Windows 10: Format old SSD with Windows 10

Hi All....
I recently upgraded to a PCI SSD and want to format the SSD with the old installation files on it and use it for storage. What would be the proper way to go about this with both versions on those drives being Windows 10, and the new PCI SSD Windows 10 Creators Update? I tried to format the drive, making sure nothing is on there that I want, and I get the message that it is in use by another program. The only thing that I could think that might be accessing it is Carbonite, and I paused that while I was trying to format it. I even tried going a little more brutal on it, and doing it with the Cmd Prompt, and runing DISKPART> clean and Format fs=NTFS.... and I get "Virtual Disk Service Error" Clean is not allowed on the disk containing the current boot, system, pagefile, crashdump or hibernation volume." I also tried Disk Management, and the option is there, but greyed out. *Sad



Any suggestions? I'm sure this can be done, there's just a proper way to it since it has an old boot file on it. I'm hoping I don't have to boot to it and do it that way. *Sad I'd rather stay out of BIOS if I can.

:)

 

Adding an old SSD to new computer

To use the Old SSD for games, it would be recommended o just cleanly format it. Losing the Old installed Widnows in the old SSD is perfectly fine, since you will still be able to have its license online (On your MS Account).

Before cleanly formating it, please to to recover your important personal-old files first.

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System reserve shows up, when you have the old SSD, then is belong to the said drive. If you do not plan to boot from the old SSD anymore, then it is ok to Delete it together with the old Windows 10 installation.

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If your concern is that you have the Legacy version of Windows 10 (1511 and 1607), then I suggedt that you just keep the drive.

 

Windows 10 migration

I think, if I understand, you want to use the new SSD as the old one is now?



Two ways I can think of:

1) CLONE the old SSD to the new SSD, remove the old SSD and format it before putting it back in.

2) Take out the OLD SSD, leave in the new SSD, install Windows only, update device drivers and Windows 10 itself fully. Install only the programs you want on the system and then, put in the old SSD and copy the stuff you need off of it (your documents,
etc.) onto the new drive/setup and then erase the old SSD.

 

unplug the OLD drive and reboot...
if the New Drive does not boot, then you will have to make changes to the New drive. because the boot files are not on new drive, but rather on the old drive...

 

What kinda of changes would I need to make? I

 

If I remember correctly, the OS ended up becoming corrupt and wouldn't boot anyways. So it was a clean install on the PCI SSD

 

I confirmed by unplugging the 3 other SSD's that the system still boots. So, nothing is "tied" to that particular SSD

 

Hi,

Using DISKPART from command prompt Admin, list the disks (lis dis) and select the disk you want to wipe (sel dis followed by the number of the disk), list the partitions (lis par).
Now select the partition containing the OS files and type del par override. When succesful you can then select the remaining smaller partitions and issue the same command.

If that doesn't work let us know the error message that's been thrown up.

Best, *Wink

 

Copy that. I know I tried this method, just, not selecting the exact partition of the OS

 

The command after selecting the partition should have been delete part override. Not clean override.

 

So... I was able to chip away the partitions. There were 3. I can't seem to get rid of the last one tho.

 

@ChadBonk

If you are referring to the one where you have the red ?, that is not an active partition. It is Unallocated space....empty, assigned to nothing. It's supposed to be there. It's 1.34GB of unused space. You could easily extend the first partition ("Y" I think it says) to include that empty space, and then you would only see 1 partition on that drive. Right click the "Y" partition and select Extend Volume, click Next and select all the space available....1.34GB. Example from my machine.

 

Hi,

It looks as if the pagefile is residing on that Y: partition which is why you can't delete it.
Can you check this ?

Cheers, *Wink

 

Oh, I see now what he's trying to do, sorry. The ? threw me. If it is the Page File, setting that to zero (no page file used), rebooting, should let him delete it. Then set the page file back up and reboot, it should end up on "C". Make any sense?