Installation :: Cloning To SSD Then Swapping Drive Letters
Feb 23, 2016
I have a new computer. I want to clone the system to a new SSD. Can I change the drive letter of the SSD to C: after cloning?
My new computer (an ASUS) currently has Windows 8.1. I intend to upgrade to Windows 10 before I do anything more. I will move the old Windows elsewhere before cloning if that is possible.
I have the SSD installed physically but it is not formatted or anything. I intend to use the Samsung Data Migration tool to do the clone. During the clone, the SSD will of course not have the drive letter "C". After the cloning, it must have the drive letter "C", correct? I know we can assign drive letters in Disk Management. I am familiar with partitions and I know that the boot drive/partition is marked as "Active".
Can I re-assign drive letters in Disk Management and delay the change until the next boot? This is just a guess, but it makes sense that the feature might exist. In other words, after the clone, can I change the drive letter ("C") of the current drive to something such as "T" and the SSD drive's letter to "C" and then the change will be effective upon the next boot? The hard drive has a second partition that is empty and is the "D:". It will be confusing for others to have the SSD partition as "C:" and the first partition some other letter and the second partition as "D:" but I understand and I am the only one that will use it. That is a minor detail.
I do not intend to use the old Windows after the successful clone unless I need to remove the SSD for return to ASUS. My new computer had a bad motherboard when I received it but I hope I do not need to return it again.
I know that some people will suggest that I do a fresh install. (I see: Clean Install Windows 10 Directly without having to Upgrade First - Windows 10 Forums.). I want to avoid doing that if possible. I am not sure that I can install everything else that ASUS installs but hopefully that is possible. If however I can simply swap drive letters after the clone then that should be the simplest solution.
I clean installed Win 10 RTM version on my laptop a few weeks ago. I have a basic GPT setup.
Installation went fine, however the installer created a 'Recovery' drive (D with a size of 600 MB (262 MB free) & a 'Local Disk' drive (E with a size of 451 MB (128 MB free).
I am stumped as to why it assigned letters to them. If you see the attachment of a snapshot of Partition Wizard, you will be able to see the setup.
My question, besides why the assigned letters is the where the status is listed as 'None'. Is it safe to delete these?? I am assuming that the only partitions i need to keep are the 'ESP', which is 'Active & Boot' - so it is needed to be able to boot into Windows. How about the one listed as 'Other' - the capacity is 128 MB & all 128 MB are used - do i save this one as well?
I really wanted a less cluttered setup - so when all these partitions were created, particularly 'D' & 'E', i was perplexed as to why they were created.
Just wanted to get a feel on this before i dig into it. I have a dell laptop (school) that i got a SSD for. I also have a clevo laptop at home (main computer), and it has two 2.5" driver bays. Could i install my current dell HDD and the new SSD into the clevo and clone them using this machine?
I have a few laptops, all of them are the same specs except for a few with a different GPU. All of them run the exact same software. I'm planning to upgrade them all manually to 10 first to register the machine, then create an image so in case a drive goes belly up, I'll just restore it from the image created instead of installing all the software one by one. I'm going to take one machine, sysprep it then keep a copy of that image for restoring on to the other machines.In this case would it just reactivate properly on the newly cloned machine?
I upgraded my PC from W8.1 to W10, all went very smooth. I then worked on upgrading a laptop SSD drive to from W8.1 to W10 which I planned to then install in my wife's laptop. It was easier for me to upgrade the drive on my PC then swap the drives than take her laptop for awhile. Well...that created my problem. I had 2 drive C's on my PC.
I was able to boot quite a few times between the drives (swapping the primary drive in BIOS). But then W10 "fixed" my drives, and now I have only one C drive (the SSD laptop drive) and my original C drive is now F. My PC now only boots to the SSD C drive and I'm not able to use Disk Mgmt to swap the letters. Disconnecting the SSD drive stops the PC from booting because the original C drive is F.
How to either swap the drive letters or remove the SSD drive and somehow be able to rename the F drive to C.
