Question How to migrate boot volume to different drive?

[Steelbom]

Hi,

I had a Samsung 980 Pro with Windows 11 installed.
I decided to do a clean install and installed WIndows 11 onto my new 990 Pro.

However, it's put the bloody boot volume onto the 980 which I want to wipe now.

What's the best and safest way to fix this?

Cheers,
SB

 

[TheELF]

Download the free version of easybcd
go to the BCD deployment tab
select the partition that the new 990 has and write MBR and install BCD
then go to file and select BCD store and load up the bcd from the partition you just installed BCD on
go to add new entry and add the new windows to it, at drive select the drive letter the new 990 disk has at that moment not the drive letter you want it to end up as, so don't select C select the drive letter it currently has.
Shut down your system.
Disconnect only the power cable from the old 980 and see if it boots into windows from the new drive.

If that works you can nuke the old drive.

 

[deustroop]

Hi,

I had a Samsung 980 Pro with Windows 11 installed.
I decided to do a clean install and installed WIndows 11 onto my new 990 Pro.

However, it's put the bloody boot volume onto the 980 which I want to wipe now.

What's the best and safest way to fix this?

Cheers,
SB

The easy thing is to install the new OS on the 990 having disconnected the 980 Pro.Then hook up the 980 as a data disk if you like. We say "Windows is like that" when it picks which drive to install . Best to have only the intended target installed on the system.

 

[Steelbom]

Download the free version of easybcd
go to the BCD deployment tab
select the partition that the new 990 has and write MBR and install BCD
then go to file and select BCD store and load up the bcd from the partition you just installed BCD on
go to add new entry and add the new windows to it, at drive select the drive letter the new 990 disk has at that moment not the drive letter you want it to end up as, so don't select C select the drive letter it currently has.
Shut down your system.
Disconnect only the power cable from the old 980 and see if it boots into windows from the new drive.

If that works you can nuke the old drive.

Thanks, I've downloaded it and will give it a try!

The easy thing is to install the new OS on the 990 having disconnected the 980 Pro.Then hook up the 980 as a data disk if you like. We say "Windows is like that" when it picks which drive to install . Best to have only the intended target installed on the system.

Yeah, I intended to do this but I was tired and the nvme boot drive was in a slot underneath the (Noctua NH-D15) CPU cooler. Really didn't want to take that off and repaste, but I'm paying the price for it now.

 

[deustroop]

Thanks, I've downloaded it and will give it a try!

Yeah, I intended to do this but I was tired and the nvme boot drive was in a slot underneath the (Noctua NH-D15) CPU cooler. Really didn't want to take that off and repaste, but I'm paying the price for it now.

If you are saying you cannot proceed as I suggested because the 980 is under the cooler and cannot be easily approached to manually disconnect priorto a reisstall of 11 on 990, be aware that the 980 can be disconnected in the bios. no, need to deal physically with it.

 

[Steelbom]

If you are saying you cannot proceed as I suggested because the 980 is under the cooler and cannot be easily approached to manually disconnect priorto a reisstall of 11 on 990, be aware that the 980 can be disconnected in the bios. no, need to deal physically with it.

Oh wish I knew that earlier! Good to know for the future.

Cheers!

 

[bba-tcg]

Even without disconnecting/disabling the 980, it's a fairly trivial fix using bcdboot: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/w...mmand-line-options-techref-di?view=windows-11. If you need help after reading the info in the link, I would be happy to post (fairly) detailed instructions.

 

[Steelbom]

Even without disconnecting/disabling the 980, it's a fairly trivial fix using bcdboot: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/w...mmand-line-options-techref-di?view=windows-11. If you need help after reading the info in the link, I would be happy to post (fairly) detailed instructions.

Oh, that would be awesome.

I ran disk part -> list vol to check the volumes on my computer (image attached).
Volume F, is the original drive. Volume C is the new one.

I see there is a system partition and two unlabeled hidden partitions. Does one of these contain the boot information that I'm looking for?

Is it possible to copy over only the boot information for C but not F?

Cheers,
SB

 

[bba-tcg]

Please read this entire missive before beginning.  Also, I must state that I assume no liability for anything bad that could (unlikely) happen.

I recommend beginning by booting from USB installation media.  Once you get to the first screen, use shift-F10 to get to a command prompt and run diskpart.

diskpart> list disk
 Disk ###  Status         Size     Free     Dyn  Gpt
  --------  -------------  -------  -------  ---  ---
  Disk 0    Online         1907 GB      0 B        *
  Disk 1    Online         1024 GB      0 B        *


Pick the 990 by:
diskpart> select disk y     

Disk y is now the selected disk   ; where y is the # of the 990

diskpart> list partition

 Partition ###  Type              Size     Offset
  -------------  ----------------  -------  -------
  Partition 1    Reserved           128 MB    17 KB
  Partition 2    Primary            100 MB   129 MB
  Partition 3    Primary           1906 GB   229 MB
  Partition 4    System             100 MB  1906 GB
  Partition 5    Recovery           832 MB  1906 GB    

If you see a partition with the type SYSTEM, select it. If you don't see a SYSTEM partition, skip to the bottom of this tutorial for how to make one.  Afterwards, resume from list partition above.

diskpart> select partition 4

Partition 4 is now the selected partition.

Now assign an unused drive letter.  I'll use z: for this purpose:
diskpart> assign letter=z

DiskPart successfully assigned the drive letter or mount point.
diskpart> exit

Now back at a regular drive letter prompt, type the following:

bcdboot c:\windows /s z: /f UEFI

bcdboot should tell you that it transferred the files successfully.  Afterwards, you can go back into diskpart, list volume, select the volume with the drive letter z: and type
diskpart> remove letter=z

DiskPart successfully removed the drive letter or mount point.

diskpart> exit

Afterwards, if you want to clear the 980, pick it:
diskpart> select disk x                                              ; where x is the 980
diskpart> clean                                                         ; this command will remove everything on the SSD, so make sure you're doing the right one. You should get a message telling you diskpart was successful.

You may need to set the correct boot in the UEFI BIOS, especially if you didn't clean the 980.


***If you don't see a partition with the type SYSTEM, we'll need to allot the space for it.  This example is using the partitions listed above:

diskpart> select partition 3

Partition 3 is now the selected partition.

diskpart> shrink desired=200

diskpart successfully shrunk the partition by: 200 MB

diskpart> create partition efi

diskpart succeeded in creating the specified partition

diskpart> format fs=fat32 quick

diskpart should tell you it formatted the partition successfully.  Resume from above.

Edit: corrected a logic error. It probably would've worked anyway, but I hate ambiguity.

 

[bba-tcg]

After doing the above reagentc will probably need to be reset. If you need help doing that, let me know and I can give a short tutorial on how to do that.