Question regarding hard drives and new Windows installs

[morrowheat23]

Hello all, I am going to be doing a clean install of Windows 10 here soon for my upcoming PC build. I will be using a 120GB Kingston SSD that I am using now for the install. However, I have my documents, downloads and other Windows directories set to my 1TB Seagate mechanical drive.
Now to the question. Since Windows sets the directories my default to the boot drive, will I be able to set them back to my mechanical drive and keeps all of my files as they are? If not, what are your recommendations for solving the issue? Thanks in advance.

 

[ChaoticWolf]

From what I've read, I think you said that you have Windows installed on one drive and all your personal files installed on another, am I correct? Correct me if I'm wrong.
Since you want to reinstall Windows, all you really need to do is install windows on the 120GB Kingston SDD that you want to use for the install. It shouldn't delete any files on the other drive with all your personal files, it will just delete the files that are on the ssd that you want to use to fresh install Windows.
But I'm not 100% certain that it will format all your drives for some reason, so just to be on the safe side, I would recommend using a flash drive or external hdd/sdd and putting all the important files from the second drive on the external device.
I'm not sure if I know what you're saying 100% correctly, but if this applies to you, you can try

 

[joshmoyer]

Unplug the HDD while you install windows to the SSD. Once Windows is installed, turn the PC off, plug the HDD in, and reboot windows. You should have to go install disk management and select the partition and activate it, and i think there's an option to avoid formatting. If not, get an external device, move important files off the drive, then format, then reconnect, then move stuff back over. Then go to the Documents tab in file explorer, right-click, go to properties, then location, then set a new location, (D:\Documents would work) on your HDD, which would be drive D. Any questions let me know

 

[ChaoticWolf]

Yeah actually, unplug the hdd with the important files and just leave the ssd plugged in while installing to avoid it getting formatted

 

[morrowheat23]

Unplug the HDD while you install windows to the SSD. Once Windows is installed, turn the PC off, plug the HDD in, and reboot windows. You should have to go install disk management and select the partition and activate it, and i think there's an option to avoid formatting. If not, get an external device, move important files off the drive, then format, then reconnect, then move stuff back over. Then go to the Documents tab in file explorer, right-click, go to properties, then location, then set a new location, (D:\Documents would work) on your HDD, which would be drive D. Any questions let me know

Seems like that would work, I have all of my documents and whatnot backed up externally so it shouldn't be an issue. I'll let you know here soon if I run in to any hiccups, thanks!