I have some harddrives on a "server" computer in my home-network running win 7. From my "client" running windows 10 I am mounting these drives using
psexec server -u username -p password -d net share F=F: /GRANT:user,Full /GRANT:media,read 2>nul net use F: serverF
Today my client crashed and I had to remove the graphics card. Since then I cannot enter my network drives anymore, the commands seem to run, but when I try accessing the drives I get a message indicating I should put a media into these drives. Also, I cannot mount them manually using "map network drive" since the drive letters are not available.
I tried removing them from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMMountedDevices (they are listed there as "DosDevicesF" etc.), but once I restart, they are there (in the registry) again.
how I could fix this? Win10 somehow seems to remember that thes drives once have been there before and keeps blocking the drive letters...
How do I assign a range of letters, that can be used for e.g. external flash disks, external ssd's/hdd's or memory cards?
I have this nasty issue. I have two Network Attached Drives, on server. They work fine, D and E. But I also have NAS [DS 716+] which is on NAS drive F:. Whenever I shut down my DS 716+, and I connect some external hdd/ssd/memory card, it always asigns letter F:. Which makes these devices quiet inaccessible, or hard accessible, I can't double click them to open, I need to type in manually F: etc.
Is there any way via msc or something, where I can define a range of all external hdd's/ssd's and/or memory cards?
My new windows 10 only sees my PC - when searching for my files in Explorer, it cannot 'see' my two external drives when I plug them in. I've looked in Device Manager and they are not showing in there either. How can I tell Win 10 to access my external drives?
I thought Win 10 would automatically spot my external drivers the moment I plugged them in? Then it would go search for and install the appropriate drivers - but it isn't doing that..
I tried the Windows 10 upgrade when it first came out and immediately went back to 8.1 when I couldn't get a single one of my internal SATA hard drives to mount.. I have 5 of them, and I just wasn't about to mess with that when 8.1 had no problems at all. Now I have tried it again and the same problem is happening. I want to see if I can figure it out this time. I am using the latest SATA and Chipset drivers for Win10 64 bit from Gigabyte's Website (I am using a Gigabyte Z77X-UD5H Rev. 1.1.
I am "testing" Win10 using a bootable clone of my main SSD (that still has 8.1 on it) and I upgraded it to 10 just to mess with so I can figure out this ridiculous problem.
My problem is that all of my internal SATA hard drives (with the exception of the system drive) cannot be assigned a drive letter in Disk Management. They show as healthy NTFS partitions but I get 1 of 2 different errors when I click on "Change Drive letters and Paths":
1. "Virtual Disk Manager: The System cannot find the file specified."
2 "Disk Management: The operation filed to complete because the Disk Management Console view is not up-to date. Refresh the view by using the refresh task. If the problem persists close the Disk Management console, then restart disk management or restart the computer" Hint: none of the recommended fixes in the error message change anything.
I HAVE been able to assign the partitions a letter and mount them using a third party disk manager called "MiniTool Partition Wizard". It lets me mount the partitions and it works! ..However, if I restart the computer, I am back to square one and have to manually assign each drive letter for each partition every time.
This is easily the worst experience I have ever had upgrading an OS, and one of the most mind boggling issues I have had with Windows in general. I really like Windows 10 and want to keep using it but half of my hard drives being un-mountable is a complete deal breaker right now.
So last night I finally got around to putting windows 10 on my ssd and swapping windows 7 to the back burner on my computer. I would like to point out that I am fairly tech savvy and have built and repaired my fair share of computers in the past three years,this should have been routine. But sadly me being the bright and clever bastard I am not only forgot to specify an os specific partition copy so the hidden files would be copied but also forgot to format my ssd completely to remove bootsect before transferring windows 10 to it...
So now I have a little bit of win7 in win10 and vice versa so now in boot manager the operating systems are backwards...and that's not even the bad part,neither of them boot properly, they both load but not further than a base colour with a version number in the bottom right(one slip up and I'm in over my head) so I tried just booting my ssd no other harddrives connected and now it throws a bcd error...until I plug it into my vista build and then it runs buttery for the hdd it's the opposite no dice on my vista build but all clear on my main build(with no other harddrives that is)
I would like to resolve this with minimal data loss (most of the data Is on my win7 drive but I don't want to reinstall).
