Windows 10: Changing dual boot Win7 & Win10 from SATA to SSD drive

On one of my desktop computers running Windows 10 Pro, I added a SSD drive. Then, I cloned the OS partition on to the SSD drive, which ran perfectly.

But on another desktop, I dual boot Windows 7 Home and Windows 10 Home on an older SATA hard drive. And I've now added a 240 GB SSD drive.

The existing boot drive has 3 partitions for booting -- the Windows 7 (C*Smile, Windows 10 (D*Smile and the 100 MB System Reserved partition.

How does one go about changing OS's to the SSD drive ?

Do I simply clone all three portions to separate partitions on the new drive, and make this drive the boot drive ? Anything I need to be careful about ?

Thanks for any assistance on this. Cheers.

:)

 

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

Was the ssd on the system when you did the win10 upgrade ?

If yes then that drive may contain the windows partitions and boot loader.

If not and you did a clean install of win10 to the ssd but still had the old

win7 drive as the boot drive, then the win10 bootloader could have been installed

to that drive, this depends on the boot chain order in the bios on what drive loads

first.

The way I would have done this is clone the win10 to the new ssd, then do a clean install on

the ssd drive.

Pulling drives from the pc and swapping them for a different operating system works

if you are not mixing the same type of os or upgrade and for microsoft windows it

depends on the licences.

But to boot say linux and windows without a dual boot system you have to configure each os on

its own boot drive then swap out when needed.

How did you upgrade win10? from dvd or bootable usb or in place upgrade.

Uefi bios are a little more involved than the older legacy bios.

Note; if you remove the win7 drive, put the ssd as the first boot drive,

if it does not boot, then the boot loader is on the win7 drive.

Do you see an option to boot win7 and win10 when the pc loads.

 

Clean install of win 10 deleted

Hi Andre

I just unplugged all of the hard drives leaving only the SSD & DVD burner. The Bios sees the SSD as I was able to change the boot sequence so that it was 1st device (after floppy). When I tried to boot up I got a message "An operating system wasn't found"

When I first installed Win10 from the flashdrive to the SSD I did unplug the drive with the original Win7/10 in case there was a conflict. When I went back to the old system I had to reconnected it and I think it remained connected when I tried to boot up
the clean installation.

I've checked the SSD in file manager and everything, windows, programs, emails etc has been wiped except for the 2 folders mentioned earlier.

I've just spotted that SATA hard disk mode is set to IDE although I have SATA & PATA hard drives as well as the new SATA SSD. Anything worth pursuing here?

With thanks

Mike

 

Yep, that's all you have to do.

 

Great ! Thanks very much. *Smile

 

What about the bcdboot command?

 

Not required. The bcdboot command is used to add an OS to the boot menu. In this case, the dual booting is already set up.

 

Just curious - what backup program was used here?
Isn't it better to reimage instead of cloning, why or why not?

 

I'm using Acronis True Image 2015.

Not sure about what "reimage" is, though.

 

Reimage is when you save an image file of the partitions to a storage location and then restore the images to the new drive. Cloning or reimaging really doesn't matter if you know how to use the program to adjust the partitions to the new size/format of the new drive and you have no desire to keep a copy of the partitions in an image file for backup purposes.

 

Will True Image Cloning work on the newer SSHD drives? | Acronis Forum
see first paragraph in post 2 about potential issues

Process - Cloning -Switch HD - Sys Backup and Data Backup -Best approach | Acronis Forum
see post 3

"Reimage" - sorry, it means restore images of partitions done by ATI backup.
Reimaging permits you to adjust Windows partition sizes. And there is no potential issuse of having two bootable drives on at the same time.
I never cloned, always used restoring images when replacing drives. No experience with SSD though.

 

Thanks. Also to NavyLCDR. And apologies for the late response.

I'm familiar with the process -- just wasn't aware of the term "reimage". Have been a bit busy lately, but I think I'll try reimaging rather than cloning when I can find the time.

Thanks again.