Windows 10: Help with new SSD

I currently had 256GB SSD in my PC and that was getting full so I bought a Samsung 1TB SSD to put in my PC to use as the primary hard drive. I don't want to lose all my data so I chose to use the Samsung software to migrate all of the data from the 256GB onto the new 1TB. I then restarted and went into the boot menu to change it around so the new SSD booted first before the 256GB and everything loaded fine until I went into my computer and realised it has many drives listed. I went into disk management and it currently list like this

Disk 0 (238.47gb) - system reserved (D) 350mb NTFS Healthy (Active, Primary, Partition) - (F) 237.69gb NTFS Healthy (Primary Partition) - 450mb Healthy (Recovery Partition)

Disk 1 (931.51gb) 100mb NTFS Healthy (System, Active, Primary, Partition) - (C) 931.42gb NTFS Healthy (Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition)


What I wanted to know is can I now delete everything off my original drive which is disk 0? Will it stop me using my new SSD which is disk 1? I'm not really a computer tech person so I wouldn't usually delete things but I don't like the way it is mapped in "my computer" which lists the partitions, I was hoping to use the old SSD as storage so would prefer it wiped clean. I also noticed the recovery partition is on my old SSD but is not on my new SSD should it have copied over or is this normal?

:)

 

New computer - how to move OS to new (larger) drive?

Since it is a new computer, your current SSD will contain the OS, Drivers, Manufacturer specific apps, Recovery Partition . . . etc. your best option is to clone that drive onto the new SSD

Remove your 1 TB HDD and replace it with your new 1TB SSD

Then use 3rd party software like the free version of AOMAI Partition Assistant to clone existing SSD onto new SSD

Download AOMEI Partition Assistant

https://www.disk-partition.com/free-partition-m...

Step by step to cloning your SSD:

https://www.disk-partition.com/help/clone-hard-...

 

New SSD

Hi,

The missing box and license that came with the OS... Is this the original OS on the machine, or the new Windows 10 Flash Drive ?

Have you ever installed the new Win 10 on the machine ?

Installing a new SSD and memory should not cause a problem with your old license, or with the new Windows 10... UNLESS the SSD requires you to change your machine from IDE to AHCI in Bios for the SSD to work...

That may or may not be a problem, but if it is, a call to Microsoft should resolve the problem... The biggest deal is the motherboard...

You might want to create a new Flash Drive though... The one you have probably has a older version of Windows 10 that will almost immediately try to upgrade...

If you did not upgrade from Win 7 or 8 to Win 10 with your new flash drive, you may have a problem... If you did a upgrade you would have a Digital License that would automatically activate by reading a code off of your motherboard... Things don't work this
way when you install a retail version of Win 10...

What you may be able to do is to put your old HDD back in and run a tool that will read the license key from the Registry... You can download a good simple one here... The download link is under the last picture...

How to view your product key in Windows 10, Windows 8 and Windows 7

 

Best thing to do to double check would be to pull the smaller SSD out of the system and see if your computer boots fine etc... If it does then yes wipe the drive.

 

Check out this tutorial at Seven Forums to destroy the partitions on your 256Gb SSD, after that go to Disk Management and format it to NTFS, then you can set up ne partitions if you so wish.
Disk - Clean and Clean All with Diskpart Command - Windows 7 Help Forums

 

The reason your old drive is listed as drive 0 and the new drive 1 is because you have the old drive plugged into a lower number SATA port than the new one.
You should create a recovery drive for your new configuration per these instructions from Microsoft. I would then reformat your old drive for full use as you want.

Create a recovery drive

A recovery drive can help you troubleshoot and fix problems with your PC, even if it won’t start. To create one, all you need is a USB drive.

• From the taskbar, search for Create a recovery drive and then select it. You might be asked to enter an admin password or confirm your choice.
• When the tool opens, make sure Back up system files to the recovery drive is selected and then select Next.
• Connect a USB drive to your PC, select it, and then select Next > Create. A lot of files need to be copied to the recovery drive, so this might take a while.
• When it’s done, you might see a Delete the recovery partition from your PC link on the final screen. If you want to free up drive space on your PC, select the link and then select Delete. If not, select Finish.

 

Thanks for the replies guys much appreciated, I have disconnected my old SSD and everything loads up fine with only the new SSD which means I can wipe everything on the old drive right? The only concern I have is deleting the recovery partition on the old drive, is there no way to transfer that over to the new SSD? I don't have a USB drive. Do I really need it on my new SSD, is it essential? Thanks

 

I am not really sure why you would want a 1TB drive to contain your Windows OS and data together. Normally, you would want your Windows OS drive to be small so that it will be easier to maintain/backup/restore and put your personal data to the larger drive.

In addition, C drive is usually the target for virus attack and if it becomes unbootable/broken then there's goes your data.

 

That's ok we all have our own preferences.

 

When you say you don't have a USB drive - do you mean you don't have a USB flash drive (aka memory stick, aka thumb drive) or you don't have a USB slot for one? If you have a USB slot, it is fairly important to have a Windows 10 recovery USB flash drive to fix your PC if something makes it unbootable. You only need an 8gb flash drive which is really cheap insurance. It looks like your recovery partition is probably the generic recovery created by Windows 10 during a clean install of Windows 10, so with a confirmed working recovery USB flash drive there would be little reason to keep the partition.

If you want to move the recovery partition to the new SSD, you can use MiniTool Partition Wizard Free to both make the space on the SSD for it and to copy it to the created empty space. For it to be operable, you will have to use the correct reagentc.exe command to point Windows 10 to the new location.

 

Yes I meant I don't have a memory stick, I have usb slots sorry for the confusion. I will check out those memory sticks then and move it onto that and then just wipe everything off the old ssd if that is easier. Thanks for the reply.

 

I've done this exact procedure and it worked perfectly.

 

Just to be clear - you won't just move the recovery partition to a USB flash drive. You will create a whole new Windows 10 recovery or install USB flash drive. The 450mb recovery partition does not contain the files needed to re-install Windows. It only contains the files needed to boot into the recovery/troubleshooting mode. You would still need a separate source with the files needed to re-install (or reset) Windows.

Creating a complete Windows recovery flash drive will contain the files needed to re-install Windows if you have to. Judging from your disk layout posted you are going to have to download a Windows 10 ISO file to create a complete recovery drive with the system files needed to re-install Windows.

My recommendation would be to use the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool to create a Windows 10 installation USB flash drive - use an 8 gb flash drive. Then add a folder to it called Drivers (or whatever you want). Then from an elevated ("run as administrator") command prompt, run the command:

DISM.exe /Online /Export-Driver /Destination:E:\Drivers

The path in red would be the path to folder you created on the USB flash drive to hold your drivers. You would then have a flash drive that you could boot your computer from, run the recovery/troubleshooting environment from, re-install Windows 10 from, and install any computer specific drivers required from.

Personally, I like also to use EasyBCD to add bootable Macrium Reflect Free and MiniTool Partition Wizard ISOs to my recovery flash drive - but that quite a ways down the road for you yet.