I recently got a PC from a friend that has three drives: an NVMe SSD as the boot drive running Windows 11, a SATA SSD that hasn't been used, and an HDD. My NVMe SSD is full, and while it performs well for gaming, I want to clone it to the SATA SSD, wipe the NVMe to free up space, and then use the SATA SSD to boot Windows. I want to know if this will work without causing boot issues, especially regarding licensing or hardware signature changes.
4 Answers
Yes, you can definitely clone your NVMe SSD to the SATA SSD and use it to boot Windows. After cloning, disconnect the NVMe SSD to avoid any confusion during boot. Make sure your SATA drive has the required partitions, like the 100MB system partition, so it boots properly. Once you confirm everything is working, you can wipe the NVMe and use it for storage. Just ensure you never delete the NVMe content until you’re sure the SATA SSD boots fine.
Short answer: yes, it will work! Just remember to do a sector-by-sector clone of the NVMe SSD. Also, ensure that your SATA SSD is at least the same size as the NVMe to avoid issues.
It should work, but bear in mind your Windows license. If it’s an OEM license tied to your original hardware, you might face licensing issues because the hardware signature changes. If you do run into problems, you could use the Windows creation tool to reinstall. That way, you'll start fresh on the SATA SSD.
You’ll want to clone the data over and then check the SATA SSD to make sure everything transferred correctly. After that, you can wipe the NVMe drive to free up space, but don’t delete anything from it until you know the SATA is booting properly.
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