Moving Windows 10 from SSD to HDD? Advice Needed

Hi all,

when I first got my desktop last year, it came with Windows 10 loaded on the included SSD. Unfortunately, this SSD is getting very close running out of space. I intend to buy another SSD (with more space) soon, and would like to move Windows 10 over to my hard-drive.

gp792 said:

Hi all,

when I first got my desktop last year, it came with Windows 10 loaded on the included SSD. Unfortunately, this SSD is getting very close running out of space. I intend to buy another SSD (with more space) soon, and would like to move Windows 10 over to my hard-drive.

Click to expand...

Beware both of these tools can wreck your windows 10 if you make a mistake, and you won't know it until you restart.
Make a backup of everything and make sure you have your windows 10 full recovery cd's MADE.

Not sure if xxclone will work with win10. But its nice because it lets you copy the system when its running, it uses ms shadowing service.
It has tools to copy the boot partition also.
The personal version is free.
http://www.xxclone.com


Redo backup is a linux os on a USB stick that you boot from or you can burn the image to CDR or DVDR and boot from that.
And its free.
http://redobackup.org/
Redo Backup






Both of these will not save the data on the NEW SSD it will be destroyed.

You will need a sata to usb convertor, or you will need to use the internal sata connectors on the motherboard.
You would connect the new SSD to sata1 while the old ssd was on sata0. Then you copy.
You will also most likely need to swap sata0 old ssd and sata1 new ssd once the copy is done.

Oh, and chances are all this will fail if you have UEFI.
You may need to go into the bios of the pc and turn of the uefi security for the first boot of windows 10.

What you are doing here may be very easy and smooth, or it could be your worst nightmare.

You would be better off doing a full factory recovery to the NEW SSD.
1. Turn your pc off.
2. Disconnect ALL drives, (sdd, hdd, flash, jump, usb storage)
3. connect NEW SSD to sata0
4. Run the recovery CD/DVD that came with your pc.

Keep original ssd disconnected from system the entire time so if you fail at getting the system working, you can just reconnect the ssd to SATA0 and its back to working.


Samsung SSD's come with a software utility to do the system clone. Not sure if you will run into the problems mentioned above tho, good luck.

Having a professional do this procedure is highly recommended. And even then if they wreck your data, YOU are responsible. So back it up first.
I tell people to retire the old HDD or SDD as an offline permanent backup, since its most users ONLY ONE.

I'd go the win 7 backup and recovery route. Create both a backup and a system image on an external hard drive, I have two external hard drives and have two system images one on each. Create two repair disks, if you don't have a DVD burner get a USB one they're cheap enough. Then reinstall win 10 from the system image.

You'll find win 7 backup and recovery under settings, update and security, backup, go to win 7 backup and security.

Personally I might tidy up the SSD and leave it as it is. I'd still create the system images. If you right click properties there is a disk clean up use it. Also go through your programs and remave any you aren't using. Perhaps reinstall some software on another drive, this includes TANE, it won't affect your frames per second very much.

Cheerio John

John,

TANE is on my E: Drive as there's 1TB of free space, even with all of my favorite games installed. I had recently by accident, installed it on my SSD and when adding my content back in, I was met with an error message. I then discovered that the SSD had run out of space. TANE was uninstalled, then reinstalled on the E: Drive. Unfortunately, there must be something still on the SSD that I cannot see or access that has reduced the free space down to 8.46GB.

Look in C:\users\yourwindowslogin\AppData\Local\N3V Games\TANE\build xxxxxxxxx where xxxxxxxxx is a random sequence of letters and numbers. May be more than one folder so be very careful what you delete if you have not put your userdata on your E drive, check in Launcher > Options >Install which folder you are actually using, then delete the other(s).

Edit:

May need to unhide hidden folders and files to find the folder.

clam1952 said:

Look in C:\users\yourwindowslogin\AppData\Local\N3V Games\TANE\build xxxxxxxxx where xxxxxxxxx is a random sequence of letters and numbers. May be more than one folder so be very careful what you delete if you have not put your userdata on your E drive, check in Launcher > Options >Install which folder you are actually using, then delete the other(s).

Edit:

May need to unhide hidden folders and files to find the folder.

Click to expand...

EDIT: My userdata is currently on E:, but I did find userdata on C: as well. Is it safe to delete that one?

gp792 said:

EDIT: My userdata is currently on E:, but I did find userdata on C: as well. Is it safe to delete that one?

Click to expand...

Yes just delete the folder it's in.

Thank you Malc. By deleting that folder, it freed up over 130GB and I now have about 148GB of free space now. I think I'll wait on getting another SSD for a while now.

Yes - T:ANE installations can be quite sneaky, I've discovered, even when you think you're being vigilant.
Recently I found two beta-build installations that had somehow sneaked onto my AppData\local\ N3V Games\TANE folder on Drive C: despite always directing my patches and new installations to another SSD drive and dedicated T:ANE directory/ Userdata folder.
Deleting these also freed up quite a lot of space. Suspect that they were only the program files in these cases, since the redirects always showed the D: and F: drives as the location for the Userdata.

I was just looking into moving my system (including Windows 10) from HDD to SSD. I saw a recommendation for "EaseUS Todo Backup", a free migration program. Anyone had experience of this? BTW TANE is already on its own little SSD (64Gb) and won't be involved.

Thanks,
Mick

Mick_Berg said:

I was just looking into moving my system (including Windows 10) from HDD to SSD. I saw a recommendation for "EaseUS Todo Backup", a free migration program. Anyone had experience of this? BTW TANE is already on its own little SSD (64Gb) and won't be involved.

Thanks,
Mick

Click to expand...

Keep in mind no matter what OS transfer system you use, UEFI settings might still prevent you from booting due to security.
If you don't know anything about uefi or the bios, then learn, or stop, or ask someone, or pay someone to do this.

And the risk is still equally great with no backup, you could accidentally choose the source hard drive for the destination.
SO you need the recovery disks in hand, and all your personal items on a backup, before you do anything.
And you will need to put the new SSD into the plug where the old HDD was once the hd image is done.

I have used easeus, and i think it does transfer the boot sector properly, and it also uses ms shadowing service to do the copy live.

EDIT: Issue Solved.

Just wondering, how much space is left on the SSD?

pdkoester said:

Just wondering, how much space is left on the SSD?

Click to expand...

Paul,

after removing that folder, it now has 148GB free. Before that, it was down to 8.46GB.