Use Win 10 installation media to format old "C" drive?

[andrepartthree]

Hi guys back with yet another dumb question ... I just purchased a new 1 TB drive (crucial MX500) which is intended to be an upgrade to my current 250 GB C/Windows drive (which is also a crucial MX500 model, "2.5 form factor ssd drive" if that makes a difference)

I also have an ancient 2.5 form factor SSD drive patriot brand that currently has games installed on it (Steam and so forth) that I plan on removing. I plan on putting the crucial 1 TB drive in the slot that drive used to be in instead and keeping my old 250 GB crucial drive and making that the new gaming drive.

Here's my plan of attack

Use Macrium Reflect (still on version 7 of Macrium but it's been working so far ) to backup the C / Windows drive in Windows.

Use Macrium Reflect to backup the gaming drive in Windows.

Boot from a Macrium Reflect usb bootable drive and install the C / Windows backup onto the new 1 TB drive

(still rocking an ancient CD/DVD rom reader so I'd plug the 1 TB new drive into that CD/DVD sata / power cable instead, leaving the patriot drive plugged in as well as the old 250 GB crucial drive and the new 1Tb crucial drive... the backup is stored on and coming from a fourth, 1 TB mechanical drive , western digital black, so sadly there's no 5th or 6th sata port free or that would make life a lot easier .. those are unavailable due to the two m2 drives I already have plugged into the motherboard)

Unplug the old 250 GB crucial c drive from the sata, power cables, ensure that the new 1 TB drive boots into Windows without any problems.

Install 1 TB drive into the slot where the old patriot drive used to be so patriot drive is now removed and reconnect the old 250 GB crucial C drive to the sata/power cables

Boot from usb Windows Installation media for Windows 10, use it to format the old 250 GB crucial C drive , then exit out without completing the Win 10 installation (at that point the old crucial 250 GB drive will be the only 250 GB sized drive attached to the motherboard and I know Windows installation displays the size of the drive so formatting the wrong drive wouldn't be a problem).

boot from the Macrium reflect bootable usb drive and restore the Macrium image backup I made of the old patriot gaming drive onto the old 250 GB crucial C drive.

Connect the CD/DVD rom cables back into place, boot Windows up , cross my fingers and hope everything went okay

I know the far easier solution would be to just do a clean install of Windows 10 , format a bunch of hard drives in the process and reinstall the games ... I would have a very disappointed son on my hands however .. he's busy with university and his music stuff so it would force him into reinstalling a bunch of programs and his spare time is pretty much non existent so.. making life hard for myself to make it easier for him (it's his desktop PC)

While I'm hoping this procedure will work, it's the exiting out of Windows 10 installation right after formatting that hard drive that worries me... I find myself wondering if that would mess up the installation of Windows that just got imaged onto the new 1 TB C drive somehow ...in other words the computer might say " Wait a minute you didn't complete the Win 10 installation" and start hiccuping.

So basically I was just wondering if the Win 10 install media is a "safe" way to format that old C drive so I can turn it into the new gaming drive.... if not is there a better bootable usb drive type program I could use instead? (hopefully free , already feeling the squeeze on the wallet due to putting two kids through school )

Thanks so much to anyone who reads this and responds

 

[JD]

I've never used Macrium, but I'm fairly certain Crucial includes Acronis as well. Either way, there should be a cloning feature whereby you just need to connect the new 1TB drive to the computer, boot up normally, load up the software and tell it to clone your existing Windows drive over to the new 1TB drive.

Unsure what you're doing with the gaming drives, I don't quite follow there, but that should be able to be done via Windows with a simple copy/paste (best if you close out of all background applications). You might just need to switch the drive letters around when done.

No harm in taking a backup with Macrium beforehand though. But I don't think it needs to be as complex as you are thinking

 

[andrepartthree]

I've never used Macrium, but I'm fairly certain Crucial includes Acronis as well. Either way, there should be a cloning feature whereby you just need to connect the new 1TB drive to the computer, boot up normally, load up the software and tell it to clone your existing Windows drive over to the new 1TB drive.

Unsure what you're doing with the gaming drives, I don't quite follow there, but that should be able to be done via Windows with a simple copy/paste (best if you close out of all background applications). You might just need to switch the drive letters around when done.

