windows10 Windows 10 Reinstallation Related Qestion

[General Snivy]

I have a tech-related question and I'm not sure if anyone here can help me with answering it and perhaps, I'm overthinking it but, here goes: I currently have 2 internal hard drives set up in my desktop PC; one's a 2.5" SSD while the other is a 3.5" HDD. The SSD is my C drive and it stores my OS, documents, photos, music, and program files. The other HDD currently stores my Steam games as well as a couple other things on it. I've been thinking of purchasing another SSD to replace the one I currently have as I've been experiencing some instability and frequent random BSODs. (Frequent as in at least 1 BSOD per day and every BSOD has a different stop error.) The SSD's health is fine and it should be operating normally from what I can tell from the command prompt on Windows 10. Whenever a BSOD occurs, I can usually resume normal operations after it finishes restarting. Lately, however, I have been experiencing a weird problem where my PC would lock up slowly and then freeze completely. The only way to "fix" this issue is to hard reset my PC via, the reset button on the computer tower itself. Then, everything is normal again...at least until it does it again randomly at another point in time. I know that I'm rambling at this point and I'll get to what I need to ask right now: If I were to reinstall Windows 10 onto the replacement SSD, will the second hard drive's data be accessible, and will doing this also resolve the random BSOD issues along with the random system lockup too? I've been experiencing other issues too besides the ones I've listed, like not being able to install Windows Updates from Windows Updates via, Settings, but I've been told by an IT professional that this issue is due to the fact that when I upgraded my HDD to an SSD and cloned my system, that is what caused that particular problem. Other problems like random BSODs are still a mystery.

 

My system information is as follows:

Operating System: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (Currently on build 2004)
Processor: Intel Core i7-4790 @ 3.60GHz
Motherboard: MSI - Z97-GAMING 5 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
RAM: PNY - XLR8 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600MHz Memory
Graphics Card: MSI Nvidia GeForce 980Ti LE 6GB
Power Supply: EVGA - SuperNOVA NEX 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply

 

If you need more information, please let me know what you need and I'll do my best to provide it.

 

 

[Netduma Fraser]

I'll just offer some advice quickly but I'm sure there are others who would be able to help better

• Have you looked up online what the BSOD errors seem to indicate is the issue?
• Could the PC be overheating? Do you need to reapply thermal paste for example?

[General Snivy]

3 hours ago, Netduma Fraser said:

I'll just offer some advice quickly but I'm sure there are others who would be able to help better

• Have you looked up online what the BSOD errors seem to indicate is the issue?
• Could the PC be overheating? Do you need to reapply thermal paste for example?

I'll answer your questions in order: For the first one, I have but they don't indicate the issue(s) I'm experiencing. The BSODs occur randomly meaning I could be doing something like watching videos on YouTube for example or I could be doing absolutely nothing and leave the computer idle and a BSOD could happen randomly. As for the second question, this is in relation to the first as temperatures seem fine and I don't notice any abnormities with them.

[Guest Killhippie]

If the clone was from a very different build with different components that would cause many issues. ram can cause BSOD's like yours but tbh it could be anything. I would clean install Windows, also why would you suspect the SSD, surely you have tools to check its integrity?

[General Snivy]

23 hours ago, Killhippie said:

If the clone was from a very different build with different components that would cause many issues. ram can cause BSOD's like yours but tbh it could be anything. I would clean install Windows, also why would you suspect the SSD, surely you have tools to check its integrity?

To answer your first question, the components and Windows 10 build were the same when I did the cloning originally. To answer your other question, before I cloned my HDD to my SSD, I was able to use Windows services such as Updates just fine, but after cloning, I can't do so any more and I have to download and install updates manually. Also, I've checked the integrity of my SSD and Samsung Magician software says that it's in good health. As far as doing a clean install is concerned, I'm worried about doing so, something going wrong, and then all I have is a big paperweight. I do have a backup of my most-important data such as documents, photos, music, etc. but not one for the operating system itself. I might look into something that can help with that, but I'm not sure where to start looking. I hear that Acronis True Image is pretty good, but I'm not too sure if it'll fit my needs or not. I've tried something similar before, Backblaze, but that didn't work out. I'll have to look more into it.

