2 SSDs with Windows on it causing conflict?

[FRD]

Okay, not really an issue, but I still would like to know.

I have a normal SATA SSD for boot drive and a used NVME that I put in my last m.2 slot recently.

Installed it and it worked fine, made a new partition.

 

First startup it shocked me though. It booted from the NVME and it still had a fresh Windows 10 on it, because I ever used it in another PC. Forgot to throw it off.

Disabled NVME startup in BIOS and it booted fine from my SATA SSD. Or so I thought...

 

Now I get a good startup on the 2nd or 3rd try. Sometimes it would give my blue screen, then load to 100%, then startup. What is causing this issue?

It it bad to have Windows installed on multiple drives? I feel like it's a conflict issue.

 

Luckily the issue is easy to solve. Either totally delete Windows from the NVME or take out the NVME and test if it's bad in some way. Right?

[C2dan88]

5 minutes ago, FRD said:

I feel like it's a conflict issue.

No.  When booting windows, other drives that contain windows will be seen as a regular drive with files on it.

Does your ssd boot fine without the nvme installed?

[BillBill]

10 minutes ago, FRD said:

Okay, not really an issue, but I still would like to know.

I have a normal SATA SSD for boot drive and a used NVME that I put in my last m.2 slot recently.

Installed it and it worked fine, made a new partition.

 

First startup it shocked me though. It booted from the NVME and it still had a fresh Windows 10 on it, because I ever used it in another PC. Forgot to throw it off.

Disabled NVME startup in BIOS and it booted fine from my SATA SSD. Or so I thought...

 

Now I get a good startup on the 2nd or 3rd try. Sometimes it would give my blue screen, then load to 100%, then startup. What is causing this issue?

It it bad to have Windows installed on multiple drives? I feel like it's a conflict issue.

 

Luckily the issue is easy to solve. Either totally delete Windows from the NVME or take out the NVME and test if it's bad in some way. Right?

The SATA SSD and the NVMe drives might be both listed as being the C drive. If they are both listed as the C drive that will cause a conflict and you can change the letter of one of the drives. You can do a web search to show you how to change the drive letter. 

[Eigenvektor]

Just now, BillBill said:

The SATA SSD and the NVMe drives might be both listed as being the C drive. If they are both listed as the C drive that will cause a conflict and you can change the letter of one of the drives. You can do a web search to show you how to change the drive letter. 

The drive you boot from will be shown as the C drive, the other drive will get a different drive letter assigned by the currently running copy of Windows. It's not possible for two drives to share the same drive letter. The copy of Windows on the other drive isn't active in any way, so it's not going to interfere with the running copy of Windows.

[BillBill]

1 minute ago, Eigenvektor said:

The drive you boot from will be shown as the C drive, the other drive will get a different drive letter assigned by the currently running copy of Windows. It's not possible for two drives to share the same drive letter. The copy of Windows on the other drive isn't active in any way, so it's not going to interfere with the running copy of Windows.

If a person was to clone a drive then both drives would be listed as the C drive. 

[Eigenvektor]

Just now, BillBill said:

If a person was to clone a drive then both drives would be listed as the C drive. 

No, they would not. The name "C" is not a property of the drive itself. It's simply a label Windows assigns to the drive on startup. The boot drive is always C, the others get a name assigned (which is then stored in the Windows registry so it doesn't change on next boot)

[BillBill]

Just now, Eigenvektor said:

No, they would not. The name "C" is not a property of the drive itself. It's simply a label Windows assigns to the drive on startup. The boot drive is always C, the others get a name assigned (which is then stored in the Windows registry so it doesn't change on next boot)

Ok but I've cloned drives before and both ended up being labeled C drive and had to disconnect the power from one drive to be able to boot into Windows. 

[NumLock21]

11 minutes ago, BillBill said:

Ok but I've cloned drives before and both ended up being labeled C drive and had to disconnect the power from one drive to be able to boot into Windows. 

Both are being label as C is because you've cloned it or bios is acting up and don't know which drive you want to use. When 2 drives are connected and both have their own windows install on it. The drive that's boot from will be label as drive C.

[BillBill]

1 minute ago, NumLock21 said:

Both are being label as C is because you've cloned it or bios is acting up and don't know which drive you want to use. When 2 drives are connected and both have their own windows install on it. The drive that's boot from will be label as drive C.

Some cloning software clones everything exact. You could clone a drive that is 250GB in size to a larger drive yet the larger drive will only display 250GB of space. It depends on the software. 

[NumLock21]

5 minutes ago, BillBill said:

Some cloning software clones everything exact. You could clone a drive that is 250GB in size to a larger drive yet the larger drive will only display 250GB of space. It depends on the software. 

Most will let you adjust your drive size to use the full capacity and not be the same as your original drive size.

[BillBill]

Just now, NumLock21 said:

Most will let you adjust your drive size to use the full capacity and not be limited to your original drive size.

Yes 

[FRD]

On 1/23/2024 at 2:06 AM, C2dan88 said:

No.  When booting windows, other drives that contain windows will be seen as a regular drive with files on it.

Does your ssd boot fine without the nvme installed?

I got the blue screen after I installed the NVME and turned off NVME boot. I put my original SSD as boot priority first place.

The NVME was a C drive for a new PC back then, but I forgot that it still had Windows on it.

After starting up multiple times I maybe got a blue screen 3 out of 10 times, but I can't clarify why. Other times I had to start my PC 2 or 3 times.

Now my PC is not doing that anymore, it's like it got used to starting off the SSD like it used to. No BIOS settings changed after the last startup miss or blue screen.