switching hard drives in and out?

asdf11 · May 8, 2014

this is a random question i know, but can i constantly switch two different hard drives in and out of my PC with separate windows on each of them without causing any problems? don't ask me why, but my case can only hold one hard drive atm and one of the hard drives has all my gaming stuff on it and the other one has all of my work stuff on it, so i'd like to plug my gaming hard drive in when i want to game and my work hard drive in when i need to work.

i'm know very little about computers so take it easy on me

danilovrb47 · May 8, 2014

As long as you don't damage somethig while switching your hdds, you should have no problems. I switch my hdds all the time.

Someone Somewhere · May 8, 2014

If the windows installs are on the same key (unless it's an OEM SLIC one), you might have activation issues. But only might.

SATA connectors are only rated for 50 insert/remove cycles, so don't do it too often.

I suggest just putting the second drive on the bottom of the case or an ODD bay or something.

asdf11 · May 8, 2014

awesome. and let's say i have two hard drives and one of them has the windows installed on it but the other doesn't, could i reformat the hard drive with the windows stuff on it and the other hard drive would still work like it did before with the freshly-formatted other hard drive?

danilovrb47 · May 8, 2014

I must be lucky

. I surely switched hdds more than 50 times on one SATA cable, never having problems.

Y0GI · May 8, 2014

asdf11 :

Yes, if you did a fresh install of Windows on the reformatted drive, or used the second drive on another computer that has Windows OS on it.

Yogi

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