SSD growing pains.... Need some help.

[TheReal_ist]

So I cloned my SSD to another ssd. I now got the target ssd booting up and everything. But since I still have the OG OS clone on the first drive. Windows won't recognize it in files so that I can format it. 

 

It recognizes it in disk management but I can't delete it from there either. So how do I get windows to recognize it for a little bit while it nukes the data off it. And this also means that basic 3rd party wipeing software will also not regnize it since they still see it as a clone of my boot drive. And I don't feel like going in depth on the more advanced software when the problem is very simple. 

 

Thanks, 

[1234vietnam]

do you have another computer than you can use to format it? that's normally what i do

[TheReal_ist]

4 minutes ago, Prqnk3d said:

do you have another computer than you can use to format it? that's normally what i do

I could normally but I don't have the adapters to plug in into my extra laptop. To then format it. 

 

I was able to see the second cloned drive if files for a moment. But then windows realized it was a clone and blocked access. So I know it can see it windows is just being a bitch like always. 

 

A better question is what do I even search online to find what others have done to fix this. Because everything I search pops up the totally wrong thing. Mostly due to Googles shit algorithm. where it just gives up and simple searches key words in what ever your searching. Fucking pile of shit it is.  

[Beef Boss]

cmd line

[SpaceGhostC2C]

1 hour ago, TheRealist324 said:

So I cloned my SSD to another ssd. I now got the target ssd booting up and everything. But since I still have the OG OS clone on the first drive. Windows won't recognize it in files so that I can format it. 

Can you elaborate on the problem? I've done a few OS drive clones, and there was nothing special about deleting the old OS partitions afterwards. What exactly is getting in your way? 

[AshleyAshes]

1 minute ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

Can you elaborate on the problem? I've done a few OS drive clones, and there was nothing special about deleting the old OS partitions afterwards. What exactly is getting in your way? 

This.  It's usually pretty straight forward.  Other than the part where you have to go 'Okay, am I sure this is REALLY not the current OS drive I'm trying to format?  What if I booted the OLD drive and I'm about to format the NEW drive by accident?  Am I sure I'm 100% secure that I don't need the original?  I better check again for the 7th time.".

[dalekphalm]

3 hours ago, TheRealist324 said:

So I cloned my SSD to another ssd. I now got the target ssd booting up and everything. But since I still have the OG OS clone on the first drive. Windows won't recognize it in files so that I can format it. 

 

It recognizes it in disk management but I can't delete it from there either. So how do I get windows to recognize it for a little bit while it nukes the data off it. And this also means that basic 3rd party wipeing software will also not regnize it since they still see it as a clone of my boot drive. And I don't feel like going in depth on the more advanced software when the problem is very simple. 

 

Thanks, 

If - for whatever reason - Windows is not cooperating, I would suggest creating a "GParted" Live USB, booting off it, and using it to delete the partitions/reformat the SSD.

 

But, that should not be required.

 

Can you take a screenshot of "Disk Management" and show us what you see?

[Bhav]

Hmmm, similarly to this I have both my old 128 and 512 Gb SSDs now passed on to my pentium build.

 

Both have windows installed, but the 128 Gb is full of junk from my main PC that it no longer needs.

 

I want to erase the 128 Gb, then clone the 512 to it, then erase the 512.

 

I'm gonna be in for a world of pain and nightmares when I get around to figuring out how to do this.

[Guest]

10 hours ago, AshleyAshes said:

This.  It's usually pretty straight forward.  Other than the part where you have to go 'Okay, am I sure this is REALLY not the current OS drive I'm trying to format?  What if I booted the OLD drive and I'm about to format the NEW drive by accident?  Am I sure I'm 100% secure that I don't need the original?  I better check again for the 7th time.".

drive labels tho

[dalekphalm]

11 hours ago, Bhav said:

Hmmm, similarly to this I have both my old 128 and 512 Gb SSDs now passed on to my pentium build.

 

Both have windows installed, but the 128 Gb is full of junk from my main PC that it no longer needs.

 

I want to erase the 128 Gb, then clone the 512 to it, then erase the 512.

