[SOLVED] Dying drive requires me to get a new boot drive. I have questions though.

[hundrader]

The boot drive in my desktop is getting old and showing just about every sign that is is about to die at any minute. it is a 1TB Seagate Barracuda HDD and it is currently my boot drive. I have everything on that drive that I want from it backed up on other drives I have so I will be ok if it dies suddenly but my concern right now is my secondary drive, just for reference, it is a 2TB Seagate Barracuda HDD.
I got a Crucial 1TB 2.5" SSD and want to make that my boot drive and I was going to format my 1TB Seagate drive to just sit as tertiary storage for the rest of its life. My question is, will I be able to install and activate Windows on the SSD and have access to my 2TB Seagate drive without concern?
I am worried that it will:

• Possibly not give me permission to access the data on that drive
• Windows will not like the fact that it is already formatted and has data on it when it is recognized by Windows and do whatever it may do.

I can't remember where I saw it or what the case was but I believe someone did not have permission to their own files when they reinstalled Windows in a similar situation as me.
Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

[NightHawkRMX]

• Possibly not give me permission to access the data on that drive
• Windows will not like the fact that it is already formatted and has data on it when it is recognized by Windows and do whatever it may do.

You should have permission. If not, you can easily change that.
Windows will see data fine. Dont expect programs installed onto the HDD to work tho.

 

[hundrader]

You should have permission. If not, you can easily change that.
Windows will see data fine. Dont expect programs installed onto the HDD to work tho.

I was going to reinstall programs that I had installed but I didn't want to lose (or lose access) to any of the raw data I had.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Nope, you shouldn't lose data.

I would unplug the 2tb HDD when installing windows onto the SSD. Just to make sure nothing goes wrong.

Alternatively, if your 1tb hdd is working enough you can clone that drive to the SSD.

 

[USAFRet]

What exists on that drive and permissions is irrelevant.
You need t copy your personal data off that drive NOW. Not wait until later.

And copy just the actual files, not the 'Libraries ' folders . Document/Pictures/Video, etc.


EDIT: OK, I misread
What exactly is on your secondary drive? If it is not the actual Libraries you are fine.
No permissions issues at all.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

And copy just the actual files, not the 'Libraries ' folders . Document/Pictures/Video, etc.

Usually, the USERs folder has most of what you want. Although you may need to take permission of it in some cases.

 

[USAFRet]

Usually, the USERs folder has most of what you want. Although you may need to take permission of it in some cases.

Right.
But the permissions are tied to the folder, not necessarily the files within.

Copy those files to outside that /User/ structure, and all permissions are off.