I don't know what to do. I've tried everything. I am literally about to break down crying. I've been at this for six and a half hours now. I've completely run out of space on my 320GB hard drive, and I've been trying to clone to my new 1TB since I got home from work.
I've currently got windows 10 on a small HDD that I need to transfer to my newer, bigger drive. I do have multiple hard drive slots, as I need the OS on the big one. Don't ask why, it's complicated. Point is, I can't use the little one anymore and I need the OS as well as my files on the big guy.
I've tried 2 different cloning programs, each one taking ages to finish copying. The problem is, everywhere I go says the reason I have blackscreen when I try to boot is because I'm missing the 100MB hidden boot partition. But it's sitting right there.
I've tried booting with only the new HDD installed, tried 100 boot and BIOS settings, different slots, completely formatting the new HDD and starting over from scratch with the same program and a different one.
I've even tried booting from a recovery disk. That won't work either, and gives me the same black screen with a single horizontal bar blinking in the top left corner.
Background: We have purchased 14 HP EliteBook 820 laptops (which come with Windows 8.1 downgraded to Win 7 preinstalled) to rollout within our company and my usual method for laptop rollouts is to setup one with our corporate apps etc, run SysPrep and then clone the hard drive to the rest of the laptops.
This has worked fine in the past with Windows XP and 7 but with the introduction of the free upgrade to Windows 10 which we want to take advantage of it has produced a problem.
Problem: I have setup one laptop and gone through the free upgrade to Windows 10 then installed our required apps etc, run SysPrep, shutdown and cloned the hard drive to another hard drive to go into the next laptop (same model) to rollout.
Windows is then unable to activate giving error code 0xC004C003 meaning the key is blocked.
Because the laptops have OEM Windows licences pre-installed this means that I don't have a product key sticker; it is embedded in the BIOS.
I am assuming that at the point of upgrade the Microsoft servers check the key and add it to their list of 'OK' keys to allow the upgrade.
When the cloned hard drive is placed into another laptop the key embedded into the BIOS is not OK and Windows does not activate? I've tried the slui program to remove the licence but that just removes the key and asks for a new one. I have also tried doing the clone of a clean install after upgrading. I have tried speaking to HP and Microsoft but each one said speak to the other.
Currently my only option is to setup one laptop with the OEM Win 7 or 8.1, install our Apps, do the SysPrep and cloning and then upgrade each one individually at the end of the OOBE experience. This will be more time consuming when rolling out and rebuilding.
So when you click All apps, you get an alphabetical list. If you have more than two programs installed, scrolling through it becomes cumbersome.A friend from the Insider program mentioned clicking on the title letters in the list, which wasn't at all obvious, and that produces a list of all the title letters, and enables you to jump to the letter of interest... if you know it [1]. But it takes three clicks to get to the list... Start / All Apps / A (or whatever).
Is there any way to reduce the number of clicks to get to that title letters index?Or am I better off to install Classic Start Menu, once it is working for Windows 10?
So, I got a new DELL XPS 13 last night and on my other computer, I used to do alt+164 to get the "n" but on this computer it does not work. I also tried Ctrl +~+n and that did not work either.
Is there a setting I have to activate? I already have the "Spanish Keyboard" installed but I don't think that makes a difference...I'd just like to know the list of keyboard commands
I upgraded to Win10 last month, use Firefox browser and gmail. Often when typing something, the computer will erase the last several letters, usually no more than 7 letters.....nothing obscene that may be recognized and erased. How to keep from erasing?
Windows 10 Start - Settings - Ease of Access - Keyboard
Everything here is off. If i turn on the On-Screen Keyboard no keys are Highlighted (indicating they are depressed/stuck). When I use the hard keyboard and sometimes even the onscreen keyboard its as if either Ctrl, Alt Win or something are pressed down as it just types shortcuts.
