I have a small 300GB hard drive (data, not OS; some programs) which is getting full, and I've ordered a 2TB drive to replace it. I would like the replacement to be seamless - that is, I plan to clone the old drive and arrange for Windows 8.1 to see the new drive as having the old drive's letter D:.
I'm pretty happy with the cloning - I plan to use CloneZilla or a similar tool, either under Windows or from the Linux Mint flash drive I have.
However, the old drive connects to the SATA II header on my motherboard, while the new drive is SATA III. Will this be a problem? How can I make Windows refer to the new drive by the same letter as the old one? Bonus points if I can keep the old drive attached as well to be formatted and re-used.