MR clone can show incorrect SSD identification info

Wisewiz said:

I've cloned two old SSDs to Samsung EVOs recently (on two PCs, both 20H2 Pro), and discovered that MR carries some historical identification from the disk you're cloning (DUH!). In both cases, I cloned old SSDs to brand new Samsung 870 EVO 250GB SSDs, and in both cases, on the newly installed SSDs, Windows 10 Device Manager mis-identified the new SSDs. A check into Device Manager\Properties\Events for the new disks revealed historical info from the disks I had cloned from. Everything had been copied to the new disk, including the identification of the old disk in the registry.

A search through each registry revealed that the Device Manager info was derived from the Friendly Name subkey info for the disk Windows thought it had on hand. Snooping around revealed that the registry had the info on the source disk just beside (above) the info for the new disk.

I backed up the subkey, edited the Friendly Name, and rebooted. Now Device Manager and specs software (Everest) show exactly what they should: a new, Samsung authenticated, 870 EVO 250GB is sitting in the bay.

"If you're cloning, if you're cloning, ... the whole world clones with you."

The simple solution is to uninstall the disk in Device Manager and reboot - it will be fixed when Windows reinstalls it after a reboot. I've done it before.

Wisewiz said:

Both the new disks have the OS on them. Can you uninstall an OS disk (from which Windows is running) and then reboot?

I'm not referring to uninstalling the OS, rather referring to just letting Windows correct the SSD device name shown in Device Manager.

Wisewiz said:

Gotcha. I just didn't think it would be possible to uninstall the Windows disk and still have control over the process of rebooting. I have so many things still to learn, and so little time in which to learn them.

Uninstalling the disk won't do anything to your files. When you reboot, everything will be there as before, but the disk name will be corrected by Windows reinstalling the disk driver.

Wisewiz said:

Steve,
Did it as you suggested. Smooth as silk. Afterwards, I went to my Event Viewer and looked at all of the entries involving what I had just done, and they confirmed the error-free nature of the process. I've already thanked you for educating me about this, but here goes again: Many thanks, Steve108. I'm a happy camper.

Thanks for the update and rep. I was just coming here to ask you if you tried it yet

Took me a while to remember this fix initially.

@Wisewiz , Feel free to mark the thread as solved