Windows 10: Booting from cloned SSD, removal of old installation

Hi all,

I'm in a bit of a situation of my own causing here. I had a lot of trouble opening up my new laptop to install an nvme drive (HP among others has begun using locktite like solutions to render maintenance and repair of devices difficult), so I installed the nvme (the original boot drive was a 7200 rpm hdd), and used samsungs data migration tool to clone the drive. And put the machine together again.

I can boot from the SSD after using bcdedit, but it gives me an OS choice that I would like to remove at bootup and remove the windows install from the hdd without removing or disconnecting the drive.

The crux of my issue is that I seek a solution that does not require the removal of the laptops backplate again to disconnect the drive. The cloned drive is working perfectly.

:)

 

changing my (C) drive to another installed disk without removing old disk

Hi phillkinn,

If the clone was successful:

Remove the old SSD

Plug the new SSD into the same SATA Port on the Motherboard

Go into BIOS and disable Secure Boot

Boot your PC and it should just boot from the cloned drive

Then format the old SSD and connect it your PC

 

How do I set my new SSD as the only Boot/System drive?

If you remove the windows 7 drive from the pc it will not boot.

Deleting the option to boot win 7 does not change where the win 10

boot loader is stored, it is still on the disk 0

It may be possible to copy or clone the windows bootloader to an empty space on drive 1.

The only other way is to clean install to the ssd with the old drive removed.

Or remove the ssd install win10 to that drive then clone the old drive to the ssd

Best Free Backup Software for Windows 10, Windows 8.1/8, Windows 7, Vista, XP

 

Post image of disk partitions from disk management. I fear the boot files are on hdd.

If so, we will need to move them to the ssd before wiping hdd or else pc will not boot.

There is no need to remove drives - problem is easily sorted, but we need to check your disk partitions first to do it in right order.

 

Here is the setup:

the 230gb drive is the SSD.

 

• Win+R
• Type: msconfig, click on "Boot" tab
• You'd see 2 entries. Click to hilite the one you want to delete then click "Delete"

 

Much thanks! It solved the problem instantly.

Any idea what would be the ideal way to clean the 1tb drive ? I tried diskpart clean command but it did not allow me to perform that action on a drive with windows files and efi partition etc on it. Boot from a live linux usb and do it?

+rep

 

Install Partition Wizard, it`ll do it.

Have you made certain the ssd boots on it`s own yet ?

It does look ok, but I would not format the hard drive until you know the ssd boots on its own.

 

You should be able to do it from the recovery environment. Boot to the recovery options, use command prompt. I would disconnect the disk you want to keep, drive letters are different in recovery.

Or you could go just like you were doing a clean install and use the advanced options and delete each partition.

It can also be done from a Bootable rescue disk.

As @AddRAM said, Partition Wizard can do it as well.

 

Much thanks for the helpful advice.

After the failed diskpart, the 1tb drive refused to show up in the file manager.

Fortunately I had installed Lubuntu on a USB. I booted from that, and deleted all partitions on the 1tb drive except the recovery one.

After booting into windows again, I used dskmgmt.exe to reformat the empty space into a NTFS partition. The Recovery partition I left alone, but I cannot see the recovery partition in windows explorer. Although its not a problem at the moment, I would still like to know how to access it should something go south.

 

I believe That is the OEM Recovery partition to recover what was originally installed on your Laptop. I would think you wouldn't need it.

You could use Macrium Reflect to create an image on an external drive that could be restored if needed. You can't see it because it has no drive letter and was designed that way.

 

The Recovery partition would be used at 1st boot (there's a function key to start it, the screen would show you) or from within windows.

If you make an image as Steve has suggested, you will never need it.

If you don't have an external you can store an image on the 1TB drive, it`s better than not having an image at all.

 

Using dispart "clean" command should wipe out the whole disk and leave it unallocated, you'd need to re-create the partition(s) and format, you probably did not use it correctly. Here's an example to clean disk 0.
diskpart
select disk 0
clean
exit

If you want to delete a system partition (EFI or Recovery...) You would have to first select the partition then use override option to delete it. Example:
diskpart
select disk 0
select partition 1
delete partition override
exit

will delete the EFI partition

NOTE: The reason you did not see the 12GB Recovery partition because there's no letter assigned to it so it is hidden.

 

Much thanks for the guidance and info. I am going to let the recovery partition remain where it is, much simpler to get the system up and running in the shortest amount of time.

Thanks a lot for your patience and in depth responses, everyone. Greatly appreciate the help provided. *Smile