Okay, so my friend built his PC 2 weeks ago and when we built it we did a fresh install of windows on a 1 TB m.2 drive. That is fine. He decided he wants to stick the m.2 drive from his old broken laptop (the m.2 still works) into this computer. I know to make a computer recognize a new drive there is a whole process to go through. If I do that like you do for an empty drive, will it wipe this drive? This drive does have windows as it was the main drive for his laptop. Will that affect anything?
#Installing a M.2 Drive that already has data and windows on it?
glass hollow
scarlet siren
All you need to do is plug the drive into the computer and turn the computer on. You might have to make sure the boot order is set right in BIOS so you're not booting into the new drive
But it will show up just as a second hard drive as soon as you've plugged it in. Should be super simple.
Worst case the drive is encrypted with Bitlocker, and you have to wipe the drive before it's usable.
glass hollow
All you need to do is plug the drive into the computer and turn the computer on....
Why happens if there are duplicate programs, like on both drives he has steam, or chrome?
rare bear
Why happens if there are duplicate programs, like on both drives he has steam, o...
It will not be affected. Windows on a UEFI device will internally reference all drive assignments.
glass hollow
It will not be affected. Windows on a UEFI device will internally reference all ...
The issue is that steam is showing games installed on the other drive as not installed
candid cosmos
That's a steam issue, you need to fix that from within steam. You need to let the steam install know that there are steam games at another location.