Moving windows to an SSD

Flozza · January 8, 2017

Hi, I'm no genius when it comes to the software side of PCs, and I recently got a new SSD, I'd like to move windows 10 to the ssd but I'm not sure how exactly. I made a bootable USB and ran it, so all the windows files are on the SSD, but i don't know what to do from here, it's still booting from the old hard drive despite me changing the drive priority in the bios. My real question is, do i need to uninstall windows from / format the old hard drive to start using the new SSD as my boot drive? Or am I just missing something? Preferably I'd keep the data on the old hard drive, as it would take hours to back up / redownload all my stuff. But if that's the only or best way then I'm fine with it.

Almost all of the guides and things I've seen on the internet about this have involved moving all of the data from the old drive to the new one, I my new SSD is, unfortunately, nowhere near large enough to do this. (256GB SSD and 1TB hard drive)

Thanks

Jay_JWLH · January 8, 2017

Unless you want to do some odd setting changes, I would always recommend doing a clean install over onto the SSD. There are two different types of storage types, and hence certain settings and features will be different. Just image them over, and I can start to imagine some consequences. I should probably look it up actually. That is why I did it properly.

As for the way it is booting up, it is probably booting up physically from the SSD, but I'm guessing the boot manager shows up before entering into the OS? Of which you'd pick the OS that is on the HDD, and hence where you are. Or perhaps it skips it, if the flags aren't set to boot off the SSD.

Edit: Still doable I suppose: http://lifehacker.com/5837543/how-to-migrate-to-a-solid-state-drive-without-reinstalling-windows

Edited January 8, 2017 by Jay_JWLH