I don’t know how it happened, but you can’t delete those folders from an SSD you formatted.
I don’t know how it happened, but you can’t delete those folders from an SSD you formatted.
there is obviously a dependency somewhere that is recreating those folders. perhaps change the new SSD drive letter to the old SSD's drive letter and give the old SSD a new drive letter. if SSD1 was G: and SSD2 is H: make SSD2 G: and SSD1 Q: (some random letter)
While attempting something, the file explorer shut down unexpectedly. Now I can't open it or search within it. The operating system is on a separate drive from the ones I'm working with. There was a reserved partition on one SSD that wasn't active, so I deleted it. Then I cloned the drive and moved the downloads there. Everything worked fine initially, but now everything is broken when transferring to the new SSD. Any advice?
I thought the operating system was separate. Restart the system if the file manager doesn't launch. Next, use the disk management utility to rename drive letters. Clear all partitions on both storage devices, then set up fresh volumes on each drive with desired lettering. The disk tool interface appears similar to this:
I changed the drive letters and restarted. Most of my problems are gone—I can now see all my programs properly and they aren’t grayed out. That trick really helped, though. The old SSD still shows the programs and Downloads folders, so they keep appearing. Anything else you need?
What device are you talking about? You switched your new drive to E: and your old one is labeled G, H, J, K, L? That’s unusual—shouldn’t be F. The partitions are using MBR instead of GPT now. Since you’ve done cloning before, there’s no point in duplicating drives unless it’s a live OS. If it’s just data stored in a file system without a registry, just transfer the files from the 500GB drive to the new 1TB one—don’t clone the smaller one.
Where exactly did you come across all this information? That’s a different story from my previous post... This program really stands out compared to Windows disk management, don’t you think? You should give it a try—it’s free and offers powerful drive tools that few other free programs provide. Yes, the newer version is E, which was once known as SATA SSDs. It’s one way down the list, but it feels better. For me, sticking with the older Windows setup gives more stability during boot, and my drives are all under 1TB. Of course, my HDDs still use GPT because some have over 2TB. You’re right about that. But doing everything manually would be a hassle when I wouldn’t see any benefit. Plus, I wanted to find out what the second reserved file was during the installation of my new main drive—so I’m glad I could solve that mystery at once.
They appear only when you restart or reboot, not automatically showing while running Windows.
Using a different drive letter can prevent them from returning, which may disrupt any existing links. Have you attempted... adjusting folder properties, hiding files, and disabling the "show hidden folders" feature in File Explorer?