Question Adding an SSD as the boot drive to an existing system

[BoomerD]

Not really sure where to put this.
As a result of building a new rig for myself and dismantling an older one, I now have a spare 256GB Toshiba SSD that I'd like to add to my wife's Dell as her boot drive. The system currently has a platter drive that has gotten slow as hell.
I DO NOT want to lose a single file, picture, document...ANYTHING in this PC...or I'll hear about it for years to come. (that's experience talking.)
If I put the SSD in the system, change the BIOS boot order, and install Windows 10 on it without removing the OS from the spinner...won't the two versions (both W-10) "fight" each other?
The ONLY thing I'd want to remove from the existing drive would be the OS.
I can't just clone that drive...1 TB won't fit into 256 GB.

Edit: changed drive to 256 from 240.

 

[tcsenter]

Not according to the Windows installer.
"We couldn't create a new partition or locate an existing one."

In the "where to install Windows" stage, does the disk report any partitions such as Disk 0 Partition 1, or is the entire disk reporting "unallocated space" for Disk 0? Try selecting the disk and see if the Delete function/text becomes selectable (from greyed out or unselectable state). If so, delete partitions and when that completes, reboot the PC and start Setup again.

This presumes NO other writeable disks attached except SSD and USB (and/or optical disk drive for CD/DVD), so that you don't risk mistakenly mucking with any other drives.

 

[BoomerD]

In the "where to install Windows" stage, does the disk report any partitions such as Disk 0 Partition 1, or is the entire disk reporting "unallocated space" for Disk 0? Try selecting the disk and see if the Delete function/text becomes selectable (from greyed out or unselectable state). If so, delete partitions and when that completes, reboot the PC and start Setup again.

This presumes NO other writeable disks attached except SSD and USB (and/or optical disk drive for CD/DVD), so that you don't risk mistakenly mucking with any other drives.

No other drive connected to the system. I don't have the PC torn apart at the moment...and I don't remember exactly what it showed for partitions etc. The drive was (I thought) properly formatted, had ONE partition, set as active, and in GPT format. I don't remember any "Delete" option, but it did give me the option of formatting the disk...that accomplished nothing as well.
I'm going to put this on the back burner for now. Having the network (ethernet) issue on top of this makes me wonder if trying to rehab an 8+ year old Dell is worth the effort or not.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Have you updated the Dell BIOS to the latest version? A Sandy Bridge era office Dell PC had about 10 updates pending when I was trying to figure out why it wouldn't boot and every time RAM sticks had to be removed and inserted back in for it to boot. Every single day. The final BIOS update fixed the issue and it was released in 2018 I think.

 

[tcsenter]

YOU CAN DOO EEEIT!

 

[igor_kavinski]

We are all rooting for the old Dell PC. Don't want it recycled when it still has life left in it

 

[Golgatha]

1st issue is you need to backup anything that's critical to cold storage. Once you've done the backup, if you're going to a smaller size drive, I always like to shrink the larger sized volume down to smaller than the drive I'm going to clone to. Doing so generally eliminates any resizing issues when you clone the drive. Did it this way for a 300GB spinner in an older system when I cloned it over to a 256GB SSD not to long ago.

 

[BoomerD]

Have you updated the Dell BIOS to the latest version? A Sandy Bridge era office Dell PC had about 10 updates pending when I was trying to figure out why it wouldn't boot and every time RAM sticks had to be removed and inserted back in for it to boot. Every single day. The final BIOS update fixed the issue and it was released in 2018 I think.

Yep. One of the first things I did was update the BIOS when I went looking for updates. Even though it came with a Dell Update program that at least checks and advises of available updates, the only updates it ever gets is if I'm working on it for something else...She NEVER does updates on ANYTHING...phone, iPad, or PC.

 

[igor_kavinski]

She NEVER does updates on ANYTHING

Simple, blissful creature, your wife

 

[BoomerD]

Simple, blissful creature, your wife

"It's just supposed to work!"

 

[tcsenter]

Yep. One of the first things I did was update the BIOS when I went looking for updates. Even though it came with a Dell Update program that at least checks and advises of available updates, the only updates it ever gets is if I'm working on it for something else...She NEVER does updates on ANYTHING...phone, iPad, or PC.

Did the update app work? I lost count of the times I've worked on a PC where the 'update app' was not giving the updates available from the manufacturer! I always go to the downloads on the support site myself.

 

[BoomerD]

Did the update app work? I lost count of the times I've worked on a PC where the app was not giving the updates available from the manufacturer! I always go to the downloads on the support site myself.

I don't know if it actually worked or not...I prefer to manually find and download updates as well...just ran the update. "Your PC is up to date."

