Two windows installed, need to delete one.
Two windows installed, need to delete one.
Hi everyone, I’m facing a tricky setup issue. I have two SSDs—one brand new and one from my previous system. I wanted to completely erase the old drive to start fresh, but some partitions were stuck because of old file system settings. I used Partition Wizard to clear them, but after that, my system refused to boot since it couldn’t recognize the Windows installer anymore. I’m pretty sure I deleted the right partition, though I’m not sure what caused the problem.
I then reinstalled Windows on the old SSD during the installation, and it worked perfectly—no data loss. Now I have two SSDs with Windows installed. The new one won’t boot, while the old one still has files from when it was running Windows.
I’m trying to figure out if I can transfer my important files from the old SSD to the working one, format the new SSD, reinstall Windows there, and then move the files back over. That way I could keep everything intact.
Will this process cause any issues? My BIOS should handle it if I set the boot order correctly. Also, I’m thinking about getting a small SSD first to safely copy the data before doing this. Is that a safe idea? Thanks for your help!
@RestUnknown Don't freak out, everything is easy. No matter how many Windows installs you have, there will only be one boot manager for Windows which takes in account of the Windows installations you have. To transfer the data, while the OS is running, you can use Hiren's BootCD https://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/ . Well you can do that using the standard Windows installer as well, but you would have to copy through the command line. Using Hiren's BootCD (it is not a CD, it can be burnt to a USB flash drive), the OS will boot directly off of the USB drive, just like the Windows installer (because this is built on Windows PE, which is also what the standard Windows installer is built on). So, in proper GUI, you can copy the files. If you have any mess ups in partitions and all that kind of stuff and want to fully erase the drive, you can use the ' diskpart ' utility in cmd, and in that, you can use the ' clean ' command. If you would like to set every bit to zero on the drive, you can use ' clean all '. Beware though, this will take a while to execute and will wear you drive a bit. After that you can install Windows on your new SSD.
1) transfer files from drive A to drive B 2) clean drive A completely 3) reinstall Windows on drive A (keep it connected during the process) 4) shift files from drive B to drive A after installation 5) format drive B for emptiness. It’s a solid plan overall.
I tried using DiskPart but got an issue deleting the partition since it contained boot files. Searching on Google led me to the Partition Wizard. Thanks for checking out some options—I’ll consider getting a USB stick tomorrow as the total storage isn’t huge, and I already have two backups.
The final command is intended to erase all configurations on the storage device. You don’t have to purchase a replacement USB drive. @Fasauceome suggests using an existing SSD if you have sufficient space. Simply transfer data from your new SSD, prepare the old one, and reinstall Windows there. You should be able to run dual boot between the two drives. To uninstall Windows from the old SSD, open msconfig, delete the old Windows entry, then remove all associated files. NOTE - Be careful not to delete the partition while inside Windows; that’s not possible. Instead, use diskpart via the installer or Hiren’s BootCD, which are bootable systems running from USB drives.