2 Internal Hard Drives With Windows 7

[tcfleeson]

Hello,
Had a HP Pavilion m9350f. Mobo died. HD only 6 months old with Windows 7. Was my main drive. Purchased a HP Pavilion HPE h8-1214. It came with a HD loaded already with Windows 7. I installed my older HD. If I make it the main HD on loadup, there are conflicts. If I keep the newer pre-installed HD as the main, I can't access hardly any of my programs, like Microsoft Office, Games, etc., on the older HD. How do I resolve it so that I can access both drives, both with Windows 7, or make it so one runs the other?

Thank you,
Tommy Fleeson

 

[RealBeast]

Your old HDD has drivers for the old machine so it won't run well -- probably BSODs. Your new HDD cannot access the programs because they are installed to the old HDD and all the registry entries for them are absent on the OS that is running on the new drive. Best thing to do is re-install the programs on the new HDD.

edit: then after that I would move all the data off the old drive and unpartition it completely (get rid of all HP partitions you no longer need since the machine is dead) and then reinitialize/reformat it and use it as a data drive.

 

[smorizio]

sometime by using safe mode..going into the device manager and removing everything will let the old copy of windows load the drivers it needs to run on the new mb.

 

[tcfleeson]

Your old HDD has drivers for the old machine so it won't run well -- probably BSODs. Your new HDD cannot access the programs because they are installed to the old HDD and all the registry entries for them are absent on the OS that is running on the new drive. Best thing to do is re-install the programs on the new HDD.

edit: then after that I would move all the data off the old drive and unpartition it completely (get rid of all HP partitions you no longer need since the machine is dead) and then reinitialize/reformat it and use it as a data drive.

My older HDD is only about 6 months old. It's a 1.5TB Seagate drive. It is not partitioned. Do you still recommend the same advice after those facts? Thanks!

 

[RealBeast]

While smorizio is correct that with Windows 7 if you delete all the drivers in safe mode you may be able to get it to work, and I've also gotten them to work doing repair installations, but you may also just end up wasting a lot of time or having a non totally stable system. Since your new machine is running fine, I would just reinstall the programs and then unpartition it (to get rid of the OEM partition/s) and reformat.

Also, if you have not done so yet make a set of repair disks from your new HDD in case things go awry with it in the future.

 

[tcfleeson]

Thank you! I ended up reinstalling software and reformatting my Seagate (2nd) HDD to use as a data drive. Everything seems to be running fine now.

 

[tcfleeson]

Best answer selected by tcfleeson.