I wonder if I have several drive...

I just cloned my system drive. I have cloned before but, I found it confusing to identify what drive was the one to choose for the installation. I did know what drive I intended to install the OS. Here is my question. During the first install, I tried to guess and I guessed wrong. If I disconnect all my drives except the one I want for the OS to be installed on. Should make it easier to see that drive in bios it is the only one connected. The first time I chose the wrong drive and it installed Windows on the slowest drive I have (old-school mechanical) drive. With only one drive connected shouldn't Windows make it drive c:? I intend to replace that mechanical drive with an M.2 NVME fast drive. Will I need to change the boot order in bios because of different types of form factors and I will have to
connect it to a different location? Thanks

I have read this post several times, and I am struggling to understand what you are asking.

Post an image of your current system, and tell us what you want to do e.g. clone current system to a new nvme.

Are you wanting to dual boot or use new nvme, and then reuse current OS drive.

I am using an MSI motherboard. I know to move the icon in the bios to boot the first position I get confused which icon is represents what drive. I was trying to replace the drive with cloned M.2 nvme drive. So I took my best guess and ended up installing windows to the wrong drive. I was asking if I temporarily disconnect all drives except the one I want the OS to be on (the M.3 NVME) I figured there would no drive available but my target drive and I assume Windows would label it drive C: I would have the OS on the correct drive because there would not be another one available. Then I simply reconnect all the drives afterward. I can change the drive letter if that is an issue. Because I am confused as to which MSI BIOS icon represents my target. I just wanted to know if anyone could validate my plan as I have never done this just to windows. The plan is to disconnect all drives except the one I want the OS installed on. I figure there wouldn't be but one (my target) available. How could I miss it? Then simply reconnect all the drives. I picked a choice and the OS got installed but to an unintended drive. I didn't want it to install to the slow 3.5" old disk spinning platter style 7200 rpm. I had a lot of used drives on hand and I have about 4 installed. The pc is working but terribly slow because of I missed the target when I chose (my fault). I have cloned that to my 4tb NVME. I haven't installed it yet. I just wanted to see if anyone thinks that plan will work. Only one drive is connected so I can't pick the wrong drive if I wanted to. Only one is available. What confuses me is in the bios I see the icons that represent the installed drives. Almost everyone has a USB label on the icons. I have never considered an internal HDD to be usb. Maybe they are. some of the icons have an cd image on the icon and this pc doesn't even have an optical drive. The big question isn't really that big. If only have the drive I want windows to be on connected it force me to have only one choice so I was thinking that would make it impossible to install OS to anything but the one I want it to. Then reconnect all drives. I hope you understand. If not let me know. Thank you for your reply.

Marshall Moore said:

I am using an MSI motherboard. I know to move the icon in the bios to boot the first position I get confused which icon is represents what drive. I was trying to replace the drive with cloned M.2 nvme drive. So I took my best guess and ended up installing windows to the wrong drive. I was asking if I temporarily disconnect all drives except the one I want the OS to be on (the M.3 NVME) I figured there would no drive available but my target drive and I assume Windows would label it drive C: I would have the OS on the correct drive because there would not be another one available. Then I simply reconnect all the drives afterward. I can change the drive letter if that is an issue. Because I am confused as to which MSI BIOS icon represents my target. I just wanted to know if anyone could validate my plan as I have never done this just to windows. The plan is to disconnect all drives except the one I want the OS installed on. I figure there wouldn't be but one (my target) available. How could I miss it? Then simply reconnect all the drives. I picked a choice and the OS got installed but to an unintended drive. I didn't want it to install to the slow 3.5" old disk spinning platter style 7200 rpm. I had a lot of used drives on hand and I have about 4 installed. The pc is working but terribly slow because of I missed the target when I chose (my fault). I have cloned that to my 4tb NVME. I haven't installed it yet. I just wanted to see if anyone thinks that plan will work. Only one drive is connected so I can't pick the wrong drive if I wanted to. Only one is available. What confuses me is in the bios I see the icons that represent the installed drives. Almost everyone has a USB label on the icons. I have never considered an internal HDD to be usb. Maybe they are. some of the icons have an cd image on the icon and this pc doesn't even have an optical drive. The big question isn't really that big. If only have the drive I want windows to be on connected it force me to have only one choice so I was thinking that would make it impossible to install OS to anything but the one I want it to. Then reconnect all drives. I hope you understand. If not let me know. Thank you for your reply.

Click to expand...

It is really difficult to read this without paragraph breaks. I have done below it for others to read.
In my reply, I asked

"Post an image of your current system, and tell us what you want to do e.g. clone current system to a new nvme.

Are you wanting to dual boot or use new nvme, and then reuse current OS drive."

It would help us to understand what you are trying to achieve. That is still not clear.

Let's start simple and work from there.

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I am using an MSI motherboard. I know to move the icon in the bios to boot the first position I get confused which icon is represents what drive. I was trying to replace the drive with cloned M.2 nvme drive.

So I took my best guess and ended up installing windows to the wrong drive. I was asking if I temporarily disconnect all drives except the one I want the OS to be on (the M.3 NVME)

I figured there would no drive available but my target drive and I assume Windows would label it drive C: I would have the OS on the correct drive because there would not be another one available.

Then I simply reconnect all the drives afterward. I can change the drive letter if that is an issue. Because I am confused as to which MSI BIOS icon represents my target. I just wanted to know if anyone could validate my plan as I have never done this just to windows. The plan is to disconnect all drives except the one I want the OS installed on.

I figure there wouldn't be but one (my target) available. How could I miss it? Then simply reconnect all the drives. I picked a choice and the OS got installed but to an unintended drive.

I didn't want it to install to the slow 3.5" old disk spinning platter style 7200 rpm. I had a lot of used drives on hand and I have about 4 installed. The pc is working but terribly slow because of I missed the target when I chose (my fault). I have cloned that to my 4tb NVME. I haven't installed it yet. I just wanted to see if anyone thinks that plan will work.

Only one drive is connected so I can't pick the wrong drive if I wanted to. Only one is available. What confuses me is in the bios I see the icons that represent the installed drives. Almost everyone has a USB label on the icons.

I have never considered an internal HDD to be usb. Maybe they are. some of the icons have an cd image on the icon and this pc doesn't even have an optical drive.

The big question isn't really that big. If only have the drive I want windows to be on connected it force me to have only one choice so I was thinking that would make it impossible to install OS to anything but the one I want it to. Then reconnect all drives.

I hope you understand. If not let me know. Thank you for your reply.

The best practice if you are installing or cloning OS is to disconnect all the other drives to avoid boot problems.

Thank you for your reply BadRobot!

What program do you use for cloning?
Shut down, disconnect the Power Supply from the wall outlet.
- Open the case and install the NVMe drive.
- Boot into Win 11 using the actual (source) drive. Windows may install a NVMe driver.
- Run your cloning program.
- Select the current drive as Source
- Select the NVMe drive as Target
- Adjust the C: partition size on the Target. The other partitions should remain the same size.
- When finished, shutdown and disconnect the source drive (power or SATA cable).
- Enter BIOS and select the NVMe as primary boot drive.
- Boot the computer from the NVMe drive.
- Everything should be working.
- If you want to use the old drive don't forget to clean the drive (deleting ALL partitions on the drive). Don't just format as it can give you problems.

If you have a SD Card reader, disconnect it also