Boot Win 8.1 ENT SSD + Storage Win 8.1 OEM Dell HDD

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calebhleyba

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Dec 12, 2014
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So I bought a DELL XPS 8700 and did a few minor upgrades, installed a Blu-Ray drive in addition to the CD/DVD drive that came installed, upgraded the factory graphics cards to a EVGA GTX 750ti SC, and also bought an additional SSD.

I installed the Samsung 840 256GB SSD w/ a 2.5" to 3.5" bay converter inside my Dell bay. I got a Win 8.1 ENT ISO DVD and put it in the CD/DVD drive. I hit F2 when the PC booted up to get to the BOOT MENU. SATA mode was already defaulted to AHCI so all I did was re-arrange the boot order to the CD/DVD drive 1st. Saved/Exited and had it boot from the DVD w/ Win 8.1 ENT and it created 3 partitions in additions to the OS since it was a NEW untouched unformatted drive. Everything booted up fine, I installed all the drivers for my Dell XPS 8700 by the express service tag on the dell support site. Intel Chipset/Audio/Video drivers/WiFI/RealtekAudio/etc and everything running fine. My win 8.1 ENT still needs to be activated through an AnyConnect VPN Client which I will get activated shortly but I have not hooked up the original HDD that has Win 8.1 Basic OEM that came with the dell computer. How do I go about using the HDD more as a storage? I know to set the UEFI-boot manager as 1st in the boot order then the SSD running Win 8.1 ENT and then all the other drives and having the Original HDD from dell with the OEM basic win 8.1 last in the boot sequence.

So my Question is:

Will the system run fine having 2 diff types of OS's on the SSD & the HDD? (Win8.1 ENT SSD/Win8.1 Basic OEM HDD). And how do I go about saving applications on the SSD and media/photos/videos/ to the HDD? Will I run into any complications the way I've installed my SSD?
 
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Keeping the OS on the HDD can't cause problems. It may cause issues only if they are connected while installing the OS on the SSD (having another SSD already connected could also cause the same issues). I have a few systems like that and I never had an issue; in addition it allows me to boot from the HDD if need be.
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GhislainG

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Jul 16, 2008
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Your installation is fine. Once you reconnect the hard disk, you can use it as a normal disk. I did that on a few systems after installing a SSD. You can change where files are saved, but you'll probably see 2 partitions for the old disk: System Reserved and Local Disk.
 
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calebhleyba

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Dec 12, 2014
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As far as applications should I save the location to my SSD? I plan to install apps such as Cyberlink PowerDVD Ultra14, GoPro Studio Software, Dropbox, Adobe CS6 Master Collection / Adobe CS7 (CC), Skype, iTunes, iCloud Drive, MS Office '13
 
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calebhleyba

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Dec 12, 2014
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Thanks for the guides I will definitely be redirecting/pathing my subfolders to the HDD then. As far as not wanting the OS on both drives how would you go about it? The only reason I plan to keep the HDD the way it is is because it carries Dell's factory image and it's untouched with all the drivers/etc and it's an OEM Win 8.1 build, eventually when Win 10 is released fall of 2015 I plan to upgrade version or purchase an OEM/FullRetail version and upgrade that OS on the HDD. Furthermore, I plan to then wipe the SSD and do a clean install of WIN10 on it. I currently have a 256GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD running Win 8.1 ENT but needs to continually be connected through a VPN to stay windows activated and a 1TB WD Black HDD running the OEM Win 8.1, for storage I also have a 2TB Seagate Backup Plus, and a 1TB dropbox account. My only issue is when it comes to transferring/backing up documents and media when I do plan to upgrade to Win 10. I have large files from a DSLR, photos from my iPhone, short video clips from my GoPro, adobe template files etc, that I use continually and it takes forever to back-up/transfer. I want my my transition to Win10 to be the smoothest but I also currently want my PC to be set-up so I maximize efficiency/speed for my SSD and HDD. How would you go about my current situation?
 
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GhislainG

Titan
Jul 16, 2008
23,962
5
74,965
Keeping the OS on the HDD can't cause problems. It may cause issues only if they are connected while installing the OS on the SSD (having another SSD already connected could also cause the same issues). I have a few systems like that and I never had an issue; in addition it allows me to boot from the HDD if need be.
 
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