[For the love of sod.]

Hi, so, I'm trying to migrate my Windows 10 installation to my new SSD, and I am not sure which partitions I need to copy over from my HDD for that to work.  I have messed about with dual-booting (or tried to) a couple of times over the years and now have a multitude of tiny partitions that are probably useless.  Can someone help me to understand which ones I don't need?  Thanks very much.

 

Spoiler

DISKPART> list partition

  Partition ###  Type              Size     Offset
  -------------  ----------------  -------  -------

  Partition 1    System             100 MB  1024 KB

  Partition 2    Primary             14 GB   101 MB

  Partition 3    Primary           1251 GB    14 GB

  Partition 4    Recovery           527 MB  1266 GB

  Partition 5    Primary            781 GB  1266 GB

  Partition 6    System             101 MB  2047 GB

  Partition 7    Recovery           300 MB  2047 GB

  Partition 8    System             100 MB  2048 GB

  Partition 9    Recovery           300 MB  2048 GB

  Partition 10   System             100 MB  2048 GB

 

Tried to post an image of Disk Management but it doesn't seem to be allowed, so here's a link:
https://prnt.sc/r8j263

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Hello For the love of sod.,

 

Question, including the OEM brand what version of Windows is on the recovery partition.

 

If I were doing this I would download the latest ISO from Microsoft and clean install Windows on its own partition on the SSD.

[phillpower2]

Hello For the love of sod.,

 

Question, including the OEM brand what version of Windows is on the recovery partition.

 

If I were doing this I would download the latest ISO from Microsoft and clean install Windows on its own partition on the SSD.

[For the love of sod.]

Hi there, not sure if you remember me but you were the one that helped me last time I posted, like five years ago.  Glad to see you again.

 

I built my PC.  Here's the specs, as listed by Speccy:

Spoiler

Operating System
    Windows 10 Home 64-bit
CPU
    AMD Ryzen 5 1600    34 °C
    14nm Technology
RAM
    16.0GB Dual-Channel Unknown @ 1330MHz (16-18-18-35)
Motherboard
    ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. PRIME B350-PLUS (AM4)    32 °C
Graphics
    TOSHIBA-TV (1920x1080@60Hz)
    S22D300 (1920x1080@60Hz)
    4095MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 (MSI)    47 °C
Storage
    2794GB Seagate ST3000DM001-1CH166 (SATA )    30 °C
    465GB Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB (SATA (SSD))    28 °C
    953GB INTEL SSDSC2KW010T8 (SATA (SSD))    26 °C
    1862GB Western Digital WD My Passport 0820 USB Device (USB (SATA) )    30 °C
Optical Drives
    No optical disk drives detected
Audio
    RME Babyface Pro

 

Well, whether or not I try to do a new install for this, it would be nice to know which of these partitions is useless and how to tell that.

Thanks again.

[phillpower2]

Hello For the love of sod., long time no hear and yes I do remember but being honest not the particular thread but your user name 

 

In answer to your question above, the OS on the C: drive is the most current as in the one that you are presently keeping up to date and that is the one that you would migrate to any new SSD, before migrating the OS it would be best to take the other internal storage devices offline and disconnect the external USB storage device.

 

Question for you, if you built this computer how come it has OEM recovery partitions on the storage devices, this the reason why I asked "including the OEM brand what version of Windows is on the recovery partition." only the large system builders such as Dell and HP etc install recovery partitions and under SDK licence conditions, the OEM partitions somewhat complicate trying to find out which is usable and which isn`t, for all we know the recovery partitions could have Windows 8.1 on them + software for an OEM MB, neither of which I`m sure you would not wish to put on your new SSD.

[For the love of sod.]

Huh, did not realise the name was that memorable haha.  Just a funny little thing that popped into my head some years back.

 

So, if I just copied over the C drive...would that do it?  I know it wouldn't have the recovery stuff, but would that actually move my OS intact over to the SSD?

 

Well, about the OEM partition, I have no idea.  I will offer you my best guess however:  back in maybe 2009 or so, I bought a Dell Inspiron laptop with Windows 7 installed and that became my primary computer.  In 2014 I believe, I got a lot more serious about computers and not only built my own, but made a system image of my laptop and forcibly made it work on my newly built PC.  And yes, I am aware that this sounds absolutely mad but I assure you I had reasons and they were good reasons.  Anyway, my guess is that some of what you see is a holdover from that, but rest assured I have since then done a clean install of Windows 10 on a new PC I built maybe two years ago, but I have retained the same HDD.  I did have some IT guy trying to help me dual-boot W7 and W10 but he kind of abandoned me, and I don't remember what he did with stuff like DISM (not that I really understood what he was doing anyway).  I don't think the 15GB OEM partition was from him, but some of the very small ones may have been.

 

Can we just check what's on these things in some way and know which ones are not needed?

Well, the G drive (OEM, Recovery, 15GB one) certainly looks rather Dell-ish:
https://prnt.sc/r95e9u

So I suppose I can actually just get rid of that one, yeah?

[phillpower2]

Migration software would move the entire contents of the C: drive exactly as they are, good quality brand SSDs ship with such software to do this, Samsung Magician is a good example.

 

Anything not on the C: drive or that is related to Windows 7 is of no use and should be gotten rid of tbh, let us know what capacity of new SSD you will be getting and I will explain your best options and why.

[For the love of sod.]

Oh, so all I need to copy is the C: drive?

 

Well, a friend bought and shipped me an Intel SSD5 545s 1TB drive, brand new (yes, I feel really bad and yes, he is the best person ever).  I'm having trouble understanding what to do with it partially because Intel seem to ignore it ever existed now.  The 512GB one is there, as is the 256GB, but the 1TB drive doesn't seem to be represented on their site anymore.  A little worrying actually.  Should it have brought up migration software automatically?  I think I remember my EVO doing that when I got it a while back, though that was for music production, so I didn't put my OS on it.

 

I have over 400GB of personal files I really don't need to take up space on my SSD, so I'd love to designate that drive for the best performance for my OS and games, and move that 400GB elsewhere.  One can point Downloads, Documents, Music, Videos, and all that elsewhere easy enough if I remember correctly, so that's what I would do.

 

Edit:  My games are not currently on C:, so that's not part of the 864GB you see taken up by my stuff on C:.  That's my Z: drive that has my games on it.  But they can be deleted and redownloaded any time, so I'm not incredibly worried about having an absolute tonne of space reserved for them.

Edited by For the love of sod., 28 February 2020 - 03:12 PM.

[phillpower2]

Best Answer

With a 1TB SSD I would be clean installing Windows 10 onto it and as part of the procedure putting it on its own 250GB partition on the drive, this helps to prevent Windows from becoming corrupted + makes it a lot easier to back up to another storage device, the back up would essentially be your Windows 10 recovery partition albeit on a separate drive, see my canned info below for another good reason to have Windows on its own smaller partition.

 

For Windows to be able to run efficiently and to be able to update you need to have between 20 and 25% of the partition or drive available as free storage space at all times, if you don`t you risk Windows becoming corrupt or not being able to update which puts you at risk of malware attack.

 

Data only storage devices should not be allowed to get any lower than 10% of free storage space of the full capacity of the drive/partition on the drive, this also to avoid data corruption.

 

Please note that storage devices can physically fail if the amount of free storage space is allowed to drop below the required 10 or 20/25% minimum.

 

Equally as important is being prepared for the need to upgrade to another OS, when the time comes you will only have to worry about upgrading or clean installing Windows to the C: partition as opposed to needing to reinstall all of your programs and data if they were kept on a separate partition on the same drive.

 

Windows will also boot up quicker on its own partition as it does not need to install drivers for any third party programs.

 

Got an early start so going offline shortly I`m afraid.

[For the love of sod.]

Well, you make a compelling case.  This sounds like a hassle I didn't want to go through, but I think you're right and I should clean-install.

 

So what should I do to prepare for this?  Make a 250GB partition on the new SSD and format it as NTFS?  Then I can stick my Windows 10 installer USB in there, restart the PC and get started with the installation?  Do I need to disconnect all my other drives for this?  I didn't when working with my HDD, but in that case, no other drives had Windows on them.  Does that matter?

 

There's no way to avoid installing all my programmes again when I do the W10 clean install onto the new SSD, is there?  That's really the part I was dreading.

 

Thanks as always.

[phillpower2]

See guide here for clean installing and partitioning the new SSD, once you are booting from the new SSD and Windows is fully up to date you can reconnect the other drives and get rid of any unwanted data on them and likewise keep any wanted programs, videos etc on them.

 

Will try and get back to you tomorrow after work some time.

 

You are welcome btw 

[For the love of sod.]

Cheers.  I'll try to start that hopefully sooner rather than later.

[phillpower2]

No worries and good luck 

 

Can I suggest that you save all your drivers to a small capacity thumbdrive ready to install once Windows is up and running, be sure to install the chipset drivers for the MB first as well, it makes installing any other drivers less problematic + the chipset drivers should always come from the MB manufacturer as Microsoft do any generic ones.

[For the love of sod.]

Oh, I'd forgotten about drivers.  I don't think I've a spare thumb drive, either.  Speaking of which, how important is it to update the firmware of my SSD before this W10 installation?  Seems to be impossible without a thumb drive or optical drive, meaning, not possible for me at the moment.  I do have a USB drive with a Windows 10 installer but it's not mine and it is not to be modified, so that doesn't help here.

 

I am actually still curious about all these small partitions.  Is there a way to look at what they have on them and see are they at all useful?  Not for this procedure necessarily, but just to know in general.

[phillpower2]

I do have a USB drive with a Windows 10 installer but it's not mine and it is not to be modified, so that doesn't help here.

 

 

The above is only really any good if it has the latest ISO on it which is version 1909, you will find yourself having to install any missing major and cumulative updates otherwise and that could take you a few hrs atop of the Windows and driver updates.

 

You could save your drivers to one of the data only drives and reinstall them when you put the drives back online after clean installing Windows.

 

The firmware can be updated after the Windows and/or as part of the drivers installation, just remember to create regular restore points along the way.

 

The small partitions to which you refer, when Windows 10 is installed Windows creates it own three partitions as part of the process, just like the OEM recovery partitions you have duplicates of the originals, below is how Speccy reports a typical Windows 10 installation on a storage device;

 

Partition 0

Partition ID: Disk #0, Partition #0

File System: NTFS

Volume Serial Number: 7878DDDD

Size: 528 MB

Used Space: 421 MB (79%)

Free Space: 107 MB (21%)

Partition 1

Partition ID: Disk #0, Partition #1

File System: FAT32

Volume Serial Number: 4A79C891

Size: 96 MB

Used Space: 26.2 MB (27%)

Free Space: 69 MB (73%)

Partition 2

Partition ID: Disk #0, Partition #2

Disk Letter: C:

File System: NTFS

Volume Serial Number: BA84FB8C

Size: 465 GB

Used Space: 93 GB (20%)

Free Space: 371 GB (80%)

[For the love of sod.]

Sorry it's been a little longer than expected.  So, at the moment, turns out I don't have access to any USB sticks at all, and I'm not sure what to do.  I had one, but I used Rufus on it a while back attempting to dual-boot with W7, and after I gave up on that, the stick still had I suppose the installer on it, but after attempting to wipe it (used clean in DiskPart), it just doesn't seem to work at all anymore.  Can't be formatted by anything as far as I can tell.  Apart from somehow getting that to work, I can either wait an undetermined amount of time for the other USB stick that's not mine, or attempt copying directly from my HDD to the new SSD.