Reinstalling Win10 to SSD

dallasfan · 11 Nov 2019

I'm not too technical, so please bear with me. I have a newish PC that is currently running Win10 that is loaded on a HDD, with an additional HDD for added storage. I've purchased a new SSD that I've installed and will be using a USB to boot from and load Win10. This is our family PC, and my kids have a lot of Steam games and Minecraft stored/loaded on the existing HDD. My questions are these: Will the games run and still retain their history? My kids are freaked out they are going to lose their Minecraft worlds. The main reason for upgrading to the SDD is to improve system speed as the kids have loaded who-knows-what on it and it runs extremely slow. I want to wipe the drives and start fresh, but again not sure how to back up Minecraft and Steam games.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

SIW2 · 11 Nov 2019

I am not a gamer so don't know anything about steam/minecraft etc.

However, an upgrade install ( also called a repair install) should keep all the programs and settings of the current installation.

1. Make Backup image of the current system. You could use windows system image ( which is built in ) or any number of 3rd party programs which do free versions - Aomei is very simple to use Best Free Backup Software for Windows 10/8.1/8/7/Vista/XP - there are many others - easeus, macrium, etc

2. Do an upgrade install on your current HD.
Repair Install Windows 10 with an In-place Upgrade

3. Clone the current HD to the SSD - you can use Aomei or any number of other free programs to do the clone.

That is very cautious - you will have both the backup image and the original HD in case you botch something up with the SSD.

How big is the SSD?

Plankton · 11 Nov 2019

A few questions: Is the current C drive the drive with all the steam accounts and games on it? Are the steam accounts synced to the steam cloud? Does every steam account holder know the user name and password?

Google for moving the steam folder from the current C drive and re-adding to the new SSD. that may be an option for you.

bro67 · 11 Nov 2019

Booting from and loading Windows from a USB drive is going to be slow. I would just clone the current drive to the new drive or start offloading stuff that they have not accessed for a long time to a USB drive for offline storage. You would be surprised at the large amount of stuff that you do not access for months or after a couple of times.

SIW2 · 11 Nov 2019

bro67 said:

Booting from and loading Windows from a USB drive is going to be slow.

I think the OP means he will install ( load) a fresh copy of win10 from usb installation media onto his new SSD

AK6DN · 11 Nov 2019

dallasfan said:

I'm not too technical, so please bear with me. I have a newish PC that is currently running Win10 that is loaded on a HDD, with an additional HDD for added storage. I've purchased a new SSD that I've installed and will be using a USB to boot from and load Win10. This is our family PC, and my kids have a lot of Steam games and Minecraft stored/loaded on the existing HDD. My questions are these: Will the games run and still retain their history? My kids are freaked out they are going to lose their Minecraft worlds. The main reason for upgrading to the SDD is to improve system speed as the kids have loaded who-knows-what on it and it runs extremely slow. I want to wipe the drives and start fresh, but again not sure how to back up Minecraft and Steam games.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Why not just clone your boot HDD to the new SSD using a tool like MiniToolPartitionWizard or equivalent?
When I replaced my Win7 HDD with a SSD I did just that, clone my system drive to another drive.
Did not have to reinstall WIndows (and all the associated appications and user data).

Why are you not thinking of just cloning your boot HDD to the SSD? Or did you just not know this was an option?

zbook · 11 Nov 2019

This is a tutorial on making and restoring a backup image.
The HD can be switched to the SSD.
The size of the HD and SSD are important.

Macrium Software | Your Image is Everything
Backup and Restore with Macrium Reflect

Please post the specs for the SSD and HD.

SIW2 · 11 Nov 2019

AK6DN said:

Why are you not thinking of just cloning your boot HDD to the SSD? Or did you just not know this was an option?

It is in the OP post.

SIW2 · 11 Nov 2019

Berton said:

Working on that presumption one must keep in mind that the Registry will probably know nothing about previously installed programs and they will have to be reinstalled, data such as scores and updates will be lost requiring starting over.

That is why I suggested - backup image first, then repair install install, then clone.

dallasfan · 12 Nov 2019

Thanks everyone. I didn't know cloning was an option. The SDD is only 250 GB, just large enough for Win10. If I clone the HDD to the SDD will all of the junk files get copied over too? I just want a clean OS, without all of the junk.
Will the file directory (videos, pictures, documents) be accessible if I keep the drives installed? Do you still have to change pins on HDD to make them either a slave or master?