 

I'm gonna be in for a world of pain and nightmares when I get around to figuring out how to do this.

FYI, 128 Gb means something WAY DIFFERENT than 128 GB. A 128 Gb SSD would only be Sixteen Gigabytes in capacity. Gb = Gigabit. GB = GigaByte. Very important difference.

 

That should be fairly painless.

 

Using a live USB such as GParted or PartedMagic can easily wipe the 128GB SSD. You could even download and create a UBCD Live USB (UBCD = Universal Boot CD). This is a live USB that contains a collection of useful utilities, including PartedMagic, as well as a multitude of cloning software. Everything you need to do the entire process.

 

Please note: Don't clone with Clonezilla, as it cannot shrink a volume (there are ways around this, but it's a bit more technical and requires other utilities to prep). Though UBCD contains a bunch of different cloning software, and at least a few of them should be able to clone a larger volume onto a smaller one.

[Bhav]

9 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

FYI, 128 Gb means something WAY DIFFERENT than 128 GB. A 128 Gb SSD would only be Sixteen Gigabytes in capacity. Gb = Gigabit. GB = GigaByte. Very important difference.

 

That should be fairly painless.

 

Using a live USB such as GParted or PartedMagic can easily wipe the 128GB SSD. You could even download and create a UBCD Live USB (UBCD = Universal Boot CD). This is a live USB that contains a collection of useful utilities, including PartedMagic, as well as a multitude of cloning software. Everything you need to do the entire process.

 

Please note: Don't clone with Clonezilla, as it cannot shrink a volume (there are ways around this, but it's a bit more technical and requires other utilities to prep). Though UBCD contains a bunch of different cloning software, and at least a few of them should be able to clone a larger volume onto a smaller one.

Oh god, I was manually changing GB to Gb every time because I thought it was spell correcting it for Great Britain (which it probably is anyway). I thought it was wrong so I changed it. I am dumb.

 

As for the SSDs, I'm waiting for Crucial support to reply about whether or not the free Acronis for Crucial is meant to work for these drives before looking for alternatives.

[dalekphalm]

12 minutes ago, Bhav said:

Oh god, I was manually changing GB to Gb every time because I thought it was spell correcting it for Great Britain (which it probably is anyway). I thought it was wrong so I changed it. I am dumb.

 

As for the SSDs, I'm waiting for Crucial support to reply about whether or not the free Acronis for Crucial is meant to work for these drives before looking for alternatives.

Haha no worries. Easy mistake to make. But now you know, so I hope you don’t manually correct it anymore ?

 

Assuming you can use the free Acronis, that should work quite nicely for the cloning process. 

 

Technically you don’t even need to wipe the target SSD first, as the cloning process will overwrite any previous data (just double check that you don’t reverse clone by accident). 

[Bhav]

8 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Haha no worries. Easy mistake to make. But now you know, so I hope you don’t manually correct it anymore ?

 

Assuming you can use the free Acronis, that should work quite nicely for the cloning process. 

 

Technically you don’t even need to wipe the target SSD first, as the cloning process will overwrite any previous data (just double check that you don’t reverse clone by accident). 

I already wiped the 128 GB as it was already cloned to my new M2 drive, and it also had all my music recording software and other productivity apps that my pentium doesn't need. Also it made booting a pain with two windows drives.

 

At this point if Acronis for Crucial won't work with these drives, I'll just reinstall windows from scratch instead, I already have a 4 GB memory card and USB reader with it on, and even picked up a pair of 8 GB Micro SD with regular SD adaptors for a couple of quid each for such use in the future or data transfer. 

[TheReal_ist]

Alrit well I got it all working. I had just went into disk management and......Actually It was awhile ago so I kinda forgot what I did. I do know I did something so that Windows would recognize both SSD's. For some reason it saw both but because they both had exact same of everything Windows picked the oldest one and blocked out seeing the cloned one in files manager. But I reset it in disk managment so that it could see it. Then formatted it quickly.

 

I'll remember how to do it when I see it and all. So I got something out this, I guess. 

You guys may not have gave the solution. But you helped me find it myself. 

 

So thanks for that,

Sincerely me