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eaglepi

Member
Joined
Feb 7, 2005
I've been building my own computers for years and I guess I know just enough to get the job done.

I just bought a new SSD that I want to install and put my OS on as well as all my programs. My system has a hard drive for the OS and I have 4 other Hard Drives just for storage. In the past I never had to remove the storage drives , my system would only see the HD with the OS on it. This time I will disconnect the storage drives but something I was told confuses me.


I was told I have to keep the current HD that has the OS on it so I can connect the SSD and initialize it, once that is initialized I can remove the other HD with the older OS. I plan to install a new windows 10 I bought on the SSD then once the SSD is installed and the OS is installed then I will connect the other storage drives and continue my software installs, some are downloads that I keep on a storage drive.

Am I doing it properly and is what I was told about installing the SSD while the current drive with OS is still connected so I can initialize the SSD.

I would appreciate any and all help
 
If you boot from install media to do a fresh install Windows 10 should handle it. I installed Windows 7 on a Samsung SSD that way and Windows 10 on an Adata SSD that way. And yes, the drive you're installing the OS on should be the only one connected when you install an OS. I've had Windows 10 do "funny" things to a storage drive, like make it invisible to Windows 7 in a dual boot.
 
If you boot from install media to do a fresh install Windows 10 should handle it. I installed Windows 7 on a Samsung SSD that way and Windows 10 on an Adata SSD that way. And yes, the drive you're installing the OS on should be the only one connected when you install an OS. I've had Windows 10 do "funny" things to a storage drive, like make it invisible to Windows 7 in a dual boot.

So the jusk about keeping the old HD on to UEFI/BIOS the SSD is wrong?? I was told to do that from the company who makes the SSD so I am about confused
 
If you're talking about cloning the drive or OS you'll need them both plugged in. If doing a clean install of Windows 10 you should be able to do whatever is needed from the install media. I plugged in a brand new SSD and booted from the Windows DVD and installed with zero problems.
 
First of all, as Alaric said, you definitely do not want to leave the original system drive connected when you install Windows 10 on the new SSD. And you do not need it to initialize anything. That's bologna! The SSD mfg techs must have misunderstood what you wanted to do.

But the thing you need to be careful about is if you add in the original drive to the system after that and it still has the OS on it, there is the possibility that the computer will try to boot from the old drive. Are you going to reformat it or try to use it like it is because there is data on it you need? If you are going to reuse it as a storage drive I certainly would back up the data on it that you may want to keep and then reformat it so it doesn't confuse the boot process.
 
What he^ said. My dual boot with Windows 10 defaults to 10 to give me the choice of which OS to boot. Windows 10 likes to take over everything. If you're going to dual boot change the boot order in the BIOS, if not I would still make the OS drive first in the boot order. It's faster if the mobo doesn't have to hunt through other drives to find the boot loader.
 
There were some old ssds that required some funny things to get them working right. I had one that I could not get an OS installation to see. The only way I got it to work was to load it in my other computer and format it with a drive letter. Popped it back into my new build and the OS installation media recognized it right away. This is not the norm for ssds nowadays and you should not have to go through this but this may be what the tech as talking about.
 
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