[Guest Killhippie]

18 hours ago, General Snivy said:

To answer your first question, the components and Windows 10 build were the same when I did the cloning originally. To answer your other question, before I cloned my HDD to my SSD, I was able to use Windows services such as Updates just fine, but after cloning, I can't do so any more and I have to download and install updates manually. Also, I've checked the integrity of my SSD and Samsung Magician software says that it's in good health. As far as doing a clean install is concerned, I'm worried about doing so, something going wrong, and then all I have is a big paperweight. I do have a backup of my most-important data such as documents, photos, music, etc. but not one for the operating system itself. I might look into something that can help with that, but I'm not sure where to start looking. I hear that Acronis True Image is pretty good, but I'm not too sure if it'll fit my needs or not. I've tried something similar before, Backblaze, but that didn't work out. I'll have to look more into it.

Reinstalling windows is easy, move all your stuff from the main SSD and put it on the storage drive, tbh big files like photos etc belong there anyway as they are not often accessed. Once you have confirmed its all moved reinstall. download before you do any drivers you  need like graphics etc. A clean install will sort out bugs and avoid 'tool's as they are generally not needed at all, or can cause more issues (registry cleaners are always to be avoided) I have reinstalled both my Macs and windows machines from a full erase its easy if you need to go that far. You really don't need a new SSD if your one is working fine. Also all data on the storage drive will be available to access and drag and drop back. Just erase your C drive, make sure its named C for the reinstall. Do some research on reinstalling windows 10, I installed windows 7 then 10 on a friends machine with a new SSD and it went fine. You may be better off downloading a bootable version if that's available and putting it on a thumb drive. Once you have done it you will wonder why you thought it would be hard, Windows does all the work these days pretty much. You can do I believe to do a non destructive reinstall which would be even better as well and that should fix any issues.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/reinstall-windows-10-d8369486-3e33-7d9c-dccc-859e2b022fc7

[General Snivy]

6 hours ago, Killhippie said:

Reinstalling windows is easy, move all your stuff from the main SSD and put it on the storage drive, tbh big files like photos etc belong there anyway as they are not often accessed. Once you have confirmed its all moved reinstall. download before you do any drivers you  need like graphics etc. A clean install will sort out bugs and avoid 'tool's as they are generally not needed at all, or can cause more issues (registry cleaners are always to be avoided) I have reinstalled both my Macs and windows machines from a full erase its easy if you need to go that far. You really don't need a new SSD if your one is working fine. Also all data on the storage drive will be available to access and drag and drop back. Just erase your C drive, make sure its named C for the reinstall. Do some research on reinstalling windows 10, I installed windows 7 then 10 on a friends machine with a new SSD and it went fine. You may be better off downloading a bootable version if that's available and putting it on a thumb drive. Once you have done it you will wonder why you thought it would be hard, Windows does all the work these days pretty much. You can do I believe to do a non destructive reinstall which would be even better as well and that should fix any issues.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/reinstall-windows-10-d8369486-3e33-7d9c-dccc-859e2b022fc7

Thanks for sharing this information. I'm going to be doing some research on the subject matter and do everything I can to prepare myself for when I do a clan install of Windows 10. There's a lot I need to take care of first before I get started on this such as making sure I have all the drivers I need to reinstall, make a list of all the programs I want to reinstall onto my system along with the games, make notes of all product keys of the programs I care for the most such as Vegas Pro 15 and Adobe Photoshop Elements 2018, create a backup containing settings and customizations for certain programs such as OBS Studio and Elgato Stream Deck mini, etc.

Once everything is taken care of, I plan on doing this at around Christmas time as that is when I'm taking time off from content creation to spend time with family.

[Chan1.0]

On 11/11/2020 at 8:59 AM, General Snivy said:

 I know that I'm rambling at this point and I'll get to what I need to ask right now: If I were to reinstall Windows 10 onto the replacement SSD, will the second hard drive's data be accessible, and will doing this also resolve the random BSOD issues along with the random system lockup too?

 

You can do that install Windows 10 on SSD with UUByte ISO Editor,you need a Windows bootable disk to install Windows 10,about Windows iso,it is best to download it from Microsoft.

[Fuzy]

Personally I don't bother too much when reinstalling W10!

I create a bootable usb key with rufus, and totally erase the system disk... for a clean install... All of my personal data is on a local server (video music photo personal document) or another disk on the PC.

On the other hand, it takes longer because you have to install all the drivers and applications afterwards.

You must first download an iso file of W10 ...

https://rufus.ie/fr/