Question Can I Have Two Drives With Win 10 At The Same Time?

[Marc42]

I recently took out my old 3.5" drive with WIndows 10 and put in an NVME drive with a completely fresh install of WIndows 10. However, I'm missing some important files I forgot to remove from the old drive, so I need to reconnect it for a short while. Do I have to remove the NVME drive first or can I just hook the old 3.5 back up and boot into it for a little while to get my files, and then take it out?

 

[USAFRet]

I recently took out my old 3.5" drive with WIndows 10 and put in an NVME drive with a completely fresh install of WIndows 10. However, I'm missing some important files I forgot to remove from the old drive, so I need to reconnect it for a short while. Do I have to remove the NVME drive first or can I just hook the old 3.5 back up and boot into it for a little while to get my files, and then take it out?

The best way to do what you want is to boot up from the old OS drive (HDD?), and save your desired files off to something else. Maybe a flash drive of sufficient size.
Or OneDrive or similar.

 

[thetechload]

I recently took out my old 3.5" drive with WIndows 10 and put in an NVME drive with a completely fresh install of WIndows 10. However, I'm missing some important files I forgot to remove from the old drive, so I need to reconnect it for a short while. Do I have to remove the NVME drive first or can I just hook the old 3.5 back up and boot into it for a little while to get my files, and then take it out?

Reconnect the Old Drive: Power down your laptop or desktop, then connect the old 3.5" drive back to the system. Make sure all connections are secure.

Boot into BIOS/UEFI: When you power on the system, enter the BIOS/UEFI settings (usually by pressing a key like F2, DEL, or ESC during startup).

Ensure that the boot order is set to prioritize the NVMe drive if you want to boot into your fresh Windows installation.

Boot into Windows: Start your computer. If the old drive is detected, you should be able to boot into your new Windows installation on the NVMe drive. The old drive will be accessible as a secondary drive.

Access Your Files: Once in Windows, you can access the old drive through File Explorer. Copy any important files you need to your new NVMe drive.

Remove the Old Drive: After you’ve retrieved your files, you can power down the system again and disconnect the old drive if you wish.

 

[USAFRet]

Access Your Files: Once in Windows, you can access the old drive through File Explorer. Copy any important files you need to your new NVMe drive.

With this step, you are completely forgetting any permissions issues.

Any files in the User libraries...Documents/Pictures/etc...are permission locked to the old user account. THere is a method called TakeOwnership.
But the person does have to be aware of this.

 

[johnbl]

I recently took out my old 3.5" drive with WIndows 10 and put in an NVME drive with a completely fresh install of WIndows 10. However, I'm missing some important files I forgot to remove from the old drive, so I need to reconnect it for a short while. Do I have to remove the NVME drive first or can I just hook the old 3.5 back up and boot into it for a little while to get my files, and then take it out?

I would check in bios if the sata port is hotswappable if it is then I would boot your system with out the 3.5 sata drive connected. Then plug in the drive sata and power connection while your machine is running windows. The drive should be detected by windows plug and play and you can access it as a data drive.

other people are correct, some files will have a security identifier (SID) from the old install of windows and you might have to run the take ownership utility. This will put your current SID on the files and you will be able to use them. Copy the data and then unplug the port and power when completed.

I would not attempt to boot with both drives connected just because having two drives with primary partitions can cause boot issues with some controllers. (intel rapid storage controller sometimes will re assign the drive letters on you) (sometimes it assigns a drive letter to hidden partitions and really messes up the next boot attempt)