Old windows 7 to smaller SSD windows 7 plus data drive

[gbswales]

I want to replace my existing windows 7 system - which is all on a 1gb partition on a 2gb hard drive and set up a new windows 7 system which has Windows 7 System files and program files on a new SSD drive and to use the old 2gb drive for data storage. I have all my data files copied onto the second partition of this disk

Before outlining my question I do have a full image back up of my existing windows partition!

I have temporarily replaced the old system drive with the new SSD and installed Windows 7 and some key programs onto it

Is there a way that I can run windows from the SSD with the old windows system disk connected to another sata connector so that I can access it as a second drive
Then I could:-
1) double check the old drive to make sure I have ALL the data I need on the second partition
2) delete the old 1 GB system partition (and the associated boot partition which has grub loader on it - that I no longer want to use)
3) create/format a new 1 GB partition
4) Move the standard windows data files from the SSD to this new partition (I have read how to do this OK) and
5) Copy the data from the second partition on the old system drive to the appropriate system data files on partition one

To my simple mind this should all be possible but the one thing that worries me is will it cause problems booting up my PC from the new SSD installation while having the other installed on another sata channel. I looked in the bios menu but there is no option there to select a particular hard drive to boot from only "hard drive", my worry is that it may pick up the wrong disk and run grub loader

I know the easiest way might be to use a third drive to temporarily house the data I need but the only one that I have is an external drive which has my current system back up image on it. I dont want to lose that yet because if I find I dont like the SSD System/seperate data drive set up - then I might still want to restore my old set up again!

 

[JDFan]

Shouldn't be a problem - since you are adding the HDD after already having the ssd setup it should already correctly boot from the SSD since the boot loader already points to it as the Main Default OS - but even if it does somehow pick up the HDD it will offer a selection of Which you want to boot from when you boot. Then after you are in the correct OS you can go into the system configuration (Run MSCONFIG from the start menu) and go to the boot tab and remove the reference to the HDD from the list so it will no longer give the option to select which to boot from.

 

[gbswales]

Thanks to JDFAN for responding - I actually went ahead and did this already and it worked fine - my old hard drive was there but not mounted - all I had to do was to give the second partition a drive letter and delete the first partition to get rid of the old version of windows and grub loader. Pleased to say the installation has gone well and my SSD is now the hard drive - now I want to see if I can get it to boot using the 6Gb/s pci card - when I first tried the computer said it couldn't but going to have another go today - that would be icing on the cake if it works

 

[gbswales]

Best answer selected by gbswales.

 

[gbswales]

Just to say I am very pleased with my new system now I have the 6gbs card working my login to full desktop (including all my progs) is 27 seconds and complete boot from switch on which includes one finger typing is 1 min 20 secs - amazing even for Win 7
The set up I have is the 120gb SSD system and programmes which backs up to a 250gb conventional drive image with incremental back ups
2 GB data drive which is synchronised to a second 2GB data drive
should do me for a while!

 

[nikorr]

This topic has been closed by Nikorr.