Booting up SSD rather than HDD

Treysti · Apr 27, 2017

Hello, sorry to bother anyone, I recently bought a Kingston 256 GB SSD for my PC.

Specification are as follows:

HP model p6-2075sc
Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2400 CPU @ 3.10GHz
AMD Radeon r9 280
8 GB Ram
Windows 10 64 bit
Hitachi 2 TB hard drive
256 GB SSD
650W Power Supply XFX

The SSD is installed (by the company that I purchased it from) and I can access it and play Hearts of Iron IV on it, but Windows 10 is on the 2 TB hard drive.
So I deleted all my games, files, videos and everything that took up space, then when my 2 TB hard drive had 117 GB used, I cloned it with EaseUS to my SSD. But I can't make my SSD my main boot, and unable to find it in Bios. There is no secure boot options in the bios. So now I have 2 windows 10's, one in my 2 TB and the other on my SSD.
I've tried disconnecting the 2 TB and just having the SSD on, suffice to say it didn't work.
I bought this PC in 2012, but have upgraded it somewhat, like a new case in order to fit the graphics card and power supply. But the motherboard, ram, processor, 2 tb hardrive are the same. Thought it might help to provide as much information as possible.
My apologies if I'm not making sense.

Here is a link to my PC specs: https://support.hp.com/us-en/product/hp-pavilion-p6-2000-desktop-pc-series/5151865/document/c03156378/

mjslakeridge · Apr 27, 2017

Will it boot into Windows if you connect the SSD to the SATA port on the motherboard that the HDD was previously connected to? (I am assuming you have a SATA SSD). There has got to be an option in the BIOS to specify the boot order, it just takes some searching around.

Treysti · Apr 27, 2017

mjslakeridge :

Hey, I will try that out.
One question if I may, when I boot should I leave the HDD disconnected?

Yes, I can specify boot order, but there is only SATA 0 and something called Realtek

Update: Okey, I switched the connections, the SSD is on the connector where the HDD was and booted up, but all is the same. It's not using my SSD because there's a Windows 10 icon on my 2 TB hard drive and I can't format it, in order to delete its contents.

mjslakeridge · Apr 27, 2017

What if you keep the SSD connected to the SATA port the HDD was previously connected to, and completely disconnect the HDD? Are you sure the cloning of the HDD's contents to the SSD was successful? I have not used easeUS, but with some imaging software, you have to first shrink the size of the partition on the HDD (since it is larger than the SSD), before cloning. Maybe easeUS works differently and can accomplish cloning a larger drive to a smaller one.

If you only see SATA 0 in the BIOS, perhaps the other SATA ports need to be enabled in the BIOS. (but if SATA 0 is where the old HDD was previously connected and now where the SSD is connected, then it shouldn't matter). I suspect the cloning wasn't completely successful.

Treysti · Apr 27, 2017

mjslakeridge :

I tried that just now, and it was unsuccessful. But what was interesting was that when I completely disconnected the HDD it would not boot up windows at all. So, yes maybe the cloning did not go as planned, but I did go through a step by step tutorial in doing so.
I will post a few picutures of the Bios menu, so you can see before I disconnected the HDD and then after having only the SSD.

I will post the pictures momentarily, approx 5 min, sorry for the inconvenience.

mjslakeridge · Apr 27, 2017

I can't see your pictures without me setting up a G-Mail account, which I don't want to do. If you want to post the images to Imgur.com, and then post the permalink here and they will be viewed publicly.

Treysti · Apr 27, 2017

mjslakeridge :

Sorry about that, I hope this works better.

First picture is before I disconnected the HDD

2nd picture is with only SSD connected and pressing enter

http://imgur.com/a/LiPBQ

mjslakeridge · Apr 27, 2017

Thanks, now I can see your screenshots. It looks like your SSD is recognized, and is connected to SATA 0, but the computer is not recognizing an OS on it, so it can't boot into windows. If you re-connect the HDD and boot into windows, can you see the size of the data on the SSD? If the clone was successful, it should be pretty close to what is on the HDD, maybe a bit smaller if the pagefile and hibernate file didn't get cloned.

You can install WinDirStat and analyze the SSD and see in detail what all is on it.

Treysti · Apr 27, 2017

mjslakeridge :

Awesome. Yes, the HDD is connected, and the SSD is still connected at the same place, SATA 0

I took a picture of the storage systems and will post it here momentarily. Mind you that I have 40 GB used on the SSD as of this moment, because 3 games are on it. But I can delete them if need be.

