Windows 10: My boot drive and system drive may be on two different disks. How do I switch them back?...

Good morning all,


First, TLDR; boot and system drives are on two different disks. How do I get everything on the SSD, from the HDD?


I am going to lay out the entire situation here, start to finish, in order to possibly get advice for the future and to ensure that all the information is out there, so my question can be answered as well. I will try to stay as organized and clear, as possible. Attached is a photo of my Disk Management window.

My computer storage used to be a 500 GB Samsung SSD, which is where my system and boot drive were stored, and a 1 TB Seagate Barracuda HDD. Recently, I installed a new 1 TB Samsung SSD to replace the 500 GB Samsung SSD. After a bit of research, I learned that I could simply clone one SSD to another and be on my way. Well, I had to have both SSDs connected in order to perform the clone operation and I only had the two SATA cables to connect two disks at a time. My thought was, "If the system and boot drive are on the 500 GB SSD, I'll just unplug the HDD, plug in the new 1 TB SSD, perform the clone, and replace the 500 GB SSD with the 1 TB HDD."


I carry out the operation, disconnecting the 1 TB HDD so I can have both SDDs connected, and after the clone I switched the boot order in my BIOS, so the computer is booting from the new 1 TB SDD. I restart the computer multiple times to ensure everything is working properly, even with the old 500 GB SSD disconnected, so only the new 1 TB SDD is connected only. After the tests, I decide to format the 500 GB SSD, remove it, and reconnect the 1 TB HDD. Everything is plugged back in and ready to go, so I restart the computer. Then, blue screen. After a bit more research, I decide to deal with losing most of everything that was not already on OneDrive and reinstall Windows from a .iso file on an external drive.


In order to perform the clean install, I had to put Windows on my 1 TB HDD. I do not believe the program was letting me install Windows on the 1 TB SSD, since there was an operating system already on it. I get the computer up and running again, with my system now on the HDD and I wipe the new SSD as best as I can to just get a fresh start. I am currently in the process of getting the system back on to the SSD from the HDD, which brings us here. I learned that my system drive, or boot I'm not sure at this point, may still be on the SSD, in the 99 MB Healthy System Partition as one can see below.


My question is: how can I get my system and boot drive to be on the same disk, the 1TB SSD?




:)

 

Different drive selected as system?

Hi and thanks for reaching out. My name is Jan. I'm an independent Microsoft Advisor and a user like you. I'll be happy to help you out today.

I suggest disconnecting first the SSD then try to boot to check if you can still boot if the SSD has been formatted. As it is tagged as system drive, Also backup

files before formatting the drive to avoid data loss.

One easy workaround is to boot your pc with a USB installation media,.

Click install now

next > advance> prompt (where do you want to install the windows?)

Then open "drive options"

It will show a list of disk and options ( from there you can format your ssd)

Once formatted "cancel the installation". and remove the USB.

Important

*Make sure that you choose the correct drive. And you already back up your files before doing the steps to avoid data loss.

 

Windows 10 operating system & boot drive on different drives...

Windows keeps installing boot drive and operating system onto different drives...

Is there any way of installing boot and operating system onto one hard drive without disconnecting all the other hard drives internally?

What are the pro's and con's of this configuration?

Can you move the boot drive onto system drive hdd? (no 3rd party methods please)

 

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