Clean Wipe two HDD’s and reinstall Win10

[spangar]

Hi everyone. I have two 2TB HDD in my computer and would like to wipe them both clean and restart. I have the secondary one cloning the first one but I don’t see the need for that as they are mostly filled with video games. Very replaceable files. It has gotten very slow on start up, and when opening certain games. I want to have my OS on one and a few games I play frequently and then everything else on the other. I was thinking about wiping one of them and then copying the OS onto the freshly wiped one then formatting the other one. Is this the best way to do this without the risk of corrupting something or should I do something else? Thanks in advance

 

[kanewolf]

When installing the OS, leave only one disk connected to the PC. That is the only "special handling" that is required.

 

[coozie7]

* Yep, that's the easiest way to do it, once Windows is installed and running properly just power down the system reconnect the second drive and format it as required.

Couple of points before you proceed:
Before nuking both drives skim through and save out any files you DO want to keep-burn them to disc or copy them to a USB drive.

Windows can, and will attempt to load and install any required drivers but it's not 100% reliable, as a precaution download and save out all the drivers the system will need to a suitable sized USB stick, and if you have a Ryzen system you MAY want to update the BIOS while you're at it.
Don't forget the motherboard/chipset drivers.

Now would be a really good time to consider adding an SSD into the mix, transferring/cloning/migrating from HDD to SSD is, at best a pain, and at worst plain impossible, installing directly onto a new drive should be simple in your case because you won't be keeping any of your files.
If you decide to add an SSD, check the BIOS is set to AHCI mode before you begin to install Windows, operating in this mode is better for an SSD.
You will HAVE to reformat the HDDs if they were not formatted under AHCI or Windows won't be able to use them.
Don't forget to reset the BIOS boot order...It's easily done.

 

[spangar]

Thank you. I’ve considered an SSD but haven’t wanted to pull the trigger on one yet. I want one bigger than a 250 but don’t want to spend $150 yet. Would just like to make what I have now work better until I’m willing to spend more money on my PC

 

[coozie7]

Fair comment, I understand money doesn't grow on trees, mate.
So: Just unplug one HDD and install to the other as you normally would, once that's done, power down, reconnect the second drive, power up and nuke it.
Note, the second drive may not be recognised, Windows has built in disc management utilities that should allow you to find it and get it working just type 'disc management' into the search box to find them.