No harm in taking a backup with Macrium beforehand though. But I don't think it needs to be as complex as you are thinking

You guys are the best thank you so much for your (as always) quick reply

And that was an even longer post than normal for me .. I should try to explain a bit further...

So when I clone the 250 GB crucial drive to the 1 TB crucial drive I'll be left with two "C/windows" drives... I could be wrong but I'm guessing it would be bad to plug them both back into the motherboard then boot into Windows even if I set the new 1 TB drive as the boot drive in BIOS (I read online this can still confuse Windows and make problems).

So I'd like to "nuke" the contents of the old 250 GB crucial drive (but of course I'm going to hold off on that until I clone the C/windows installation on the old 250 GB drive onto the 1 TB drive )

Once I've cloned the drive, I am wondering if I could safely use the bootable Win 10 install media to format the old crucial 250 GB drive to "nuke" the Windows installation on it, making it a blank drive, then just exit out of the Win 10 installation right after "nuking" the crucial 250 GB drive (not completing the Win 10 installation basically, don't need to since Win 10 has already been restored to the 1 TB new drive)

Then I'd like to restore the image I previously made of the "other" 250 GB drive, the patriot drive with all the PC games on it, back onto the old 250 GB crucial drive, effectively turning the crucial drive into the "new" gaming drive.

My concern is if Windows won't like it if I use the bootable Windows installation media to "just" format the drive since I'm exiting out of the Win 10 install before it completes .. I'm just using the Win 10 install to "nuke" the old C/Windows drive.

 

[djbrad]

If you want to format another driver outside of windows, you could simply boot the gparted livecd.

Disconnect all other harddrives, boot the livecd, select the partitions that need to be wiped (or the whole drive), apply, and reboot.

 

[JD]

So when I clone the 250 GB crucial drive to the 1 TB crucial drive I'll be left with two "C/windows" drives... I could be wrong but I'm guessing it would be bad to plug them both back into the motherboard then boot into Windows even if I set the new 1 TB drive as the boot drive in BIOS (I read online this can still confuse Windows and make problems).

I've never had an issue having multiple drives plugged in with separate Windows installs. Just order it correctly in the BIOS, or use the boot menu to pick.

Things can get messed up if you do a new Windows install while having an existing drive with Windows still connected.

Once I've cloned the drive, I am wondering if I could safely use the bootable Win 10 install media to format the old crucial 250 GB drive to "nuke" the Windows installation on it, making it a blank drive, then just exit out of the Win 10 installation right after "nuking" the crucial 250 GB drive (not completing the Win 10 installation basically, don't need to since Win 10 has already been restored to the 1 TB new drive)

Yes you can do this, but still, once you boot from the new 1TB drive, you should be able to format the old 250GB drive from Windows.

 

[gingerbee]

I have done what you are talking about so many times I have lost count, I have never had a problem booting using the new drive (your 1 TB drive) well the old 25gb C drive) is plugged in, you just have to make sure that you boot windows from the new cloned drive not the old one, then you can just go into disk management and format the old drive if there is a small partition ( recovery section ) which here should be it will be protected and you will need to use disk part to get rid of the protected partition on the old drive, because disk management won't let you get rid of it.

Also learning to use "disk part" in CMD is an easy and very good tool to have in your skill set. all you need Macrium ( I use Aomie partition ) for is the disk cloning part of the job the rest can all be done in Windows.

I have run 3 or more boot drives with many different versions of Windows on the same PC many times and I have never had a single problem.

no such thing as a stupid question, only silly people who will make mistakes instead of just asking those questions, you sir are clearly not one of them, good luck and have fun, You are getting a 1 TB boot drive

 

[andrepartthree]

as always you guys are awesome thank you both so much ... I had a feeling using the Win 10 install media even just to "nuke" a no longer needed Windows drive would create problems so JD thanks for the heads up ... someone on reddit suggested it when I do a google search (I try to solve stuff on my own before bothering you guys, you're already so kind and helpful I don't want to impose any further than I have to ) and I found myself thinking.. " Well yes in theory it could work.. but what if?.. what if?... "

This is one of those head slapping moments for me though... I just realized I have an external usb 3.0 dock I can put hard drives into .. so if I want to go on being paranoid I could always just slap the old 250 GB C drive in there, plug it into a different computer that already has Windows up and running and then use gingerbee's advice on it and after making sure it's totally empty then reinstall it back into my son's desktop.. but it's good to know that even if I didn't do that just booting from the correct, newer 1 TB hard drive will do the trick even if the "old C drive" is still plugged in there so thanks for that everyone ...

