[SOLVED] New mobo and cpu on the way. Do i need to reset both ssd and hdd when installing new mobo?

[reimondi]

Hey, I got new parts coming in few hours. Quick question, Do i need to reset both ssd and hdd when installing new mobo? I have windows and drivers installed on ssd, and I have just games, videos, pictures and around 1tb of clips of gaming on hdd.

 

[CountMike]

Hey, I got new parts coming in few hours. Quick question, Do i need to reset both ssd and hdd when installing new mobo? I have windows and drivers installed on ssd, and I have just games, videos, pictures and around 1tb of clips of gaming on hdd.

Just the one with OS on it.

 

[Krotow]

Reinstall OS on SSD. Left second drive (HDD) as is.

 

[USAFRet]

And when you do this install, have only the ONE drive connected.
Reconnect the HDD later.

How To - Windows 10 clean install tutorial

If you are looking for the Windows 11 Clean install tutorial, you can find that here: Windows 11 Clean install tutorial (Click here) Otherwise, welcome to the Windows 10 Clean install tutorial This tutorial is intended to help you, step by step, to perform a clean install of Windows...

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[reimondi]

And when you do this install, have only the ONE drive connected.
Reconnect the HDD later.

How To - Windows 10 clean install tutorial

If you are looking for the Windows 11 Clean install tutorial, you can find that here: Windows 11 Clean install tutorial (Click here) Otherwise, welcome to the Windows 10 Clean install tutorial This tutorial is intended to help you, step by step, to perform a clean install of Windows...

forums.tomshardware.com

Why? (Just want to know )

 

[USAFRet]

Why? (Just want to know )

The first part of that link outlines why.

When you install Windows with more than one drive connected, the boot partition (System Reserved) usually ends up on the other drive. Nothing you choose, it just does it.
6 months from now, when you want to replace that "other drive"...you're system will not boot up..."(

And if there is already a boot partition on that drive, then they get merged, and you end up with a weird sort of dual boot thing.

With only ONE drive connected, it has no choice but to put all of this on one physical drive.

 

[Krotow]

To OP: Listen what people say and disconnect other drive before Windows setup. Period.

When you install Windows with more than one drive connected, the boot partition (System Reserved) usually ends up on the other drive. Nothing you choose, it just does it.
6 months from now, when you want to replace that "other drive"...you're system will not boot up..."(

Depends from drive order and partitions already present before Windows setup. If Windows system partition is on second drive, boot and recovery partitions may end up on first drive and then things will happen as you say. And if any other drive already have recovery partition left from previous Windows installation, current Windows setup will squat that partition without hesitation and without making one for itself on drive where system is. This actually is one of many things why I frown upon Windows in general. What bad would happen if Windows setup developers would give to us some Advanced setup mode where tech savvy people would set where to put particular partition. That stupid thing (Windows) works just fine in nearly any partition combination anyway.

And if there is already a boot partition on that drive, then they get merged, and you end up with a weird sort of dual boot thing.

LOL I have dual boot with Linux Mint and Windows 10 in my current machine. They happily share same EFI boot partition. Plot twist - both OS-es share single 1 TB NVMe drive which is third physical drive in system - M.2_2 slot. M.2_1 slot (second drive) is taken by another NVMe drive where Steam cache live. And 1st drive is SATA SSD where IO keep all local garbage. Luckily BIOS in MSI B550 boards is advanced enough to know which drive is bootable. The catch was to left NVMe drive in M.2_1 slot not partitioned which was enough for Windows 10 setup to ignore it. SSD was disconnected at Windows setup time. During Linux setup dancing with tambourine around drives was not required - luckily that setup is smarter.