Booting OS and storing data on seperate hard drives

[tkhan86]

I currently have two hard drives one SSD and one standard hard drive. I want to boot my OS (windows 7) from the SSD but store my data onto the standard hard drive. How do I go about this?

 

[chunkymonster]

There are a few things to consider, but generally speaking, install both drives and connect to the mobo. You will need to adjust the BIOS settings to make the SSD the first hard drive and then set the boot order/priority to recognize the SSD as the first bootable hard drive.

If Win7 is already installed then you will either 1) need to do a re-install of Win7 onto the SSD, or 2) make an image of Win7 partition and then re-image to the SSD.

The 2nd drive will appear in Windows (typically) under another drive letter and/or you may need to go into Disk Management under Computer Management to "import" the 2nd drive and assign it a drive letter.

Also, it helps to list your system specs when requesting information or answers as some steps to include both drives may depend on the hardware.

 

[evongugg]

Unhook the standard hard drive and any card readers you may have, install the operating system on the SSD. Rehook up the standard hard drive and card readers. Partition and format it in Windows the standard hard drive. You may want to change drive letters around to please you.

 

[evongugg]

You will need to set the DVD drive as first bootable device initially so you can install the operating system.