Gingerbee thanks for pointing out that issue with the recovery partition that didn't even occur to me once in all the years that I've been repurposing old Windows drives for other uses I need to start doing that ! I found this video which I think is the same thing you are talking about

Also one of those "doh" moments.. I was sitting there at the screen Macrium Reflect 7's bootable usb thumb drive presents you with when you boot into it (haven't actually gotten around to cloning the drive yet this was "prep work", have to wait until my son is gone all day Sunday before I can start tinkering inside of his PC) , saw the image of Windows I created and at first it looked like there was no option to restore that image to a different drive other than the one it was imaged from and I'm thinking " Oh man that's probably because it's the free edition of Macrium"... then I finally saw in tiny letters the option I wasn't seeing earlier something to the effect of " restore this image to a different drive"... I have a 1 TB Samsung 970 Evo Plus drive empty just sitting there installed in the PC and Macrium seemed prepared to let me put that Windows image onto the Samsung drive so I'm hoping the whole thing will work when I get the crucial 1 TB drive plugged into the desktop.

(Why not just put the Windows image on the Samsung 970 Evo Plus to begin with? The temps on it are making me a bit nervous, 47 degrees even when it's not in use and there's nothing installed on it .. I've read and understand that apparently you really don't need to worry unless it's routinely at 70 degrees C and that it runs hot normally and apparently "likes" to be hot and long as the controller part of it isn't heating up too much it's fine ... I tried to "stress test" it by installing the year 2017 release Resident Evil 2 remake on it and running it, got up to.. trying to remember, 59 degrees at the most I think? ...when the install files were downloading onto it and stayed around mid 50's when actually playing the game ... still being the paranoid sort trying to avoid using it until I'm ready for the win 11 upgrade at which point that becomes the new C drive for a clean Win 11 install .. when Win 11 is installed then the "old" at that point crucial 1 TB drive becomes the son's gaming drive and the 250 GB crucial drive just stays in there as a bonus drive to store files or whatever )

Thanks again everyone you guys are the best

 

[gingerbee]

yup that's it Disk Part is a super useful tool to learn how to use and its really easy and as you can see there are loads of walk-throughs of how to use it, that's how I learned.

with the docking station, you can just plug in the old drive into that and use the disk part to format it all, if macrium will only let you create an image you can download the free version of the Aomie partition assistant and just use the normal disk clone ( the copy system is greyed out since it's in the paid for version ) but I have used the basic disk clone loads of times for system disk and not had any problems with systems booting up just fine, I did it just the other day for the PC I am typing this on.

good luck

oh NVME drives use to scare me with there temps too but NAND flash on them likes to run warm to hot so I wouldn't worry about it, I dont anymore, most drive are designed to run up to 70-80c you'll see when the NAND gets to warm it will throttle the drive speed to help cool the NAND down

 

[andrepartthree]

You are awesome (as always) Gingerbee thank you so much .. (scratches head).. not that I'm trying to sound ungrateful or anything .. but I did look up a youtube video to walk me through how the free version works and started looking at the comments.. wow a lot of unhappy people! (they were all yelling about how AOEMI doesn't really let you do the disk clone, they got rid of that feature recently and so forth - but you said you did it recently so I'm guessing the people leaving the comments must be doing something wrong?)

My bad I should have mentioned this too .. I do have my ancient Acronis 2017 (yep very old ) lifetime license on the desktop PC that is.. well it's hit and miss sometimes it works great restoring or cloning a drive other times it's the old blue screen of death and you have to reinstall various files and then restored or cloned windows is up and running again ... it's been a long time trying to remember said files , boot.ini maybe? Something like that I have it typed up somewhere ... but I did create a usb bootable drive using that so it's an absolute last resort if Macrium and AOEMI both fail me.

And thank you for sharing your experience with me about the NVME drives that is very reassuring

 

[JD]

You should just be able to grab this too: https://www.acronis.com/en-sg/promotion/crucialhd-download/ if the programs you have are old/outdated. Only the clone function will be available for free though, assuming a Crucial drive is plugged in.