On a desktop (not a laptop) I am going to clone my old HDD over to a new SSD. I know how to do that:

Clone the HDD (lets say this HDD has logical drives C: and D: on it) to the SSD.

Remove the HDD.

Move the SSD to the computer slot where the HDD used to be.

And boot up the system as normal.

 

What I need to know is what to do next to put the HDD back in the computer as a second physical drive. It will still have the same logical drive letters as the SSD, which would conflict wouldn'tit?  i.e. both the SSD and HDD will have logical drives C: and D: on them.

 

I don't know how to tell the system to tell the logical drives apart from one another in order to erase no longer needed operating system and data from the old HDD's C: and D: drive.

I'm sure this isn't  a problem but I wan't to know in advance that I won't run into a mistake here doing this. :/

Windows won't allow two C: or D: drives to exist and should just allocate new drive letters to the HDD when you install it -  the drive letters are not stored by the HDD. The only thing that can occasionally cause some confusion is that there will be two physical drives each with a boot sector. As everything on your HDD will now be on your SSD, I'd reformat your HDD as a non-boot drive and re-partition it as required.

Thank you, just what I needed to know. I've done this sort of thing before, but it was 10 years ago and didn't remember all the issues involved , LOL.

I'm posting this so a forum search by someone may help them install a SSD in their system.

 

Having changed my Windows system and FSX installations from HDD to SSD the speed increase is tremendous in: 1) system reboot and 2) booting up a new flight in new location with heavy scenery.

 

Here's the place that goes through how to do the HDD to SSD upgrade painlessly:

How to Migrate Your Windows Installation to a Solid-State Drive by Matt Klein

https://www.howtogeek.com/97242/how-to-migrate-windows-7-to-a-solid-state-drive/

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First, make a Windows recovery drive (takes 3 or 4 minutes):
 

Windows recovery drive: you will need a dedicated USB thumb drive to make it. I needed one badly it turned out and had one all ready. So buy a cheap USB thumb drive (any size) when you buy the SSD.

1) First boot the system into BIOS and make sure the system boot choices include a USB drive and the computers hard drive. You need to make sure the system will boot from a USB drive or you can't use the recovery drive which is on the USB thumbstick.

 

2) To make the recovery drive follow the links from Kleins article above, here they are:

Win 7 https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/5409/create-a-system-repair-disc-in-windows-7/

Win 8 and Win 9  https://www.howtogeek.com/131907/how-to-create-and-use-a-recovery-drive-or-system-repair-disc-in-windows-8/

 

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Klein's page is very complete but I ran into 3 problems not mentioned there, here's how they were solved (thanks to Samsung online chat tech help).

The new SSD did not show up in Windows explorer:

There were two reasons for this:

1) I had the SSD plugged into a USB3 port, it turns out a new SSD often needs a USB2 port. (For a similar reason that when booting up to BIOS, instead Windows, you may need to use an USB2 port for the mouse or keyboard, not USB3, or BIOS might not see it).

 

2) The new SSD was not initialized in Windows Disk Management. Some SSD's do not require this, mine did (Samsung EVO850 SSD). Otherwise Windows and the computer will not see the new SSD drive.

In order to initialize the new SSD disc you run diskmgmt.msc

Windows 8.1: type WindowsKey + R or from the desktop open the Start button and type in diskmgmt.msc

Windows 10: simply right click the start button and Disk Management is a shortcut to choose

Click open diskmgmt.msc

the new SSD drive icon is going to say unallocated, Now you right click on it and select, “new simple volume”.

This basically takes you through a Windows wizard which prompts to format the unit properly to get the drive recognizing in windows explorer and disk management properly as a healthy partition. This  is the initialization process and only  takes a minute to do.

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3) After following all the steps on Kleins page to clone the HDD image to the SSD, I removed the HDD from laptop and plugged in the new SSD there. The system would not boot ! :(

 

Here's where the Windows recovery drive (on the USB thumbstick) saved the day. Just turn off the laptop with its power button, insert USB thumbstick you made the recovery drive on and boot. There will now be listed choices from what to boot Windows from: A USB drive, the new SSD, and maybe other choices. Choose the new SSD drive and Windows booted up fine.

 

From then on you boot the laptop normally, the thumbdrive (recovery drive) is no longer needed, keep it safe somewhere where you won't lose it.