Solved Cloning SATA SSD with OS to NVME

hcour · 2025-04-03T07:07:18-0400

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.

Scannerman · 2025-04-03T07:15:14-0400

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.

Winuser · 2025-04-03T10:03:33-0400

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.

Dark Knight · 2025-04-03T10:17:14-0400

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

hcour · 2025-04-03T10:32:03-0400

Great, thanks much! Sounds simple enough.

Winuser · 2025-04-03T10:47:44-0400

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

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.

Scannerman · 2025-04-03T17:25:58-0400

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

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.

Dru2 · 2025-04-03T18:32:02-0400

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.

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.

Scannerman · 2025-04-04T05:03:55-0400

Dru2 said:
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.

Thank you. Cutting to the chase and keeping it simple has always worked out best for me.

jimbo45 · 2025-04-04T05:13:39-0400

Even cloning via the Old Free Macrium still V8 works. There might be an exception though if you need to load an Intel RST driver but I don't have that
You could have a problem though if your Windows system is totally on physical vhd(x) files as the cloning software has to recognize the Ms VHD/VHDX drives. If you DO use 100% physical vhdx files leave a small amount on the vhdx drive (that will usuallay appear as Drive D) so the paging file can be created on it or you'll be getting annoying messages at boot time - temporary paging file created on drive C.

Cheers
jimbo

Scannerman · 2025-04-04T05:17:21-0400

jimbo45 said:
Even cloning via the Old Free Macrium still V8 works. There might be an exception though if you need to load an Intel RST driver but I don't have that.

Cheers
jimbo

So far I haven't run into a problem with IRST in this respect. This isn't to say that it doesn't happen. Drivers are usually easy to acquire but its good to have them on hand on a separate USB stick because stuff happens.

Winuser · 2025-04-04T08:30:35-0400

Scannerman said:
So far I haven't run into a problem with IRST in this respect. This isn't to say that it doesn't happen. Drivers are usually easy to acquire but its good to have them on hand on a separate USB stick because stuff happens.

If someone finds that they need the IRST driver they can just enter the BIOS and change the drive setting from RAID to AHCI.

Scannerman · 2025-04-04T08:32:23-0400

Winuser said:
If someone finds that they need the IRST driver they can just enter the BIOS and change the drive setting from RAID to AHCI.

Perhaps that's why I never have a problem with IRST in this regard. My BIOS is set to RAID.

Winuser · 2025-04-04T09:02:29-0400

Scannerman said:
Perhaps that's why I never have a problem with IRST in this regard. My BIOS is set to RAID.

My PowerSpec G156 came with Optane memory that needed the IRST driver but I never used it for that purpose. Years later I found out that I could replace the Optane memory with a 1TB NVMe drive. The NVMe drive is my system drive and the SSD is now the D: drive.

Dru2 · 2025-04-04T11:07:34-0400

Scannerman said:
So far I haven't run into a problem with IRST in this respect. This isn't to say that it doesn't happen. Drivers are usually easy to acquire but its good to have them on hand on a separate USB stick because stuff happens.

As a reminder, cause somehow this seems to me missing.... When you clone the OS drive, you're also getting the drivers and apps. ..... so there would be no need to "add IRST drivers"

Also, since the OP is running Windows 11 24H2, I'm 99.9 their BIOS is already set to AHCI (UEFI) mode, so that's also a non-factor here.

Scannerman · 2025-04-04T15:04:04-0400

Dru2 said:
As a reminder, cause somehow this seems to me missing.... When you clone the OS drive, you're also getting the drivers and apps. ..... so there would be no need to "add IRST drivers"

Also, since the OP is running Windows 11 24H2, I'm 99.9 their BIOS is already set to AHCI (UEFI) mode, so that's also a non-factor here.

Uh-oh. I hope that doesn't mean I can't run RAID in 24H2. Never mind, I just remembered I'm already running IRST in 24H2. I have it running on a test bench on two old Constellation klunk drives.

Winuser · 2025-04-04T15:24:25-0400

Scannerman said:
Uh-oh. I hope that doesn't mean I can't run RAID in 24H2. Never mind, I just remembered I'm already running IRST in 24H2. I have it running on a test bench on two old Constellation klunk drives.

I just checked my two main desktops to see if they had the IRST driver installed. The B746 PowerSpec is using the standard MS driver and the G156 PowerSpec is using the Intel 300 series driver. Both computers are running Intel CPU's so I'm curious as to why they are using different drivers.

Dru2 · 2025-04-04T16:22:03-0400

I don't even have them installed on my system and have zero issues. Perhaps because I'm using NVMe drives...

BTW, being I have a Gigabyte Z890 board, I'm using the Gigabyte Control Center (GCC) suite which amongst other gathers all the drivers and apps for install. It doesn't even show (offer) the IRST drivers.

BTW, the suite will auto install with the click of a BIOS setting if you decide that's what you want.

Scannerman said:
Uh-oh. I hope that doesn't mean I can't run RAID in 24H2. Never mind, I just remembered I'm already running IRST in 24H2. I have it running on a test bench on two old Constellation klunk drives.

What do you think

Scannerman · 2025-04-04T17:23:11-0400

Dru2 said:
I don't even have them installed on my system and have zero issues. Perhaps because I'm using NVMe drives...

View attachment 130360

BTW, being I have a Gigabyte Z890 board, I'm using the Gigabyte Control Center (GCC) suite which amongst other gathers all the drivers and apps for install. It doesn't even show (offer) the IRST drivers.

BTW, the suite will auto install with the click of a BIOS setting if you decide that's what you want.

What do you think

I think you're probably using the native onboard RAID if you're using RAID at all. I'm guessing you enabled bifurcation.
Myself, I'd download the IRST for Optane anyway just to have an interface on the OS side.

Dru2 · 2025-04-04T18:23:44-0400

Scannerman said:
I think you're probably using the native onboard RAID if you're using RAID at all. I'm guessing you enabled bifurcation.
Myself, I'd download the IRST for Optane anyway just to have an interface on the OS side.

View attachment 130364

I think (know) you're just shooting in the dark in hopes of hitting something.

No.... I'm not running RAID nor have I ever run RAID on a desktop build. I'm also not, nor have I ever, run Optane memory. Bifurcation is set to auto as that's the BIOS default setting.

With those facts stated, it's why I DON'T need IRST drivers.

I'm also running the new Z890 motherboard, so it doesn't work like your X99 board

Thanks

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