and Firefox I have installed there which I don't want to put on the new drive anyway, so is there any possibility to delete just the system?
 
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I tried to reinstall some programs, but it totally messes some up, is there any option to transfer at least some programs like firefox, steam etc.?
 
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How to delete the old Windows folders on old install - https://superuser.com/questions/915173/delete-old-windows-program-files-from-second-drive

Steam - where are the game libraries? on ssd or on hdd? I would move them onto the hdd (mine already are), and then its really easy to reuse the game files on new install. All you do is install client, and go to settings and change the default library location to the old folder, and steam will find the games and remove the need to reinstall them again.

how to move games or add a library -
Steam games, yes. You can even have that other drive as the default location.

Steam games location
In the steam client:
Steam
Settings
Downloads
Steam Library Folders
Add library folder
q24sFfe.png


To move an already installed game
Games library
Right click the game
Properties
Local Files
Move Install Folder
Click to expand...


If your personal data on hdd is your documents library, you don't lose any save games then either

Firefox is another matter, you will need to reinstall it like most other apps on the new install.

 
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Ok, thx and I got one more question about my drives. When I go to drive manager I see drives twice (photo) and kinda like separated? Is it normal? And if no how do I get rid of it? Is it because of the two systems? And sorry for the
qWvtUbP
language, hope you can orientate.
pW3bDJS.jpg

 
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Is drive 0 the new ssd? and Drive 2 the old one? if both still connected, that is how it will look. You may have deleted windows off the old ssd but the drive formatting stays the same unless you wipe the drive and format it as 1 partition like your 2tb drive is now.

its not like you will miss 451mb on a 232gb ssd, so I would just ignore them. If you don't format old ssd drive, the only thing that might happen in the distant future, if the current SSD doesn't boot, the PC may try to boot off the old SSD since it still has an EFI partition. As it says below, that is the boot partition, or used to be.

the separations are normal, that is how windows splits up the hdd. They are called partitions and win 10 by default sets up 4 of them

Partition 1 - Recovery
Partition 2 - System - The EFI System partition that contains the NTLDR, HAL, Boot.txt, and other files that are needed to boot the system, such as drivers.
Partition 3 - MSR - The Microsoft Reserved (MSR) partition that reserves space on each disk drive for subsequent use by operating system software.
Partition 4 - Primary - Where Windows is to be installed to.
Click to expand...

Your 2nd ssd might not have the MSR, its not really essential.

You can't make drive 0 1 partition as the bios looks for the EFI partition by looking for a particular File system (FAT32) on all drives attached to PC. Most Win 10 partitions formatted as NTFS, the EFI is formatted as FAT32. If you only had NTFS on the drive, the PC wouldn't boot... you don't need to know all that, it just explains why you can't have only 1 partition on Drive 0
 
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