Naming a new C:

[boing]

My dad's machine has a single HDD partitioned into C: and E: but I wanted to move the C: onto an SSD for him, the cloning bits simple enough but what do I do about naming it? I need to tell bios to boot from the new drive but if I try to name it as C: it'll conflict with existing and I assume I can't rename the existing drive as it's an active system drive.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

The computer will handle the drive letters. "C:" isn't a name you control, really, it's a mount point. After you get booting from the SSD, you'll want to remove the boot partition on the old hard drive and double-check your drive/partition mount points in Disk Management.

Just find a good tutorial on what you're trying to do, and follow it carefully.

 

[boing]

The computer will handle the drive letters. "C:" isn't a name you control, really, it's a mount point. After you get booting from the SSD, you'll want to remove the boot partition on the old hard drive and double-check your drive/partition mount points in Disk Management.

Just find a good tutorial on what you're trying to do, and follow it carefully.

OK so when I set it to boot from the SSD it'll become the C: by default then?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

OK so when I set it to boot from the SSD it'll become the C: by default then?

It should.

Worst-case scenario is that it boots, and tries to mount both partitions as C:. I've had this happen, and the computer booted, but everything was pretty weird.

In that case, try booting with just the SSD attached. If that works, then the clone is good (you've got a boot sector / bootloader), and you can boot from a GParted CD and remove the old C: partition from the HDD.

 

[boing]

Great, thanks for the advice.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Yeah, at least back in the days of Windows 2000 and Norton Ghost 2003, you DID NOT want to boot the system, with BOTH the old source drive, and the new clone drive, in the same system, at the same time. Windows' does funny things.

Clone the source drive onto the fresh drive (SSD) using bootable clone software media, and then power-off, and then physically swap them, and unplug the source drive, and boot the clone.

 

[boing]

Yeah that seems the most sensible option, cheers.