Clean Install win10 to different drive?

Question

I got a 15 7000 series with 1tb hdd & 128gb m.2 ssd. It's very slow because the os is on the slow drive. The ssd is empty & named "DATAPART". No boost partition or pagefile there, so the benefit of having it is nil.

I want windows on the ssd.

Have made a dell recovery usb. I can boot with F12 & turn off secure boot, but the recovery tool just reinstalls windows to the same place.

- How do I invoke command line & diskpart while booting the recovery usb (which is what I suspect I need)? Or is there some other way to specify where the install goes?

- What must I do to make the vacant ssd "active" and thus the default target for Windows install?

- Do I need to clean/wipe the existing install on the slow hdd or do anything in particular to that disk to avoid dueling active/boot partitions?

- What bios or other settings and/or additional steps do I need so that windows is installed as uefi/gpt boot not "legacy"?

I'm computer literate but stopped paying attention after win 7, and don't know Dell environments or laptops. UEFI, NVMe, Secure Boot are all unfamiliar. Also, I'm actually walking another less technical person thru this process remotely, so any help is much appreciated.

ejn63 · Accepted Answer

Disconnect the hard drive. Connect the recovery drive to the system, press F12 at boot time, and boot the system from it. Then load Windows onto the SSD.

Beware the size of that SSD - you will need to be vigilant with not installing a lot of software to it. 128G is not a lot of space for long-term use as the Windows boot drive.

Cantare · Answer

Thanks for responding! To be clear, the hdd is internal...both it and the target ssd are already installed. "Recovery drive" is a usb stick.

Is there no way to switch the OS from one boot device to the other without opening the case? And what happens when I reconnect the hdd with its still-active bootable windows partition?

I run win 7 64 ultimate on an 80gb ssd with a zillion apps. It's tight but works. So I'm having a hard time understanding how 128gb is too small for win10 home & minimal apps (elderly user, just needs word & web, "My Documents" etc files will live on big slow hdd).

Is it truly standard practice for Dell to sell these laptops with Windows on a creaky 5400 rpm disk and throw in a completely empty ssd for no particular reason?

ejn63 · Answer

Once you hit the 256G size, you'll find the OS running from the SSD.

The problem with the move-over is that the existing drive is the primary drive to Windows - it needs to be removed from the system in order to install a new copy of Windows. Even if you clone over the existing drive, which will work -- you will need to remove the original drive from the system, or Windows will boot from it.

If you don't want to remove the drive, you CAN remove all the partitions from it before installing Windows to the new drive, but note that this process is irreversible.

Cantare · Answer

OK. Couldn't I do something like: diskpart > select disk 0 (hdd) > inactive > select disk 1 (ssd) > active and then boot via F12, Secure Boot OFF, UEFI boot from USB stick and install Win10 as normal? I realize I could also do:  diskpart > select disk 0 > inactive > CLEAN > select disk 1 > active which I believe would wipe the hdd first, as you describe. If these are valid ways to proceed, how does one invoke CLI/diskpart from the USB recovery boot sequence? Shift+F10? Troubleshooting option? (I can't test these things directly, so I have to ask.)

ejn63 · Answer

That's not how UEFI works. You will need to get rid of the existing Windows install (you CAN wipe the drive from inside the installer, or use diskpart if you wish) before you load Windows onto the SSD.

You MUST remove the existing install before loading a new copy onto the SSD (or before booting that SSD after cloning over the installation that's currently on the hard drive.

Once you successfully boot the new install or clone-over, THEN you can reconnect the original drive to the system.

Once a drive has booted and been marked as the boot drive, it will ALWAYS be used by Windows to boot the system.

Cantare · Answer

Thanks for bearing with all my questions. My knowledge base needs some updating!

Robbert_G3 · Answer

Hi, I want to jump into this topic if that is still possible as I believe my question which is very much related to this topic could also be useful to others. I ordered the G3 17 inch laptop from dell with only 1T HDD installed. I assume that as the system is delivered, windows did not yet install and I am free to choose the disk I want to install windows into? So could I avoid all this re-work by installing the SSD first, booting the system and verify that the SSD is properly loaded, then install Windows 10 straight to the SSD (I guess the installation package will be preconfigured on the 1T HDD. I wish to use both drives as this system (I already checked) is able to use both drives (as upgraded version provide). Or do I need to perform install on HDD first and after all that is done redo the installation on the SSD. This doesn't seem logic to me but some things might be different with win 10 which I am not aware of. I heard a key is created specific to each system to avoid reuse of licenses, I just do not know if it is also drive dependent.... Would the first option work? In this case I wouldn't need a recovery medium, right? Kind regard, Rob

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Clean Install win10 to different drive?

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