Windows 10: Moving Boot from HDD to new SSD in Win 10

My old computer went "bad" (I suspect that Windows updates became increasingly incompatible with my seven year-old hardware), so I decided to upgrade my motherboard, CPU and add a new SSD NVMe drive. I would like to boot from my SSD and run Adobe Photoshop 6.0 on it, but all I've managed to do so far is activate Microsof'ts "Activate Windows" notice. My version of Windows 10 is the free upgrade that was offered to users who had Windows 7 Pro installed. Since that time, I've had to move to a different home, and I have no idea where my product activation code is, or even who the vendor was who sold me Windows 7 (which, itself, was an upgrade to Windows XP).

I used Macrum Reflect to copy the System Reserved, Boot and Adobe partitions to an external hard drive. When I attempted to restore to my SSD, I got an error message that the file is corrupt; that's also when I noticed the Windows Activation message on my screen. I'm in the process of creating a new Reflect image. I don't know if I'm doing this right, though I did manage to move Windows 10 on a different computer (my laptop, a few years ago) without any trouble. I don't know why it isn't working on my desktop now. Am I missing something about how to perform the restore? How do I get rid of this Windows Activation message?

:)

 

Changing Boot Drive from HDD to SSD

Trying to understand here.

Do you have Win-10 installed on a HDD and on a SSD?

If so are you asking how to get your system to boot from the SSD opposed the HDD?

If you don't get an option of seeing a boot option at the beginning of the BIOS process {mine is to press ESC to see boot menu] check with the manufacturer. There HAS to be a key which does that.

Another possibility is: If both drives are SATA just switch the cables and reboot.

Check your Configuration file and see if 2 OSs are listed.

As you can see here, I have mine set to dual-boot. Win-10 on a HDD and Win-7 on a SSD.

 

HDD to new SSD Question

I'm going to upgrade my laptop with a SSD along side my HDD which currently has windows 10 on it, or course. My question is, is it possible to move that version of windows 10 on the new SSD and boot it from there or do I just have to run a clean version
from the SSD?

 

Saving free space on SSD (Regarding multiple obligatory partitions on main drive)

Gerry Here just copy-paste some irrelevant response.

Well, **I've figured it out**. Here my solution (I Take no responsibility from any damage that might arise from this process, and I do not guarantee it to work for u.)

We'll assume u have 2 disks; SSD and HDD.

Also NOTE: I Work in a GPT-Disk partitioning scheme, I don't know if it's applicable on dos-style MBR partitioning.

General-methodology wich we are going to work with (or TL;DR).

• Delete all partitions on all drive
• Install Windows on the HDD Drive
• Install Windows on the SSD Drive (yes, twice!)
• Repartition the HDD to free up and reallocate as we wish (The only parition that HAVE to be there is the EUFI System (Fat) )
• After freeing up HDD space, move user folder to the HDD
• PROFIT

And in more detail:

THIS GUIDE ASSUME THIS IS A FRESH PC - THAT U DO NOT HAVE ANYTHING U NEED ON EITHER DISKS.

* - Asterisk, not a real step, just additional information

• Boot into windows 10 installation
• Clear ALL partitions on BOTH drives
• Let windows install itself onto the HDD, We'll call this installation win-hdd
  • There is no need to actually boot into this OS.
• Boot into windows 10 installation
• Let windows install itself onto the SSD. We'll call this installation win-ssd
  • *What would happen now, Is that windows detects the recovery and eufi partitions and does not need to create such additional partitions on your ssd. It would only create a 16MB windows reserved partition.
  • *Your boot partition would be hdd/eufi; But since windows detect it's own bootloader it would allow you to duel-boot between win-hdd and win-ssd(default)
• Optional: During windows-ssd first run wizard switch to audit mode (CTRL+SHIFT+F3)
  • *We would use audit mode to:
    • * Optional1: Repartition hdd
    • * Optional2: Change "Users" folder to the hdd.
    • * If u do not want to move Users folder, u can do 6.2 After win-ssd fully boots instead
  • Repartition hdd & move Users folder:
    • Using a 3rd party tool such as "MiniTool Partition Wizard" you can do the fallowing *as you wish*:
      • Delete win-hdd partition
      • Delete recovery-hdd partition
      • Delete windows reserved (16 mb) partition.
      • You can also later move the EUFI to the start of the hdd disk, if needed
      • Create new partition (free to use) on hdd.
      • Make sure to properly assign drive letters to all drive as u wish
      • Fallow
        this guide to relocate the User folder (Starting from Step 2)
• Boot into windows-ssd; If u do not know which one (int the OS selection screen) It's safe to assume that the automatically-selected one is the win-ssd.
• If u have not performed 6.2 Yet, this is the time to do that now.

GLHF.