Make new [Hard Drive] but Keep the Old

MrTLicious

Hey everyone.

For Christmas I got a new SSD that I plan to use to boot Windows/games. However, I have a lot of data that I use for work that would be way to much for a (or at least my) SSD, so I will be keeping my old HDD. My question is: Is it possible/wise to have my old HDD just exist without formatting, or will I need to reinstall everything on it from scratch? From my google searches it seems that I'll need to reformat if I want to use both drives simultaneously, or at least to be able to have installed programs run from the old drive, which seems right but I just wanted to make sure it was necessary before going through that process.

LD50

You don't have to format the drive. Just make sure you set the boot drive to the ssd in the bios. Your old programs may not work (although some might), and may require a reinstall.

nexuscrawler

Yeah just be sure to set your SSD as the boot device. Then once you install windows on it, you can connect your old HD as a secondary drive. If you want to save space nuke the whole of the window's folder on the old disk. Most of your Programs won't run off the old disk just reinstall them on the SSD. You want to be running things off the SSD anyway. Keep your music and other documents on the old HD.

nexuscrawler

Also one of the née things about an SSD is you will be dumbfounded how quickly things reinstall. It's really not that big a deal.

MrTLicious

Thanks guys! Seems to be working okay. Definitely better than a wipe. Cheers.