Clone or Copy Paste D: drive?

[Rosa Laminae]

Hello, (obligatory 'sorry English is not my main language')

 

feels like kind of a stupid question, but it's been painful to look up cus google assumes I want to clone Windows

 

I have a 4TB HDD as a D: drive, which i mostly used as a hybrid drive for Steam + pictures/memes/music/video's

 

Now on Black Friday i got 2 2TB SSD's (970 EVO, 870 QVO) for 'cheap' and decided to split up the HDD

 

now I have a G: SteamLibrary, but i want the QVO drive to replace my D: drive as an 'other' drive

 

main issue is that I have several random programs that refer to files that are present on the mess of a drive that is my current D: drive, and some programs (like Steam itself...) are directly installed onto my D: drive...

 

I would like to just transfer all these files, but i know Windows can be finicky about files in use, and i just wonder if it's fine to just copy paste all my files/programs, or if I have to go the long distance and use something like Macrium Reflect to do it 'correctly'?

it's not really a big deal if i lose some stuff along the way, i'm just being anxious here but also lazy and dont wanna spend the extra effort if it's unecesairy...

 

Is there maybe some 'sure-way' to do it on low effort (a friend of mine mentioned xcopy, is that an effective solution? I would have to research that though...)

[Tan3l6]

Cloning would be fool-proof method, but in this case copy-pasting might work too. Both methods probably take same amount of time.

[Rosa Laminae]

17 minutes ago, Tan3l6 said:

Cloning would be fool-proof method, but in this case copy-pasting might work too. Both methods probably take same amount of time.

you know what, while writing the post i realised... F it, i dont wanna deal with cloning tools...

 

So I think i'll just copy paste and see if anything broke

 

worst case scenario I will just have to properly clone it anyway... I will just wait a week or so before i wipe my HDD

 

tbh this really felt like the coin flip thing where you dont know what you want, but once the coin is in the air, you will have figured out what you will be doing...

[Kilrah]

Use https://freefilesync.org/

Bit better than copy/paste cause it'll include hidden files if any without having to go change explorer preferences, and also you can stop/continue later. With a simple explorer copy all it takes is an error on one file and it cancels the whole thing without you knowing what was copied and what wasn't. 

[whispous]

Steam libraries are awesome. Copy and paste it, and then in steam, "create new library" and just select that folder! It should find all the games pretty much immediately and seamlessly.

[Rosa Laminae]

1 hour ago, Kilrah said:

Use https://freefilesync.org/

Bit better than copy/paste cause it'll include hidden files if any without having to go change explorer preferences, and also you can stop/continue later. With a simple explorer copy all it takes is an error on one file and it cancels the whole thing without you knowing what was copied and what wasn't. 

I just finished my copy paste, if anything seems to not work properly and i cant figure it out, then i will use this

For now it seems fine, only 3 files claiming to 'not have rights to place it here' which i dont really understand, 2 of which being from sea of thieves and i cant really locate the last one...

 

will see, i dont even have sea of thieves installed right now anyway

 

[kokosnh]

You can compare the folders using freefilesync to find that one file. 
 

I usually use freefilesync just because it’s faster than windows explorer copy.