 

[tcsenter]

Yah mahn, don't know what they problem might be. I did a test install of W10 x64 (22H2) using the Microsoft Download Tool straight to USB drive creation, no ISO files. On similar generation hardware, Intel H97 chipset with i5-4690K, 16GB RAM and a completely blank SATA SSD with no partitions (I cleaned the drive of all partitions with diskpart).

It booted from the USB drive without me even needing to set any boot orders in BIOS (since there was no other device in the system with a boot record), got to the point where I selected 'Custom Install' and then 'Where to install Windows' dialogue. The SSD was listed as Disk 0 Unallocated (all free space). Without creating any partitions myself, I just click/selected the disk, selected 'Next' and Setup did all the rest. About five minutes later I was at the 'Let's setup your device' stage and after going through all that, was at the desktop.

 

[igor_kavinski]

I had trouble with an HP 6th gen desktop which wouldn't boot from bootable USB. Turned out it wanted 64-bit boot files on the EFI partition on the USB drive and for some reason, the one I had contained 32-bit files (no idea how that happened).

 

[mv2devnull]

I had trouble with an HP 6th gen desktop which wouldn't boot from bootable USB. Turned out it wanted 64-bit boot files on the EFI partition on the USB drive and for some reason, the one I had contained 32-bit files (no idea how that happened).

I had some years ago ... probably Windows 7 and Gigabyte motherboard ... USB made by MS.
I had created GPT partitions as I had installed Linux in EFI mode. No problems there.
The Windows installer did abort because it did boot in legacy mode and therefore could not use the disk; would have wiped to create MBR.
It did turn out that the case of names in the EFI subdirs on the USB drive was not what the board's EFI did accept -- a feat on case-insensitive FAT32.

The 32-bit boot files are more or less deprecated now, aren't they?


Microsoft has terms "boot" and "system" drive. IIRC, the system drive has the bootloader while the boot drive has the operating system. On normal (legacy?) system setup both are on same spot, the "C: drive".

 

[tcsenter]

Microsoft has terms "boot" and "system" drive. IIRC, the system drive has the bootloader while the boot drive has the operating system. On normal (legacy?) system setup both are on same spot, the "C: drive".

Not disk, it would only need this nomenclature or distinction for the partitions. Boot partition vs. system partition.

 

[mv2devnull]

Not disk, it would only need this nomenclature or distinction for the partitions. Boot partition vs. system partition.

You are right. Partition (or volume). They could be on separate physical disks too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_partition_and_boot_partition

 

[tcsenter]

Interestingly I was testing two SATA SSD I purchased a couple weeks ago but just getting around to testing and setting up. Right out of the sealed box, Disk Management reports partition type as MBR but unallocated (unformatted). I previously assumed drives came with no partitioning at all but evidently that is wrong. Maybe some do and some don't but this one did.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Right out of the sealed box, Disk Management reports partition type as MBR but unallocated (unformatted).

Did it ask to "Initialize Disk"?

 

[tcsenter]

Did it ask to "Initialize Disk"?

Nope. Using Windows 7, not sure what it would do in 10/11 Disk Management.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Interestingly I was testing two SATA SSD I purchased a couple weeks ago but just getting around to testing and setting up. Right out of the sealed box, Disk Management reports partition type as MBR but unallocated (unformatted). I previously assumed drives came with no partitioning at all but evidently that is wrong. Maybe some do and some don't but this one did.

Chinese mfg? Hey, free bootkit!

 

[tcsenter]

Chinese mfg? Hey, free bootkit!

No it's HP branded, made by BIWIN Tech which is actually a big supplier to OEMs.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Nope. Using Windows 7, not sure what it would do in 10/11 Disk Management.

Sorry to tell you the bad news, but that SSD is probably a repackaged returned item. Never had a new drive which would work without needing to be initialized first.

Check the writes on it with Crystal Disk Info. If the writes are more than the amount of data you have written to it so far, maybe consider returning it?

 

[tcsenter]

Sorry to tell you the bad news, but that SSD is probably a repackaged returned item. Never had a new drive which would work without needing to be initialized first.

If drive already has a basic partition type defined, it will not prompt to initialize it will just be there with no drive letter and no file system.

Crystal Disk Info checks out, 2 power on counts and 0 hours, 0 host writes/reads.

 

[BoomerD]

Time to refresh this thread...A couple of days ago, she got so frustrated at how slow her PC has become, she finally said, "FINE! MAKE IT WORK RIGHT!"

I ordered a WD Green 1TB SSD for her machine. That arrived today. (before I get a ton of flack, I've had good results with the WD Green SSDs in the past)
Tomorrow, the drive adapter should arrive from Amazon. (Her Dell was never built for SSDs, only HDD cages.)

So...tomorrow...the "fun" begins.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Tomorrow, the drive adapter should arrive from Amazon. (Her Dell was never built for SSDs, only HDD cages.)

Never bother with an adapter. I just let the tiny toy plastic SSD dangle from the SATA data/power cables