Migrating Windows 8 to SSD while maintaining drive letter?

Okay, so, I just recently built a new Windows 8 machine. Since I knew I was going to be getting an SSD down the road, I planned ahead:



Nutshell, the C: drive, the boot drive, is at the end of the partition, sized to 220 DB, so I knew it would be smaller than the 240/256GB drive I knew I'd eventually be getting. The Users folder is on the D: drive, so the C: partition is only the OS and apps. Everything's dandy.

I found EasyBCD and used it to move the boot manager over into the C: partition, so theoretically that's all I need to move over to the new drive. So what I want to do is move the C: partition over to the SSD, have it stay C: once it's there, and then have it boot into that partition. (Note that I cannot disconnect the hard drive when it's time to reboot because that's where the Users folder lives and I don't want to break that.)

I keep running into problems with the "keeping it C" part. When I clone the drive over, the old drive stays as C: (as you would expect), and the new drive gets a new letter. Attempts to change those letters using DISKPART from the Win 8 install DVD have been either futile or disastrous.

I've been using the free version of Macrium as my cloning / imaging tool...is there a better free tool I should be using? Is there a better method I should be using? I really want to get this done and get on with my life.

Thanks for any help.

-- Chris

Welcome to EightForums.

Okay, so, I just recently built a new Windows 8 machine

Click to expand...

As the new MOBO's now have a uEFI BIOS.
How to install Windows 64 bit on a uEFI BIOS:
http://www.eightforums.com/tutorial...e-firmware-interface-install-windows-8-a.html

For more info on uEFI:
Windows and GPT FAQ
Unified Extensible Firmware Interface - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
UEFI and Windows

That's great, but I don't want to reinstall, I want to move the already-existing install over to the SSD. Sending me to a tutorial telling me how to reinstall doesn't help me at all. They are not GPT disks, they are MBR. This should be doable.

It's funny. People plan and see later that plan does not work.
Why planning at all ?

Now serious

1. Copy partition with OS to SSD booted from a Live CD.
2. Boot SSD (It will recognize itsef as C: by default).

Assuming OS partition was made bootable (holds boot files).

boyans said:

It's funny. People plan and see later that plan does not work.
Why planning at all ?

Now serious

1. Copy partition with OS to SSD booted from a Live CD.
2. Boot SSD (It will recognize itsef as C: by default).

Assuming OS partition was made bootable (holds boot files).

Click to expand...

Well, that couldn't have been less specific and/or useful.