Moving Windows Partition to Drive C:

[traceyw]

Hi

Up to now I have had just the one hard drive of 500GB (on a spare PC) running dual boot Windows 7 and Windows 10. The drive also has a drives D: and E: containing my programs and data respectively. However, I now have a 240GB SSD free and I want to boot the PC from this SSD, preferrably designated drive C: whichever OS I select to use. However, since I already have a drive C: containing Windows on the hard drive (and I do NOT have a Reserved Partition) I'm a little unsure how to go about this.

I have now transferred both Windows 7 and 10 to the SSD courtesy of Partition Wizard but now wish to boot from the SSD although I believe this would be designated drive F:. I believe I know what is needed to get this far but what I'm not sure about is how to make the OS partition drive C: instead of drive F:. To show what I mean I attach a graphic of the Disk Management window below.

My initial thinking is to get the OS partition working as drive F: to start with and once that is working I can then delete drive C: on the hard disk. However, where do I go from there? Will I again have to do the three Startup Repairs in order to recognise drive C: as the Windows drive or is/are the any other process/es I have to go through to achieve my aim?

As far as getting Windows 10 up and running I am fully expecting to get the message that "Windows cannot verify the digital signature for this file". Well, I'm fully prepared for this as it would not be the first time I've received this message and dealt with it. My main problem is getting the PC to boot from drive C: on the SSD and any help would be most appreciated. Many thanks.

Tracey

 

[samuria]

I can't see all the details is the new SSD set to active so it can boot? Try with just SSD on its own does it boot it should have win as c

 

[Megahertz07]

C: is assigned to the disk partition you boot from. As you booted from disk 0 partition 1, win 7, C: is assigned to that partition.
If you boot from disk 0 partition 2 (win 10), C: will be assigned to disk 0 partition 2 (win 10).

- To boot from the SSD, first off all you must make disk 1 active so it has a MBR. On the disk manager, right click on the fist partition (win 7 ssd) and make it active.
- Shut down, detach the HDD leaving on only the SSD (important).
- Boot from the win 7 installation disk and do a startup repair. Then try to boot from the SSD.
Report

 

[traceyw]

Thanks Megahertz07. Worked a treat. Had a bit of sorting out to do once I'd got the PC booting with the SSD but that was really just down to relettering the partitions on the hard disk. Once that was done everything looks to be working just fine. Didn't have the problem re-Windows 10 that I anticipated so all is OK as at the present. Just got to upgrade to the anniversary version today. Didn't realise it wasn't already there. Never mind. Anyway, thanks again.

Tracey

 

[Megahertz07]

Good. Please mark this treat as Solved.

If you're going to use the HDD only for data:
- On disk manager, delete the Win 7 and Win 10 partition, create new on the RAW space and then format (NTFS) and assign a letter to it (G).
- Copy the files and folders from data (F) partition to the new partition.
- Delete data (F) partition and then expand Programs (D) partition to the end.
- Change G: to F: