Transfering SSD+HDD to a new PC
- Thread starter Qatar99
- Start date
Solution
geofelt
Titan
- Oct 9, 2006
- 54,298
- 4,146
- 174,240
Just connect them up, not in the bios boot sequence.
Any data files will be found, but old windows and apps will not be useful.
If you want the devices to be clean, you can just delete all partitions and reformat the drives.
One warning...
If, on your new pc, you had the hard drive connected during the windows install, you will find a hidden recovery partition placed on the hard drive. This will cause a problem if you ever later wanted to remove the hard drive.
If this is the case, take the time to reinstall windows on the ssd with nothing else attached.
Any data files will be found, but old windows and apps will not be useful.
If you want the devices to be clean, you can just delete all partitions and reformat the drives.
One warning...
If, on your new pc, you had the hard drive connected during the windows install, you will find a hidden recovery partition placed on the hard drive. This will cause a problem if you ever later wanted to remove the hard drive.
If this is the case, take the time to reinstall windows on the ssd with nothing else attached.
Hello
Ok so how i do that step ? making BIOS set to select new SSD .. and whats that for ?
Ya i know that.
So i just format the SSD and HDD and install them directly to my new PC ?
NOTICE : My new PC already has new SSD+HDD and i installed windows and everything, i am using it now.
mjslakeridge
Splendid
- Mar 6, 2013
- 3,386
- 4
- 21,965
You should be able to format the old HDD while installed in the old PC, but I don't think you can format the old SSD while in the old PC (assuming Windows is installed on the SSD). From what I understand, Windows will not permit formatting over itself. You can install the old SSD in the new PC and format it there.
Also, you did not answer geofelt's "one warning" comment. This is very important.
Also, you did not answer geofelt's "one warning" comment. This is very important.
bjornl
Honorable
- Mar 16, 2016
- 2,962
- 2
- 10,965
In your PC's bios there is a boot order. This is the order in which devices are used to boot from. It can be useful if you want to have multiple boot drives with operating systems which don't play well with each other. However it can cause problems if (for example) you have two devices (like a SSD and HD or a pair of SSDs, etc). You have device #1 set in bios to be default boot device and then select a different device to install the OS on. The windows installer will then write some boot info to the default drive an then continue on your selected drive. This becomes important when you think you can replace your "backup HD" with another SSD and suddenly your PC won't boot. There are fixes for this, but they are more difficult with WIndows 10 than they used to be with Windows 7.
If in doubt, never install the OS with 2 disks attached. If you are confident (and I guess most on here are), then just check the bios to make sure the correct drive is at the top of the boot order before you install the OS.
It can also raise an interesting problem. You take old system drives from another PC and plug them in and if you guessed wrong and put these in SATA plugs which default to higher in the boot order, the system might try to boot from them. The fix is super simple. Go in to BIOS and move your "new" OS drive back to the top. This scrambling of the boot order can happen because on most motherboards the default boot order is Sata port 1, followed by the rest in numerical order. Any port can be selected to be the boot disk. But for example you have two banks of sata ports, one is ports 1-4 the other 5-8. (my motherboard is like this). You would not know with careful examination which is port 1 vs port 5. And if you later plug something in to a lower port you can have a fun filled 5-10 seconds going back in to the bios. (as I said super simple to fix). For what it is worth, I see this problem most with ASUS boards. MSI, Gigabyte, Asrock seem more likely to keep booting from the previously selected device.
This is not a huge problem or some serious warning. Just something to keep in mind in case adding the extra drives causes some goofiness.
TRENDING THREADS
-
-
Question Tried moving SSD from old PC to new one, now it won't boot from either
- Started by scyer327
- Replies: 9
-
Question why my pc dont have sound after install new Nvidia GPU Card?
- Started by sudsaviour
- Replies: 3
-
News Windows 11 will reportedly display a watermark if your PC does not support AI requirements- Started by Admin
- Replies: 17
-
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram