Solved Cloning SATA SSD with OS to NVME

Just got new (used) computer a few days ago, currently running Win 11 Pro 24H2. Currently my OS is on a sata ssd, drive letter C. If install a nvme drive and clone my OS drive to it, will it assign drive letter C or a different drive letter? You can't have two drives of the same letter, right? Because I want to remove the sata sdd so it boots into the nvme drive but I want that drive to be drive letter C. I'm confused as to how this would work. Thanks.

Once you clone the drive you have to remove one of them. When you reboot (after shutting down your PC and removing the drive of your choice) the system will automatically recognize your boot drive and label it "C". If it doesn't you can always label it yourself in Disk Manager but I don't see any reason why it wouldn't read as your "C" drive.

As @Scannerman posted, Windows will always assign the drive it's booted from as drive C:. There are ways to get a different drive letter for Windows but for most users there's no reason too. As I remember it, If you use a system restore image to move the OS to the new drive you can leave both drives attached. You would have to edit the boot menu if you wanted to chose what drive you want to boot from or change the boot drive order in the BIOS. If you clone the drive and leave both drives attached the drives will have the same ID and can confuse Windows on which drive is which and cause files to get scattered around on both drives. If I'm wrong about the cloned disk I hope someone corrects me.

Shut the pc down, remove the Sata HDD and install the SSD , on boot windows should pickup the drive and label it C , provided the boot partition has been moved to the new SSD .
If you are intending to reinstall the old Sata drive , I would wipe it clean first , I don't know what would happen when trying to boot two drives with Windows and boot partitions on them

Great, thanks much! Sounds simple enough.

Dark Knight said:

I would wipe it clean first , I don't know what would happen when trying to boot two drives with Windows and boot partitions on them

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If both drives were added to the boot menu it would be a dual boot setup. What does cause problems is if both drives have the same ID.

Dark Knight said:

If you are intending to reinstall the old Sata drive , I would wipe it clean first , I don't know what would happen when trying to boot two drives with Windows and boot partitions on them

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I would keep the SATA as a genuine backup of the OS in "cold storage". Unlike others I am a big advocate of this technique. When I used to service laptops for people I would hand them their old HDD and tell them to hang onto it just in case they had to get up and running immediately and their SSD wouldn't boot. Cloning is great if you do it right. The system will NOT boot with two identical drives in it. It will simply hang.

Today I make clones of my OS on SSD just to keep in cold storage. If my OS refuses to be recovered I just go to my cupboard, pull out the corresponding clone, shut down the PC, pull the defective drive, and pop in the clone. Then I put the defective drive in an USB enclosure. From Disk Management (once the system is booted back up and the enclosure is connected) I can drag and drop all personal data from the 'defective' drive back to my original drive. With SSDs this is not that time intensive. Of course this is assuming that the defective drive is still readable and it usually is. Once that process is complete I can wipe the defective drive, run scans and repairs, and make another clone of my original just as I want it. After that I shut down the PC and tuck the original away for next time. This method has proven faster, more effective and reliable than fighting countless hours with an OS that simply refuses to boot.

hcour said:

Just got new (used) computer a few days ago, currently running Win 11 Pro 24H2. Currently my OS is on a sata ssd, drive letter C. If install a nvme drive and clone my OS drive to it, will it assign drive letter C or a different drive letter? You can't have two drives of the same letter, right? Because I want to remove the sata sdd so it boots into the nvme drive but I want that drive to be drive letter C. I'm confused as to how this would work. Thanks.

Click to expand...

What Scannerman posted is the best way, and how I've cloned several drives - HDD to SSD, SSD to NVME. No need to turn things into rocket science by getting tangled up in every what if and maybe so in the universe. Simple works just fine.

And yes, once you remove the old drive, the new one WILL show as "C" drive. Did a few clones a couple of weeks ago when I did a new build.

Good luck.