[SOLVED] Keep OS on old HDD as 'back up'

[omaribnghulamrasul]

After the cloning process is complete and the OS is booting up from the SSD without problem, could I leave the OS on my HDD and use it as a sort of 'back up' OS, in that if there were ever any probelm with the SSD, I could just remove it and re-install the HDD and boot from it? If relevant, the windows 10 licence is OEM.

 

[aquielisunari]

After the cloning process is complete and the OS is booting up from the SSD without problem, could I leave the OS on my HDD and use it as a sort of 'back up' OS, in that if there were ever any probelm with the SSD, I could just remove it and re-install the HDD and boot from it? If relevant, the windows 10 licence is OEM.

Not a good idea. It won't receive updates so there may be security issues. You can go here to download 10 if you ever have an issue with the SSD.

 

[ebosss03]

You could do that the easiest way is just to leave it unplugged to avoid getting problems.. those problems can be solved but take some time.

 

[USAFRet]

I wouldn't, especially if you're going to keep that drive in the system and connected.
I've seen a couple of cases where that just leads to confusion.

And if it is offline, it quickly becomes out of date. Both in Windows Updates, and your personal use.

A better backup option is to make regular Images of your drive(s).
Read more here: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-3383768/backup-situation-home.html

 

[karenjoly]

That is a good idea . Just leave it as is and list the new drive as the boot priority drive in UEFI so the regular boot is to the newer drive . The mainboard likely has a boot menu available which allows the selection of the boot drive without going into UEFI. Sure, as noted, it will need to d/l updates and will not have recent apps etc.after a while. But if you plan this as a back up system, then regularly keep it up to date against the day FUBAR visits. When that happens, you just boot the back up and away you go. I manually update my back up systems once a month which is very feasible for a home personal computer..

As well, an advantage is that you have a disk available to test out new apps before installing them on the current drive. You will quite enjoy the security of a full back up at hand that you manually update from time to time. You can also use the extra space for storage.