[SOLVED] Do i need to wipe a non boot drive?

[Crushbam3]

This may be a stupid question but oh well. I'm planning on replacing my motherboard and cpu. I have an ssd which windows boots off and a hdd that just stores stuff. I know ill have to do a clean install of windows on the ssd which will wipe it but will i need to wipe the hdd that's just used for storage?

 

[King_V]

No. The only thing that I'm aware of is that when you do a clean install of Windows on the SSD, you probably will need to do that with the HDD disconnected... then when the OS installation is done, shut down the PC and reconnect the HDD.

I can't remember exactly why it's a problem, but as I recall, if you install to the SSD while the HDD is connected, Windows maintains some wacky state where it expects there to be a HDD, and if you ever remove it, Windows goes a little nuts.

I don't know the details, so I'm hoping someone else can fill in what happens (or if I am wrong in this)

 

[USAFRet]

If you have both drives connected, the install will put the boot partition on the other drive (the old HDD)
If that other already has one from a previous WIndows install, you'll end up with a very wonky pseudo dual boot scenario.

DISCONNECT THE OTHER DRIVE while you do the install on the drive in the new hardware.

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