E.G.:
-H- typed into chrome browser address bar via onscreen keyboard types as normal -H- typed into chrome browser address bar via hard keyboard brings up -Chrome://history- But now also on the onscreen keyboard Ctrl is Highlighted.
I click on the onscreen keyboard to deactivate the now highlighted Ctrl button and try again. Now things are different, as now both the onscreen keyboard and the hard keyboard both bring up –Chrome://history- when -H- is typed ( Shift is not depressed )
This seems to randomly cycle one min onscreen keyboard works fine, next the keyboard works fine or they either work or none of the work rendering the computer useless.
In -Device Manger – Keyboards- The keyboard driver is dated 2006 so tried to update the driver but says I have the best driver software for my device is already installed. Noticed there are 2 entries for the HID Keyboard Device both are the same driver version. Maybe I should delete/uninstall one? Both (under event tab) , dated 310715 Device migrated, Device configured(keyboard.inf) and Device started (kbdhid). It was prob around this date I first started having probs.
Pressing Ctrl on hard keyboard highlights Ctrl on onscreen keyboard only whilst being pressed. Let go of the hard key, the soft key turns off.
Sometimes the 9 gets stuck and does 99999999999999999999999999999 but saying that I just restarted the machine and pressed the key -d- and it acted like a stuck 9 as in 999999999999999999999 not dddddddddddddddddddddddddddd.
I've NOT tried the following: System restore (seems harsh) Rolling back the keyboard driver (not sure how on win 10 ) Deleting the keyboard from System (not sure how on win 10 )
I bought a new laptop with windows 10 mainly for remote desk top connection. When I connect to the server remotely the icons and letters are very tiny.
Is there any new app other than microsoft remote desktop connection?
I have 2 seperated (physically) SSD drives in my laptop.Previously I had windows 8.1 on one drive, and I installed windows 7 and upgraded it to windows 10 on the other SSD drive.I enjoyed windows 10, so I formatted the drive with the windows 8.1, but now suddenly my laptop says he can't find system drive, and I can't load the windows 10, althogh it was installed with no connection to the windows 8.1 and on another drive.
I'm pretty sure I'll be upgrading my desktop this week while I'm on vacation. I've done my laptop with no problems at all, it's a Dell Latitude E6400 with Win7 Pro bought refurbished from Newegg. The laptop was a mid 2008 model and W10 works great on it.
My question is about my desktop drives, my OS drive is an SSD and my backup drive is an HDD. There is nothing but the backups and system image on the HDD, it is an inside the box drive connected to the second SATA on the MB. Is there a chance the W10 upgrade will put it's boot loader/manager on the backup drive?
I have seen posts where for best results, all drives except the one being upgraded/clean installed on should be disconnected to avoid the boot loader/manager showing up on another drive. I can do this but it's sort of a PIA due to pulling the tower out, disconnecting cables, and opening it up. Then repeating after the upgrade to put things back.
My backup drive is an HDD with nothing on it other than backups which are done every Sunday night. There is no OS on the backup HDD.
Background is, I created another partition on my 120G SSD (30G) where I've been dual booting 7 and the W10 TP's, the plan is to delete that partition and recover the space for the W10 upgrade. Then have a single partition with W10 on my 120G SSD C drive and to continue to use the WD 500G for backup and system image. I will create another partition on the backup HDD for the W10 backups (right now I'm using a 100G partition on the HDD for Win7) and keep the Win7 backup and image until I'm fully on and comfortable with W10.
I have windows 7 on a 750GB drive at the moment, but I want to install 10 on my SSD which only has 30 GB of space. Of course, I don't want to have to re-install all my data. If I go the upgrade route, will I have an option to choose which drive I install the windows files to?
My laptop was upgraded from Win 7 to Win 10 in Dec 2015. The drive crashed last week and I am going to put a new one in. Will Win 10 find the COA from the previous install??
I have Windows 8.1 on a small hard drive, I am wondering can I upgrade my current installation to windows 10 on a larger hard drive and how would I do it.
