Can I hot swap a drive with an OS on it.

[wheredgo1]

Hi Guys, I have an old HDD drive that has a win 7 & OS on it, my question is can I use a hot swappable drive bay to retrieve the data and programs on it. My worry is that the OS will boot up. If this idea has no merit any suggestions would be much appreciated.

 

[qazzi]

ok first off, yes you can hot swap the old drive. but make sure you are not hot swapping it to the "boot disk"(the drive in which the OS is installed and running) in the pc.

 

[wheredgo1]

Hi Qazzi,
Thanks for the response. Just done a build (1st one) and have the Corsair 650D case which has a external hot swap 2.5" and 3.5" combo port. My thinking was plug the drive in whilst PC is off, boot in to the bios and make sure the OS is booting from my SSD and start up. My worry is, will the OS on the HDD (if recognised) I've plugged in try to boot up or will this only happen if I have selected it in the bios which by the way is Asus and really easy to use.

 

[qazzi]

try to enter the bios and configure it to boot from your old drive rather than the SSD.

 

[wheredgo1]

I was considering that but was unsure if it would effect any of the new motherboard and graphics settings, or are they not altered.

 

[qazzi]

no, the graphic setting and motherboard are not altered in any way. only the boot disk priority is altered.

 

[wheredgo1]

Thanks Qazzi for your quick responses and advice,I will give that a shot later as I have to go out, I will post how it goes.

 

[wheredgo1]

Tried to boot the old drive from the bios, no go. I thought I'd give it a try and let it boot up windows from the SSD drive and like magic there it was, the old drive that is, happy days. Once again thank you for responding.