I've got a bit of a predicament here. My old M.2 boot drive failed and would keep booting into the BIOS. While it's still visible in the BIOS, it wouldn't load Windows. So, I ended up buying a new drive and freshly installing Windows on it. I've put the old M.2 back in, and I can see it in my disk manager and My PC. However, I'm facing issues accessing certain files, particularly in the User folder. Is there a way to transfer data from the old drive to the new one now that Windows is installed on the new drive?
3 Answers
It's usually better to do a fresh install on the new drive and then manually copy over the files you need from the old drive if you can access them.
If the old drive is showing errors, it might not be able to be repaired easily. If it's a permission issue, try running File Explorer or Command Prompt as an administrator; that might let you access and transfer the files without hiccups.
Just to clarify, if you’re simply trying to get the files off the old drive, that should be possible. You won't be able to clone the old drive since it's having issues, but accessing some files directly might work. Just be patient—coping some data can be a bit tricky when the drive is failing.
I get what you're saying; I had a similar situation with my SSD. Sometimes you can retrieve some data, but you can't rely on getting everything. It might just be hit or miss!