Hello, it's been a couple days. So I decided to get back at the effort of resolving this, but I'm so confused on how to perform the steps you have listed above even though the list looks pretty simple and self-explanatory. Is it possible to go a little bit more in depth and explain it like you're talking to someone who has no experience doing something like this? That would be greatly appreciated.
Hi. Yes, sure, no problem.
So, what we need to do is properly install W10 onto your SSD, so that Windows ONLY needs the SSD to boot, and get rid of all unnecessary partitions.
Here's an easy way to do it:
1. Boot to Kyhi's recovery media.
2. Make a Macrium image of your SSD (Disk 0 which is your OS - "C" ) to your D data drive. Make sure you have "verify" enabled.
shut down
3. Disconnect Disk 1. (HDD)
4. Boot into the windows setup media + Clean install W10 onto the SSD Drive 0. This will make all the necessary partitions.
5. Shut down.
6. Re-connect Disk 1. (HDD)
7. Re-Boot into Kyhi's recovery media.
8. Run Macrium Restore and drag the image from D on to the new C partition of your SSD.
So, step #1: go to Kyhi's recovery media thread and download the 64-bit W10586PESEx64 ISO.
Decide how you are going to use it - will you boot your system to a disk, or boot to USB flash drive? Either burn the ISO to a DVD, or right-click it, select MOUNT and then copy all the files to a flash drive.
Step #2: Download and install Macrium Reflect Free. Create an IMAGE of your C partition from your SSD onto your data drive. Be sure to select VERIFY in the options. Grab an ISO of Windows 10 from MS. Create a DVD or Flash drive which you will eventually use to clean install Windows 10. Then shut your computer down.
Step #3: Disconnect your Data drive, leaving only your SSD connected.
Step #4: Boot into the Windows 10 media you made from MS and clean install Windows 10, keeping nothing - no files, no programs. Using the custom install selection, you can nuke all partitions before the install. This will create the necessary partitions cleanly. The drive needs to be "un-allocated" when you begin the clean install of W10.
From the tutorial in our forum:
If you have more than one partition for a Drive # (hard drive) listed and want to get rid of all of them to make that disk # one single partition drive again, then select a partition with that disk # and click on the Delete option for each partition with the same Drive # until there is only one "unallocated space" with that Drive # left as in the screenshot below.
Step #5: Shut down after W10 is clean installed.
Step #6: Re-connect your data disk.
Step #7 Boot the computer into Kyhi's recovery media
Step #8: Open Macrium Reflect (on the recovery media), in the restore tab, navigate to your C partition image on the data drive, and drag it over to the C partition on the SSD. Perform the recovery and your OS will be as it was, with all partitions cleanly in place as they should be.
Your system will then boot from the SSD only and all unnecessary partitions will be gone. Does that make sense? :)
EDIT: If you need screenshots to help visualize things, just let us know.
Last edited by simrick; 04 Jun 2016 at 08:20. Reason: Added to and clarified step #4
If I'd just prefer to just cleanly wipe the SSD (because I've backed up all my data before) can I skip the the first couple of steps that go through creating an image duplicate? And then just clean install windows 10 onto the SSD drive?
Also thanks for the extremely detailed guide, I needed it LOL
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