Need SSD reinstalling advice!

[Legodude50]

So my terabyte nvme m.2 SSD came in the mail today and I was all ready to clone my HDD over. Took 4 hours that seems like wasted time now. Upon trying to boot up into my clones SSD I just couldn’t. I made sure everything seemed fine in my MSI bios and every time I try running into the new windows volume it gives me a infinite black screen. So now I’m just thinking of reinstalling windows. I didn’t want to do this because my wife and I share the computer and I’m worried about screwing up her stuff. If I reinstall to my SSD via USB can I drag and drop existing files from the HDD that still has everything in it to my new installation of windows? I’m very un-informed in all this. So please if you can be as detailed as possible and break it down to me as much as possible I’d really appreciate it. I spent ALL day today tying to get this to work so needless to say I’m pretty frustrated. Hoping someone can shed some light on this. Thank you

[vong]

5 minutes ago, Legodude50 said:

So my terabyte nvme m.2 SSD came in the mail today and I was all ready to clone my HDD over. Took 4 hours that seems like wasted time now. Upon trying to boot up into my clones SSD I just couldn’t. I made sure everything seemed fine in my MSI bios and every time I try running into the new windows volume it gives me a infinite black screen. So now I’m just thinking of reinstalling windows. I didn’t want to do this because my wife and I share the computer and I’m worried about screwing up her stuff. If I reinstall to my SSD via USB can I drag and drop existing files from the HDD that still has everything in it to my new installation of windows? I’m very un-informed in all this. So please if you can be as detailed as possible and break it down to me as much as possible I’d really appreciate it. I spent ALL day today tying to get this to work so needless to say I’m pretty frustrated. Hoping someone can shed some light on this. Thank you

What size is the HDD? If it's smaller than the SSD then you need to partition it I think. I had issues going from a 500gb ssd to a 1tb on my z270 system, got it sorted but can't quite remember what I had to do. Try booting in safe mode if you can.

[Legodude50]

35 minutes ago, vong said:

What size is the HDD? If it's smaller than the SSD then you need to partition it I think. I had issues going from a 500gb ssd to a 1tb on my z270 system, got it sorted but can't quite remember what I had to do. Try booting in safe mode if you can.

2 TB HDD. 1 TB SSD. But there was only 770 GIGS on the HDD when cloning to SSD. 

[Legodude50]

I saw someone post about this same problem and someone replied saying they needed 15-20% open space on the SSD. I thought I had plenty of open space left. But according to this person they freed up more space then cloned again and it worked. Maybe I’ll try this. 

[aDoomGuy]

Well I only cloned once, I'd rather reinstall to get a fresh system. Anyway, I cloned a 120 gig SSD to a 480 Gig, it didn't seem to care about the size so the 480 gig was on a 480-ish partition when I was done, 

 

With that said, what I would do if I were you is to just copy what I want off from the old hard drive to the new one after installing OS and setting up user accounts and then format the old one once I'm done. 

 

What brand is the NVMe? What software did you use to clone?

[Legodude50]

28 minutes ago, aDoomGuy said:

Well I only cloned once, I'd rather reinstall to get a fresh system. Anyway, I cloned a 120 gig SSD to a 480 Gig, it didn't seem to care about the size so the 480 gig was on a 480-ish partition when I was done, 

 

With that said, what I would do if I were you is to just copy what I want off from the old hard drive to the new one after installing OS and setting up user accounts and then format the old one once I'm done. 

 

What brand is the NVMe? What software did you use to clone?

It’s a one terrabyte ADATA XPG SX8200 pcie NVME and I used Macrium reflect software. I did everything according to tutorials.

[aDoomGuy]

7 minutes ago, Legodude50 said:

It’s a one terrabyte ADATA XPG SX8200 pcie NVME and I used Macrium reflect software. I did everything according to tutorials.

I heard good things about Macrium Reflect.. You can try again and see if the result gets any better or you can try this? https://www.adata.com/en/ss/software-5/

[Legodude50]

32 minutes ago, aDoomGuy said:

I heard good things about Macrium Reflect.. You can try again and see if the result gets any better or you can try this? https://www.adata.com/en/ss/software-5/

What exactly do you mean by try again? Wouldn’t I have to wipe the SSD and do that whole 4 hour cloning process to “try again” ? Or do I just go to clone right now and hope for something to change...? 

[Legodude50]

2 hours ago, aDoomGuy said:

I heard good things about Macrium Reflect.. You can try again and see if the result gets any better or you can try this? https://www.adata.com/en/ss/software-5/

Can you please walk me through making a clean install on to the SSD? I’m just going to drag and drop stuff later from my HDD to SSD. I’ve had enough lol. I just tried running the windows installer via USB and it seemed like it didn’t work. Maybe because I tried to run the installer on a cloned SSD? Do I have to wipe the SSD first? Is there a way to get the installer to reformat the SSD and take care of it?

[aDoomGuy]

Hmmm the process should not take 4 hours unless the old drive is horribly slow.... UNLESS again ...there is something wrong with it.. Least I think it shouldn't...

 

Tell you what, if the old drive is in a running system.. Try to run checkdisk on it and see if there are bad sectors, alright?

 

Just open the command prompt as administrator (start menu, type cmd, choose launch as administrator) and run command

chkdsk C:

That is if the drive is C : which is the one Windows booted off from. Running checkdisk like that wont fix anything it will only scan and report bad sectors and such.

 

If you want it to try to fix then run command

chkdsk C: /f /r

Reboot the machine and checkdisk will scan and attempt to repair if needed during bootup.

 

 

2 minutes ago, Legodude50 said:

Can you please walk me through making a clean install on to the SSD? I’m just going to drag and drop stuff later from my HDD to SSD. I’ve had enough lol. I just tried running the windows installer via USB and it seemed like it didn’t work. Maybe because I tried to run the installer on a cloned SSD? Do I have to wipe the SSD first? Is there a way to get the installer to reformat the SSD and take care of it?

Sure, no problem. In that case first thing I want you to do is to disconnect all other drives so we don't format something we want to keep.

 

You didn't say why the installer didn't work, maybe because you didn't set the USB flash as boot device #1. You do that by entering UEFI/BIOS by pressing delete or F2 usually on the first splash screen you see when you turn the PC on. Maybe you have to find in there advanced settings to locate boot options or boot order. 

When you found boot order make sure the USB flash drive is set as primary boot device.

 

When you have done that you can boot from it, let the Windows install utility load and select "Install now", At the next screen you can type product key if you have one, or you can select I don't have a product key (Windows will be activated when you log into Microsoft account later. If you did not put in product key then you must select Windows version (Home/Pro). Moving on past licence terms you have to accept.. you get two options after this, for a clean install chose "Install Windows only (advanced)"

 

Now it is time for chosing where to install, hope you disconnected any hard drive we are not going to use. If there is only one hard drive in the machine, then you should now see a list of partitions. There may be one or there may be 4, delete them all and select the unallocated space and click "new" it will say that it may need to make more partions but just set the size to max and confirm the warning. So now then, select the largest partition and click next. It should now copy files and install Windows. When it reboots it should boot to the new hard drive but I prefer to remove the flash drive just after it shut down in case it wants to boot back on it.

 

Anyway, if all went as it should the machine should boot up and a little final configuring like language and such. 

When you are at the desktop, it's ok to power down the PC and connect any disconnected hard drives.

 

Let me know how you get on plz.

[Legodude50]

4 minutes ago, aDoomGuy said:

Hmmm the process should not take 4 hours unless the old drive is horribly slow.... UNLESS again ...there is something wrong with it.. Least I think it shouldn't...

 

Tell you what, if the old drive is in a running system.. Try to run checkdisk on it and see if there are bad sectors, alright?

 

Just open the command prompt as administrator (start menu, type cmd, choose launch as administrator) and run command

chkdsk C:

That is if the drive is C : which is the one Windows booted off from. Running checkdisk like that wont fix anything it will only scan and report bad sectors and such.

 

If you want it to try to fix then run command

chkdsk C: /f /r

Reboot the machine and checkdisk will scan and attempt to repair if needed during bootup.

 

 

Sure, no problem. In that case first thing I want you to do is to disconnect all other drives so we don't format something we want to keep.

 

You didn't say why the installer didn't work, maybe because you didn't set the USB flash as boot device #1. You do that by entering UEFI/BIOS by pressing delete or F2 usually on the first splash screen you see when you turn the PC on. Maybe you have to find in there advanced settings to locate boot options or boot order. 

When you found boot order make sure the USB flash drive is set as primary boot device.

 

When you have done that you can boot from it, let the Windows install utility load and select "Install now", At the next screen you can type product key if you have one, or you can select I don't have a product key (Windows will be activated when you log into Microsoft account later. If you did not put in product key then you must select Windows version (Home/Pro). Moving on past licence terms you have to accept.. you get two options after this, for a clean install chose "Install Windows only (advanced)"

 

Now it is time for chosing where to install, hope you disconnected any hard drive we are not going to use. If there is only one hard drive in the machine, then you should now see a list of partitions. There may be one or there may be 4, delete them all and select the unallocated space and click "new" it will say that it may need to make more partions but just set the size to max and confirm the warning. So now then, select the largest partition and click next. It should now copy files and install Windows. When it reboots it should boot to the new hard drive but I prefer to remove the flash drive just after it shut down in case it wants to boot back on it.

 

Anyway, if all went as it should the machine should boot up and a little final configuring like language and such. 

When you are at the desktop, it's ok to power down the PC and connect any disconnected hard drives.

 

Let me know how you get on plz.

I appreciate your thoroughness very much. I tried running the installer and clicked advanced and it reset the computer when it was done and I got a black screen with the “please insert proper boot device or something, I don’t remember word for word. And at that point my wife was asking me to come to bed. Sigh. I’m very surprised with how frustrating this whole process has been. I’ve literally spent all day trying to figure this out. I think I might have it now though. The boot drive is set to the SSD. So maybe when the install finished and it booted to the SSD instead of the USB maybe that was the problem? And as for the HDD. assuming I ever get this SSD with a fresh install up and running, all the data from the HDD(both users) will be fully accessible?

[aDoomGuy]

7 hours ago, Legodude50 said:

I appreciate your thoroughness very much. I tried running the installer and clicked advanced and it reset the computer when it was done and I got a black screen with the “please insert proper boot device or something, I don’t remember word for word. And at that point my wife was asking me to come to bed. Sigh. I’m very surprised with how frustrating this whole process has been. I’ve literally spent all day trying to figure this out. I think I might have it now though. The boot drive is set to the SSD. So maybe when the install finished and it booted to the SSD instead of the USB maybe that was the problem? And as for the HDD. assuming I ever get this SSD with a fresh install up and running, all the data from the HDD(both users) will be fully accessible?

Ok, so the installer didn't seem to run into any issues and it set up the partitions for you as it should? 

 

I'm gonna need some more information. What motherboard are you using? We are gonna have to try changing fast boot settings, CSM and secure boot and see if it helps. Maybe reset UEFI to default settings. Also, the system was not overclocked in any way when you installed Windows was it? No XMP/DOCP enabled?

 

The data from the HDD should be fully accessible if you disconnected it as I said. Maybe because of user accounts we need to set up permissions and ownership but that shouldn't be a problem.

[Legodude50]

2 hours ago, aDoomGuy said:

Ok, so the installer didn't seem to run into any issues and it set up the partitions for you as it should? 

 

I'm gonna need some more information. What motherboard are you using? We are gonna have to try changing fast boot settings, CSM and secure boot and see if it helps. Maybe reset UEFI to default settings. Also, the system was not overclocked in any way when you installed Windows was it? No XMP/DOCP enabled?

 

The data from the HDD should be fully accessible if you disconnected it as I said. Maybe because of user accounts we need to set up permissions and ownership but that shouldn't be a problem.

I have an MSI x99a sli plus board with an i7-5820k. I had XMP on But Turned it off when I started messing with all this stuff. I’m going to be on the computer shortly so I’ll see what happened with the installer 

[Legodude50]

2 hours ago, aDoomGuy said:

Ok, so the installer didn't seem to run into any issues and it set up the partitions for you as it should? 

 

I'm gonna need some more information. What motherboard are you using? We are gonna have to try changing fast boot settings, CSM and secure boot and see if it helps. Maybe reset UEFI to default settings. Also, the system was not overclocked in any way when you installed Windows was it? No XMP/DOCP enabled?

 

The data from the HDD should be fully accessible if you disconnected it as I said. Maybe because of user accounts we need to set up permissions and ownership but that shouldn't be a problem.

Okay good news the installer worked. successful boot to windows. Now can you help me set up my old HDD correctly for drag and dropping?

[aDoomGuy]

EDIT: See post below

 

 

[aDoomGuy]

1 hour ago, Legodude50 said:

Okay good news the installer worked. successful boot to windows. Now can you help me set up my old HDD correctly for drag and dropping?

Excellent! 

 

I assume you just need to connect it, Windows should give it a drive letter automatically. If it doesn't here are some steps to do it manually.

 

• Right click Start menu
• Disk management
• Locate the drive in the list (see attached image, inside the marked area)
• Right click the partition area (see second image, inside the marked area ) and select set drive letter and path (I think it says, my OS is Norwegian)
• Set it to whatever is available (C is taken by the boot drive)

If the drive is properly connected and you cant see it in the list, then you must see if you can find it in the BIOS/UEFI under "SATA devices", SATA or SATA options or something similar. Also must check that SATA is enabled. Anyway, Windows should detect and mount it to a drive letter on it's own. 

 

 

[Legodude50]

20 minutes ago, aDoomGuy said:

Excellent! 

 

I assume you just need to connect it, Windows should give it a drive letter automatically. If it doesn't here are some steps to do it manually.

 

• Right click Start menu
• Disk management
• Locate the drive in the list (see attached image, inside the marked area)
• Right click the partition area (see second image, inside the marked area ) and select set drive letter and path (I think it says, my OS is Norwegian)
• Set it to whatever is available (C is taken by the boot drive)

If the drive is properly connected and you cant see it in the list, then you must see if you can find it in the BIOS/UEFI under "SATA devices", SATA or SATA options or something similar. Also must check that SATA is enabled. Anyway, Windows should detect and mount it to a drive letter on it's own. 

 

 

I successfully transferred over my assassins creed odyssey game files and located all my wife’s files. I think everything worked!

[aDoomGuy]

21 minutes ago, Legodude50 said:

I successfully transferred over my assassins creed odyssey game files and located all my wife’s files. I think everything worked!

Great! Enjoy your faster boot and load times! 

[Legodude50]

9 minutes ago, aDoomGuy said:

Great! Enjoy your faster boot and load times! 

The only thing I’m having a little trouble is recovering my steam games, I transferred my steam apps folder over but that didn’t do anything. And when I try to go to a game that is installed on my HDD For example the Witcher 3 and go to properties, under local files it doesn’t show anything 

[Legodude50]

17 minutes ago, aDoomGuy said:

Great! Enjoy your faster boot and load times! 

I figured it out! I feel like a little boy on Christmas Day haha. Windows boots in like seconds! It’s amazing 

[aDoomGuy]

No problem.

 

For steam games installed to HDD You have to open the Steam client then top left menu click Steam then Settings and then "Download" section and lastly click the Steam library button. Add the folder where your Steam games are located. It should detect everything in that folder.

 

As for your steam apps folder. You maybe need to add it, but you can't have two libraries on one drive however when you move files from one location to another on the same hard drive they are not physically moved, so you can take everything inside the "common" folder inside the Steam apps folder and move it to

 

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\Steamapps\common\

 

If they are already on that drive. Remeber to MOVE not to copy.

 

3 minutes ago, Legodude50 said:

I figured it out! I feel like a little boy on Christmas Day haha. Windows boots in like seconds! It’s amazing 

Great stuff! Now if you wish to move games in the future Steam has built in functionality for that. Just head into your library and you can find it in a games properties screen. 

[Legodude50]

25 minutes ago, aDoomGuy said:

No problem.

 

For steam games installed to HDD You have to open the Steam client then top left menu click Steam then Settings and then "Download" section and lastly click the Steam library button. Add the folder where your Steam games are located. It should detect everything in that folder.

 

As for your steam apps folder. You maybe need to add it, but you can't have two libraries on one drive however when you move files from one location to another on the same hard drive they are not physically moved, so you can take everything inside the "common" folder inside the Steam apps folder and move it to

 

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\Steamapps\common\

 

If they are already on that drive. Remeber to MOVE not to copy.

 

Great stuff! Now if you wish to move games in the future Steam has built in functionality for that. Just head into your library and you can find it in a games properties screen. 

Yup exactly what you said is what I did! Already moved over the Witcher 3 and destiny 2. If I knew it would be this simple I would’ve never cloned. I did all this in less time that the cloning process took! Oh well at least now it’s done. If any further questions arises could I PM you or contact you via this thread again? 

[aDoomGuy]

13 minutes ago, Legodude50 said:

Yup exactly what you said is what I did! Already moved over the Witcher 3 and destiny 2. If I knew it would be this simple I would’ve never cloned. I did all this in less time that the cloning process took! Oh well at least now it’s done. If any further questions arises could I PM you or contact you via this thread again? 

Yeah mate, the way Windows installs these days is beyond what I dared to dream about in the days of Windows XP/Vista and before. It's so fast and convenient. I just install it, update it, get my drivers and boom steam etc, add my libraries and that's that. With a clean install. So I don't feel the need to clone over a lot of cache files and such that may or may not work when I can have a fresh and clean install like that.

 

Send me a PM whenever you need to buddy. No problem! 

[Legodude50]

6 minutes ago, aDoomGuy said:

Yeah mate, the way Windows installs these days is beyond what I dared to dream about in the days of Windows XP/Vista and before. It's so fast and convenient. I just install it, update it, get my drivers and boom steam etc, add my libraries and that's that. With a clean install. So I don't feel the need to clone over a lot of cache files and such that may or may not work when I can have a fresh and clean install like that.

 

Send me a PM whenever you need to buddy. No problem! 

Thanks!! I really appreciate all your help  

[aDoomGuy]

3 minutes ago, Legodude50 said:

Thanks!! I really appreciate all your help  

You're welcome!