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1. Clarissa Walker (amisapphire@cwcyrix.nsupdate.info)'s status on Saturday, 15-Apr-2023 16:15:11 EDT Clarissa Walker
   Finally, Sis handed me her gaming system for upgrading!
   
   Mom's HP laptop now has an SSD instead of and HDD (but it is SATA!). Someday she will get an NVME in its place, as the system supports it.
   
   Now, on Sis's build: the SteamGames HDD is now an SSD. As of this post, the original system drive is being mirrored to Mom's old HDD for final migration to the NVME on the new build.
   
   Main reason is the build had a seamless transition from Windows 7 to Windows 10 by the use of two partitions on the old 1TB HDD. This time, the new build will not have this; the NVME is only 512GB. Windows 11 will not be installed on that system at this time, and only the Windows 10 partition will remain. Since the old system is BIOS/MBR, the setup will need to be converted to EFI/GPT for the new build.
   • Clarissa Walker (amisapphire@cwcyrix.nsupdate.info)'s status on Saturday, 15-Apr-2023 16:27:17 EDT Clarissa Walker

     in reply to
     For the SteamGames HDD: since it was from Mom's current Lenovo drive, the beginning section of the drive has a bit of an identity crisis: it has some GPT mark, despite the fact it is now an MBR drive. Clonezilla freaked out over this, so I had to dd the drive to the SSD. This is what happens if you do not properly zero these drives in the first place.
   • Clarissa Walker (amisapphire@cwcyrix.nsupdate.info)'s status on Saturday, 15-Apr-2023 23:26:18 EDT Clarissa Walker

     in reply to
     Last thing done to the system was to migrate the system disk to the temporary HDD so I can do the following:
     
     * convert the dual-boot setup to a single OS setup (getting rid of Windows 7 and editing the BootManager entries on the Windows 10 partition)
     * convert the Windows 10 partition (now single boot) from BIOS/MBR to GPT/EFI
     * Migrate the EFI/GPT setup to the NVME on the new proposed build (this one may be a tad iffy, but we'll see)
     
     She has the gaming system, but with the original mainboard and the temporary HDD, mainly because we ran out of time for the final part of the migration for the day.
   • Clarissa Walker (amisapphire@cwcyrix.nsupdate.info)'s status on Sunday, 16-Apr-2023 20:07:14 EDT Clarissa Walker

     in reply to
     The migration to the new build is complete. However, it took me nearly 10 hours.
     
     One was the Windows Update that took almost 40 minutes (!) on the temp drive. Noticed something was up when Disk Cleanup was running quite slow.
     
     Two was the fact that I was trying to convert BIOS/MBR to EFI/GPT without any notes! This is the issue that took up a LOT of those 10 hours. Oh, and MBR2GPT always failed converting the system drive... That, and I kept screwing up the way Windows booted, lol.
     
     I now have some conversion notes, but there will be no recovery partition for that system, so it will need installation media whenever something goes very wrong (which is extremely rare).
   • Clarissa Walker (amisapphire@cwcyrix.nsupdate.info)'s status on Sunday, 16-Apr-2023 20:11:09 EDT Clarissa Walker

     in reply to
     After I handed the system back to Sis, we booted up the machine. She was astounded at how fast it loads things now: "Now I don't have to wait a kajillion years for it to load!"
     
     Oh, it needed Ethernet drivers. Installed those, and it's fine now.
     
     The system now has an additional Downloads drive, as the old system's partition is low on space.
   • Clarissa Walker (amisapphire@cwcyrix.nsupdate.info)'s status on Sunday, 16-Apr-2023 23:32:11 EDT Clarissa Walker

     in reply to
     Unsurprisingly, the installation post-migration needed activation. Sis shows up and says, basically, "Hey, the computer just started showing this Activate Windows on the screen."
     
     I have a legitimate Windows 7 Home Premium product key I now use just for Windows 10 installations when the hardware is majorly upgraded. However, it's been used on two machines so far, so...