• How To Switch Boot Drive To Ssd
• Windows 10 Change Boot Drive To Ssd

Changing the boot order of the 'bootable' devices on your computer, like your hard drive or bootable media in a USB port (e.g., flash drive), floppy drive, or optical drive, is very easy.

Both drives work fine, and have all the required Boot Mgr software, but the OS won't let me relable the WD to be drive C:, and won't let any other drive but the Hitachi boot. The Hitachi is going to fail unexpectedly, and I'm just trying to replace it with a bootable drive.

1. Aug 6, 2018 - If you're looking to upgrade your computer to a sold-state drive but don't. Installing the SSD, you'll need to tell your computer to boot from it.
2. Installing Windows 10 on an M.2 SSD isn't difficult, but there are a few things to you'll need to confirm or configure in order for your PC to recognize the desired drive. This guide will show you how to setup the M.2 SSD as a boot drive, as well as start the installation process for Windows 10.

There are several scenarios where it's necessary to change the boot order, like when launching bootable data destructions tools and bootable antivirus programs, as well as when installing an operating system.

The BIOS setup utility is where you change boot order settings.

The boot order is a BIOS setting, so it's operating system independent. In other words, it doesn't matter if you have Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Linux, or any other PC operating system on your hard drive or other bootable device — these boot sequence change instructions will still apply.

1. Turn on or restart your computer and watch for a message during the POST about a particular key, usually Del or F2, that you'll need to press to ...enter SETUP. Press this key as soon as you see the message.

   Don't see the SETUP message or can't press the key fast enough? See our How to Access the BIOS Setup Utility guide for lots of tips and tricks for getting into BIOS.

2. After pressing the correct keyboard command from the previous step, you will enter the BIOS Setup Utility.

   All BIOS utilities are a little different, so yours may look like this or it may look completely different. No matter how your BIOS setup utility appears, they are all basically a set of menus containing many different settings for your computer's hardware.

   In this particular BIOS, the menu options are listed horizontally at the top of the screen, the hardware options are listed in the middle of the screen (grey area), and the instructions for how to move around the BIOS and make changes are listed at the bottom of the screen.

   Using the instructions given for navigating around your BIOS utility, locate the option for changing the boot order.

   Since every BIOS setup utility is different, the specifics on where the boot order options are located varies from computer to computer. The menu option or configuration item might be called Boot Options, Boot, Boot Order, etc. The boot order option may even be located within a general menu option like Advanced Options, Advanced BIOS Features, or Other Options.

   In the example BIOS above, the boot order changes are made under the Boot menu.

3. Locate and navigate to the boot order options in BIOS.

   The boot order options in most BIOS setup utilities will look something like the screenshot above.

   Any hardware connected to your motherboard that is able to be booted from — like your hard drive, floppy drive, USB ports, and optical drive — will be listed here.

   The order in which the devices are listed is the order in which your computer will look for operating system information — in other words, the 'boot order.'

   With the boot order shown above, BIOS will first try to boot from any devices it considers 'hard drives,' which usually means the integrated hard drive that's in the computer.

   If no hard drives are bootable, BIOS will next look for bootable media in the CD-ROM drive, next for bootable media that's attached (like a flash drive), and finally it will look on the network.

   To change which device to boot from first, follow the directions on the BIOS setup utility screen to change the boot order. In this example BIOS, the boot order can be changed using the + and - keys.

   Remember, your BIOS may have different instructions!

4. Make changes to the boot order.

   As you can see above, we've changed the boot order from Hard Drive shown in the previous step to the CD-ROM Drive as an example.

   BIOS will now look for a bootable disc in the optical disc drive first, before trying to boot from the hard drive, and also before trying to boot from any removable media like a floppy drive or flash drive, or a network resource.

   Make whatever boot order changes you need and then proceed to the next step to save your settings.

5. Before your boot order changes take effect, you will need to save the BIOS changes you made. To save your changes, follow the instructions given to you in your BIOS utility to navigate to the Exit or Save and Exit menu.

   In this example, we'd choose Exit Saving Changes to save the changes made to the boot order.

6. Confirm the boot order changes and exit BIOS. You'll most likely see a confirmation prompt like below, so you'd select Yes to save your BIOS configuration changes and exit.

   This Setup Confirmation message can sometimes be cryptic. The example above is pretty clear but I've seen many BIOS change confirmation questions that are so 'wordy' that they're often difficult to understand. Read the message carefully to be sure that you're actually saving your changes and not exiting without saving changes.

   Your boot order changes, and any other changes you may have made while in BIOS, are now saved and your computer will restart automatically.

7. Start the computer with the new boot order.

   In Step 4, we set the first boot device to the CD-ROM Drive as an example. As you can see in the screenshot above, the computer is attempting to boot from the CD but is asking for a confirmation first. This only happens on some bootable CDs and will not show up when booting to Windows or other operating systems on a hard drive. Configuring the boot order to boot from a disc like a CD, DVD, or BD is the most common reason for making boot order changes, so I wanted to include this screenshot as an example.

8. When your computer restarts, BIOS will attempt to boot from the first device in the boot order you specified. If the first device is not bootable, your computer will try to boot from the second device in the boot order, and so on.

If your PC is still languishing in the spinning platter age, using a hard drive as its main storage device, then one of the most important upgrades you can make is to replace it with a solid state drive. Don’t worry, it’s easy… this is how to install a new SSD.

After this you’ll know how to do it, but which one to choose? Check out our guide to the best SSDs around right now.

