New
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Cloning to SSD then swapping drive letters
I have a new computer. I want to clone the system to a new SSD. Can I change the drive letter of the SSD to C: after cloning?
My new computer (an ASUS) currently has Windows 8.1. I intend to upgrade to Windows 10 before I do anything more. I will move the old Windows elsewhere before cloning if that is possible.
I have the SSD installed physically but it is not formatted or anything. I intend to use the Samsung Data Migration tool to do the clone. During the clone, the SSD will of course not have the drive letter "C". After the cloning, it must have the drive letter "C", correct? I know we can assign drive letters in Disk Management. I am familiar with partitions and I know that the boot drive/partition is marked as "Active".
Can I re-assign drive letters in Disk Management and delay the change until the next boot? This is just a guess, but it makes sense that the feature might exist. In other words, after the clone, can I change the drive letter ("C") of the current drive to something such as "T" and the SSD drive's letter to "C" and then the change will be effective upon the next boot? The hard drive has a second partition that is empty and is the "D:". It will be confusing for others to have the SSD partition as "C:" and the first partition some other letter and the second partition as "D:" but I understand and I am the only one that will use it. That is a minor detail.
I do not intend to use the old Windows after the successful clone unless I need to remove the SSD for return to ASUS. My new computer had a bad motherboard when I received it but I hope I do not need to return it again.
I know that some people will suggest that I do a fresh install. (I see: Clean Install Windows 10 Directly without having to Upgrade First - Windows 10 Forums.). I want to avoid doing that if possible. I am not sure that I can install everything else that ASUS installs but hopefully that is possible. If however I can simply swap drive letters after the clone then that should be the simplest solution.
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