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Question

Swap hard drive letters

Apr 4, 2018 11:50PM PDT

Hi,

I've cloned my SSD to a newer SSD and now I want the newer one (new system main drive) to be renamed C: while the older one would be used as storage. How do I do that?

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Re: swap hard drive letters
Apr 5, 2018 12:58AM PDT

Two ways:
1. Swap the cables, so the new disk is in the SATA slot used now by the old one
2. Tell the BIOS to boot from the SATA-port the new disk is connected to.

The drive Windows boots from will become the c:-drive.

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Still not good
Apr 5, 2018 7:57PM PDT

Actually before reading your answer I had already tried the following:

- unplug the old SSD
- plug the new SSD with the old one's SATA cable
- booted unsuccessfully (blue screen stating that the system must be repaired)

Then I tried booting from the new SSD again, this time plugged on the new SATA port, and I get the same blue error screen.

So I finally reverted to the first setup: old SSD on original SATA port, new SSD on new SATA port. And whit this setup, when I select the new SSD to boot from in the BIOS, Windows starts just fine.

Is there a way to actually know what disk is actually the one I've booted from once in Windows? Necause I suspect the new SSD doesn't work and the BIOS might switch to the old one without warning me. When I look in the disk manager, I see that the old SSD is named C: and the new one is E:

I'm a little confused here...

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Re: system must be repaired
Apr 6, 2018 1:00PM PDT
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Repair impossible
Apr 7, 2018 8:45AM PDT

Yep, I tried that indeed but the repair feature said it couldn't repair the drive.

I know reinstalling Windows would be a solution but I would like to keep it a last resort measure as I have a few expensive licences with limited number of allowed re-installations.

I tried cloning the current system disk on the new one again but this time Macrium Reflect won't let me clone it. It says that the drive is currently in use. I understand it has to be unlocked but have no clue about how to do this.

Why can't I just format the new drive and try cloning the current drive on it again? Windows won't let me.

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A few things.
Apr 7, 2018 9:10AM PDT

Not all file system damage can be repaired with the Microsoft tools. That is a fact and why you get so many telling us about backups. At some point almost everyone hits that situaion.

Cloning is done when the drives are not boot drives. That is, if I want to clone a drive I boot from USB/DVD, etc and not from a drive that I will be cloning from. This is a common mistake I see being made over and over.

If the drive can't be repaired using Microsoft tools, try other tools like https://neosmart.net/wiki/easyre/

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Answer
I've done that 3 or 4 times and
Apr 5, 2018 4:42AM PDT

all i did was removed the old drive and booted with the new drive. It was forever C Drive then I added the old drive back.