Installing a new SSD in your PC as your main system drive can be a pretty daunting task. As cathartic as it can be starting with a fresh, empty desktop and a clean Windows installation, it’s also a massive pain in the arse. Downloading all the updates, setting up your profiles, and re-downloading your ‘now playing’ Steam library all takes a huge amount of time and tedium, when you could just be gaming.

To save all that effort and ennui you can simply clone your existing machine’s boot drive onto your new SSD. It’s easy to do and means you can be up and running in a couple of hours with all your files, programs, and settings exactly as you left them.

You could always install a new SSD simply as data storage and use it as a new, speedy Steam drive. That will net you some performance gains as games might load a little quicker, but you’re still going to be bottlenecked by your ancient hard drive.

To get the full benefit of an SSD, to feel the increased responsiveness and usability of your PC, you need to use it as the main boot drive, as the place where your Windows installation lives. And this is how to do it.

• Step 1 – Size matters
  Make sure your current installation will fit your new SSD’s capacity.
• Step 2 – Install your new drive
  Locate the right cables, mount your SSD, and connect it up.
• Step 3 – Cloning
  Use Macrium Reflect to make an exact copy of your boot drive.
• Step 4 – Same, same, but different
  Boot your rig, check the new installation, and enjoy!

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Step 1 – Size matters

The biggest issue with SSDs is their price per GB. If you’re switching from a hard drive to a new SSD, the chances are that you’re going from something with a lot of space to a drive with often much less. The first thing to do is compare how much capacity you’re using in your current installation and see how that fits with your new SSD.

In this example we’re going from a 1TB HDD to a 750GB SSD. Right away that looks like we’re in trouble, but of that total hard drive capacity we’re only using around 340GB. We know that, with a little partition magic, we’ll be able to clone the entire installation as is without much effort.

But if we were shifting to a 250GB SSD, for example, we’d have to do some heavy housekeeping. It’s then a case of shifting any data files onto a backup device or uninstalling programs or games you no longer access. You can do this directly from within Windows, simply right-click the Windows logo in the bottom left of your screen and click Apps and Features.

If you’re struggling to track down deletable data then a storage analysis app, such as WinDirSat, can be invaluable. WinDirStat will check your storage drives and produce a pretty colour chart, grouping file types together to give you a clearer view of where capacity is being taken up.

Step 2 – Install your new drive

Once you’ve pruned your existing installation down so the used capacity will fit your new SSD then it’s time to get your new drive in place. You’ll need a spare SATA power cable and SATA data cable if you’re dropping in a standard 2.5-inch SSD. Unless you’re already rocking half a dozen hard drives then you will probably have a spare power cable coming from your PSU, but you may have to hunt around in your spares box for a new data cable – you kept all the extras that came with your PC/motherboard, right?

Then you just need to locate the SSD mounting points inside your case. Generally that will mean either screwing it into a specific place in your chassis or alongside your HDD in the hard drive bays.

If you’re being fancy and upgrading to a PCIe-powered M.2 SSD then installation is even easier. Well, so long as you have an M.2 socket on your motherboard, otherwise you’ll need a PCIe adapter to fit it in alongside your graphics card. Most modern boards from the last couple of years, however, will have at least one M.2 socket to screw your PCIe SSD into.

Step 3 – Cloning

This is where the magic happens. But first you’ll need a little program called Macrium Reflect. This is the application I’ve used for all my previous clones and have had a 100% success rate so far; there’s about 50 Daves lurking around Bath now…

Download, install, and boot Macrium Reflect and it will analyse your system and identify all the attached drives and relevant partitions. Your boot drive should be obvious – it will be the one which contains the C: drive partition – but if you want to double check, right-click the Windows icon in the bottom left of your desktop and click Disk Management. This will also display the drives in your PC and you can match them up by right-clicking on a drive and checking its Properties.

You need to clone all the partitions on your Windows boot drive to make sure you get a complete copy, so select the drive you wish to clone and select Clone this disk. In the window that pops up you’ll need to click Select a disk to clone to… and choose your new SSD.

If there are already partitions on there, select each and click Delete Existing Partition to clear the drive. Then simply drag and drop all the partitions over from your boot drive to your SSD. If you’re switching to a smaller capacity SSD then this is when you may need to shrink a partition in order to fit everything on.

So long as there is empty space inside a partition you will be able to shrink it down. Select the partition you need to shrink down and click Cloned Partition Properties. The following dialogue will allow you to choose how much you want to shrink the partition down by (or, if you’re switching to a bigger drive, expand it). Figure out how much space you need to fit all the other partitions on and make sure you cut it down to fit.

Once all the partitions have been dropped on the new drive click Next a couple of times, double check that you’re going to copy the right drive to the correct destination, and click Finish. Now it’s time to play the waiting game. There’s no point watching the progress bar, the cloning process will take a couple of hours, at best.

How To Switch Boot Drive To Ssd

Step 4 – Same, same, but different

Windows 10 Change Boot Drive To Ssd

Once the cloning process has finished you can shut down your PC and reboot from your shiny new SSD. As your machine boots up, hit the Del key to enter the BIOS and change the boot priority to your new drive, so it no longer starts from your laggardly hard drive.

Hopefully, once you get into Windows, both everything and nothing will be different. Your PC should be more responsive, quicker to boot, and quicker to load games, but other than that it ought to be exactly as you left it.

I’d recommend leaving your old installation alone for a good few days, just to make sure your cloned drive is 100% reliable, but once you’re confident it’s trustworthy you can format your old drive and use it as valuable deep storage.

And that’s it. A little light screwdriver work, some housekeeping, and a little patience is all you need to make a perfect clone. Job done.