[SOLVED] 2 Hard Drives (One SSD, One HDD, Both with Windows) Easiest Way to Switch?

[ravensfan852]

Hello all, I was curious what the easiest way to do this will be. I've had an SSD with Windows installed for the past couple of years, but I didn't switch from the HDD because I was in school and was doing work on there pretty regularly. I know I'll need to update Windows on the SSD, but I want to know what's going to be the easiest way to use both devices and to delete Windows off of the older HDD. I'm trying to keep from having to transfer everything over and to re-download everything. (Almost 3TB of data between multiple hard drives.) Any info would be greatly appreciated!

 

[ZenWolf]

You could do like i do. I have my old laptop sata drive installed in my pc as a secondary drive. It still has windows 7 on it. I can even boot off of it if i want. But even when im booted into my primary win10 drive, i can just access my F: drive (the laptop disk) and transfer the files, or do whatever i want on it. If you dont need it for extra storage space, you could easily just leave it as a secondary drive and access files as you need them, without ever having to transfer them. Or you can just transfer the files, then wipe the old hard drive and use it for media storage or the like. Hope this helped some

 

[ravensfan852]

It's possible that I go that route, but what I'm concerned with is all the bloat that's on the old drive. I'm not entirely sure how much Windows is taking up and really the drive could use a fresh start because it has probably 3-4 years worth of stuff on it.

 

[ZenWolf]

It's possible that I go that route, but what I'm concerned with is all the bloat that's on the old drive. I'm not entirely sure how much Windows is taking up and really the drive could use a fresh start because it has probably 3-4 years worth of stuff on it.

I get that. i'm not saying use it as a boot drive. I'm just saying hook it up as a secondary. Use your new SSD with fresh windows as your primary boot. Set the HDD you want to pull files off of as secondary non boot. Boot to SSD. Once booted, transfer all important files from the HDD to the new SSD temporarily. Then you can use disk manager to completely wipe the HDD, and you can move the important files back to the HDD once you get it formatted and set up as storage only. Honestly gonna be the simplest and fastest way to do it, without losing important data. Its still gonna take time though. Isn't any way to get around that, sadly.

 

[ravensfan852]

Shoot, I was hoping there was a way to just delete the Windows files and leave everything else, but I guess I'll invest a little more time. Thanks for the help!

 

[ZenWolf]

Shoot, I was hoping there was a way to just delete the Windows files and leave everything else, but I guess I'll invest a little more time. Thanks for the help!

No problem. Sadly windows just isn't easily deletable like that. You can delete a lot of the files, but some files will always remain. That's why a transfer and full format is always best. Sorry i couldn't help you further, and i wish you the best of luck!

 

[ravensfan852]

No worries! All the reason to ask, but you did save me time with your suggestion so I appreciate that!