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I'm in a bit of a pickle. Before we continue, my computing literacy is poor to average at best. I recently purchased a new SSD M.2, and have installed it into my computer. I figured this was a good time to move to Windows 11, and wanted to install this fresh copy of Windows on the M.2. Unfortunately, I installed Windows 11 whilst my old SSD was still installed (a big no-no, rather foolish in hindsight). C: is my new M.2; D: is where my previous installation was and is my old SSD.

This has resulted in Windows being installed on one drive, whilst the boot files are all on another. As such, I cannot start my computer without both drives installed. From what I can gather, Boot is installed on my C: drive but Windows is on my D: drive. How would I go about moving Windows to my C:?

I've tried using EasyBCD to solve this problem, but EasyBCD doesn't work with UEFI enabled, and I can't turn it off because I'm on Windows 11. I also tried to remove the D: drive, and then tried to do a fresh install (over the top of whatever is on my C:), but that won't work because apparently Windows is incapable of creating a new partition?

I'm at the end of my rope here, and I want this fixed as this is a disaster waiting to happen later down the line. What are my options, and what steps should I take??

Many thanks, J.

I would add an image of my Disk Management, but StackEx won't let my add a picture to this post (failed to upload, server error??)

JTC
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    Does this answer your question? [Booting Windows off M.2 NVMe doesn’t work even though it is recognized by the BIOS on a dual boot machine](https://superuser.com/questions/1704309/booting-windows-off-m-2-nvme-doesn-t-work-even-though-it-is-recognized-by-the-bi) – Daniel B Oct 13 '22 at 19:56
  • "but EasyBCD doesn't work with UEFI enabled" - It should since BCD is used regardless if Windows is installed in Legacy or UEFI mode. – Ramhound Oct 13 '22 at 20:01
  • @JTC - [Try](https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/420821/server-error-failed-to-upload-image-an-error-occurred-on-the-server) providing that image to us. – Ramhound Oct 13 '22 at 20:28

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I installed Windows 11 whilst my old SSD was still installed ...
This has resulted in Windows being installed on one drive, whilst the boot files are all on another.

The only practical way to fix this is to reinstall Windows 11 fresh.

First back up any files that you need later to a USB Drive.

Then remove the old SSD so there is just one disk in your computer.

Get the Windows 11 ISO and make a bootable USB of this. Rufus works here. You may already have this.

Start with this Windows 11 ISO, and use the setup routine to delete ALL partitions.

Windows 11 will make 3 partitions (UEFI, Recovery and main data). Use these and install Windows 11.

John
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