Noob Question about Multiple Storage Drives

[Franklin_4]

Hey all,

I recently upgrade from a 1tb baracuda HDD to a 256mb Samsung Evo 960 NVMe.

I installed my OS, Steam, and a few other games/applications on the m.2 SSD.

I leave my HDD unplugged because i really dont need anything from it and 250gb is plenty for me at the moment.

However, i would like to know how to better take advantage of multiple harddrives.

As it stands right now, the only way i know to access my HDD is to restart, fpress F2, open BIOS, and change boot options. When i boot from the old HDD it spends a good amount of time updating windows every time. Pretty frustrating.

So is there a way i can leave the evo as my main boot option and do still access files from my old HDD? I come from 2 decades of Mac experience and im pretty familiar with the Time Machine on my MBP and accessing external HDDs for old documents, photos, music, data...but this is my first time with 2 seperate internal Drives, and my first time having two drive on a PC.

Thanks for any help you can offer, sorry for the noob question!!

 

[voxic]

Yes, just plug your hard drive back in, and when you get into windows (on the ssd of course), you can access the hard drive like you're accessing pictures or documents.

 

[USAFRet]

For the HDD, you neither need nor want the old OS on it. At all.

Ideally, you should wipe that HDD completely, and then use it as needed. It will simply be just another drive letter.

Please post a screencap of your Disk Management window. The HDD should be seen as a different drive letter.

 

[Franklin_4]

okay i will post a few pics surrounding this topic late tonight around 10pm EST.

how would i go about wiping the OS from the old HDD without losing all the files on it? I only want to save that HDD for stuff like word docs, pictures, some sketchup mock-ups, and my main skyrim hero (lol) is stuck on there ... steam cant seem to import it from the cloud haha...so is there a way to wipe my HDD of the OS without losing all those things?

 

[USAFRet]

okay i will post a few pics surrounding this topic late tonight around 10pm EST.

how would i go about wiping the OS from the old HDD without losing all the files on it? I only want to save that HDD for stuff like word docs, pictures, some sketchup mock-ups, and my main skyrim hero (lol) is stuck on there ... steam cant seem to import it from the cloud haha...so is there a way to wipe my HDD of the OS without losing all those things?

Let's see the config, before we worry about wiping things.
Also, install and run WinDirStat. https://windirstat.net/

Run As Administrator, on each drive individually.
Post both screencaps here.

 

[Franklin_4]

sorry i got really busy last night and havent had time to even be on my home computer, let alone do these things yall are suggesting. ill get around to it soon tho!