Here is the storage picture:
http://imgur.com/a/h7rJY

mjslakeridge · Apr 27, 2017

If I am interpreting your picture correctly the 2TB HDD is divided into 2 partitions: The A partition witch is the HP recovery partition (to get you back to factory settings if necessary), the C partition which is where Windows is installed. 1.8TB less 1.66TB free = 14GB used. So that tells me there is not much else on the C partition other than Windows.

Then you have the D drive which is your SSD. You say that you have 40GB of games on the SSD, but I only see (223GB less 98.8GB free)= 24.2 GB used.

I believe the destination drive (SSD) needs to be empty when cloning from the source drive (C partition on the HDD). Which tells me it didn't get cloned.

Format the D drive (be careful to select the D drive only) and try the cloning operation again. Then disconnect the HDD and try booting to the SSD.

Treysti · Apr 27, 2017

Thank you for helping me so much. Yes, I will try it out and report back later.

Treysti · Apr 27, 2017

mjslakeridge :

Okay, so I formatted the SSD, it was all cleared. Then when I started the cloning, after about 12-18 minutes in, it said something like this "Failed to reach sector" or something in that manner, and now I can't find the SSD, which is very weird and bewildering, now it's just my HDD and HP recovery showing up on devices and drives.
I have tried connecting to a different SATA instead of SATA 0 but to no avail. And I've tried looking for it on defragmentation but it wasn't there.

mjslakeridge · Apr 27, 2017

Hmmm, that's not good. So after you formatted the SSD, I assume it still had a drive letter, so you were able to select it as the destination drive for the cloning process. Can you see it in the BIOS? There should be another BIOS screen that identifies each connected drive in some detail, rather than just SATA 0, SATA 2, like in your first screenshot. As the cloning was taking place, did it give you an indication as to what steps it was performing as it went along? It may have spent the 12-18 minutes you described reading the C drive and creating the disk image, and then when that was done and it started to write the image to the SSD, either it couldn't find it or something else went wrong.

Treysti · Apr 27, 2017

mjslakeridge :

Yeah, it had a D letter on it and was empty. And when I look at EaseUS I can see the source which is the 2 TB hardrive and I can see the destination, but it says Unallocated with 223 GB, yet I can see Kingston ssd on device manager though.
Yep, I will check bios.

yamahahornist · Apr 27, 2017

When you clone from a HDD to an SSD you need to make sure that the cloning program you are using has the ssd optimization option or support. I have had problems in the past with this. I tried three different software and only one would work for me.

Treysti · Apr 27, 2017

yamahahornist :

Quite right, I use EaseUS, and I clicked on Optimize for SSD.

mjslakeridge · Apr 27, 2017

Well, it is good that you can still see the SSD in Device Manager. I would attempt the cloning process again, and if it gives you the same error message, write down exactly what it says.

Yamahahornist: Do you know if EaseUS will allow cloning from a large drive to a smaller on without shrinking the partition size of the C: drive first?

Treysti · Apr 27, 2017

mjslakeridge :

The SSD has come back now, I formatted it in disk management, and it's still letter D, so that's good.
Yes sir, I'll try it once again.

Treysti · Apr 27, 2017

Yes, I took a picture too, it does not work sadly, at least I tried. Thanks for being so helpful and patient, friend.
http://imgur.com/a/bQjC1

Side note: I also tried other cloning programs but it was futile to say the least. It'll work some day I hope though.
Time will come where I will understand things better.

mjslakeridge · Apr 28, 2017

From the error message in your picture, it almost seems like there is a problem with the file system on the C drive, not an issue with the target drive (D). You may want to change the title of this thread to "Having Trouble Cloning OS Drive to New SSD" or something similar, since your problem is not booting from the SSD, it is getting the OS cloned over to the SSD. That may help get some additional Tom's users to weigh in.

I would also suggest a clean install of your OS onto the SSD. You can download the Media Creation Tool from Microsoft and create the Windows Installation Media to a blank 8 GB flash drive. Make sure it is empty (or nothing on it that you need to save), because using the Media Creation Tool will erase anything on the flash drive. With Windows 10, your product key (license) is known by Microsoft and "registered" to your motherboard, so it will automatically authorize once the installation is complete. When you get to the place where Windows wants your product key, select "I don't have a product key" (or similar language) and proceed. If there are problems with your current install, as I suspect based on the error message, a clean install is your best bet.

Booting up SSD rather than HDD

Prominent

Splendid

Prominent

Splendid

Prominent

Splendid

Prominent

Splendid

Prominent

Splendid

Prominent

Prominent

Splendid

Prominent

Distinguished

Prominent

Splendid

Prominent

Prominent

Splendid

Share this page