Using hard drive that has windows installed.

[cadefoster]

I'm building a new computer with a SSD that i will use as my primary drive with operating system. I would like to use my current hardrive as a secondary drive but will i run into problems since it currently has windows installed on it? or is there a way i can uninstall windows from the secondary drive once i have the new machine up and running? I'm planning on uninstalling as much as i can before hand, i just basically want to keep my existing pictures, videos etc. thanks in advance.

 

[kanewolf]

This seems like the right time to purchase a USB drive for backups. It doesn't sound like you have a backup capability now. Those pictures are a risk of being lost without a backup capability. Backup what you want to save, then format the entire drive.

 

[Eximo]

Set your new computer up using the SSD. Then plug the old drive into the computer. You can format it from windows after taking off everything you want to save.

If there isn't enough space to store the files you want to keep there are methods for simply deleting Windows from another drive. Usually involves taking over ownership of the files to be able to delete them.

 

[USAFRet]

I'm building a new computer with a SSD that i will use as my primary drive with operating system. I would like to use my current hardrive as a secondary drive but will i run into problems since it currently has windows installed on it? or is there a way i can uninstall windows from the secondary drive once i have the new machine up and running? I'm planning on uninstalling as much as i can before hand, i just basically want to keep my existing pictures, videos etc. thanks in advance.

Removing the OS, with other critical stuff on that same drive is problematic.
Those pictures, etc, are in your previous /User/ folders.
C/Users/CadeFoster/Pictures/....
And the permissions for that user folder is for the original user.
In your new system, even if you use the same user name for the log on, NTFS will treat it as a different 'user'.

It is strongly advisable to copy those files out to a whole different drive, and then completely wipe the old drive.
You can then use it as desired.

If I had a nickel for everyone that came here looking for assistance with "I accidentally wiped the wrong folder/partition/drive...I'd buy a whole new system. Or a used car.

And I completely agree with the above recommendation for some sort of backup situation.
You are but one head crash, misclick, or major virus from having all of that go bye bye.

 

[cadefoster]

Thanks so much for all the advice. So if I understand correctly, If I just install my current drive as a secondary in a new machine as is, Windows will assume I'm a new user and won't allow access to the files on the drive?

 

[USAFRet]

Thanks so much for all the advice. So if I understand correctly, If I just install my current drive as a secondary in a new machine as is, Windows will assume I'm a new user and won't allow access to the files on the drive?

Won't allow "easy" access.
You can Take Ownership of those folders, but that is an easily preventable step, by moving that data elsewhere first.