Installed OS with both SSD and HDD attached!

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
M

maceintn

Honorable
May 23, 2012
7
0
10,510
Hello,

So I built a new system with an ASUS P8Z68-V Pro/Gen3 MoBo; Kingston HyperX 128GB SSD; and a WD 1TB Black HDD. Problem is I goofed and had both drives attached when I installed Win 7 Ultimate, Firefox, Threatfire, and MS Office. Then I got around to looking at the drives with Win Explorer and discovered I only had a C: drive!

Device Manager sees both drives. So, should I start over? If so, do I need to reformat or erase anything on either drives? Blast, didn't do enough reading before installing! Thanks in advance for any help.

maceintn
 
Solution
C



you will need to reformat the drive. you can try to delete all the partitions but i dont think it will let you delete the 100mb one. after deleting just reformat it.
Sort by date Sort by votes
P

pdxalex

Honorable
Apr 25, 2012
597
0
11,010
You should be fine as doing a fresh install with multiple drives attached isn't an issue. If you just purchased the WD (ie it's blank), in Windows Explorer right click on My Computer > Manage then go to Storage > Disk Management and it probably shows up as unallocated space. Right click on it to create a new simple volume and follow the brief wizard.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
P

pdxalex

Honorable
Apr 25, 2012
597
0
11,010


I don't know where you're getting that from, but it's incorrect. What's on the second drive is completely irrelevant. Windows isn't going to check the WD and randomly start mixing registry entries or plucking out various DLLs or drivers from a previous installation. He could remove the HDD without any issues.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
C

cbrunnem

Distinguished
Dec 19, 2010
3,331
0
20,960


ive done it before. remove old hard drive no boot. put it back in and it boots.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
P

pdxalex

Honorable
Apr 25, 2012
597
0
11,010


Maybe you removed the wrong drive or after the windows installation you started installing other components such as drivers onto your secondary drive, or you did some other wonky thing ;)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
M

maceintn

Honorable
May 23, 2012
7
0
10,510
Hey, I'm back. Had some stuff to do. Well,I read the comments and decided to try it and see what happened! So I disconnected the power to my HDD and plugged the power back into the supply and rebooted. Result: Got win boot manager. No Windows!

Thanks for the replies. Seems to me I'll have to reinstall? If so, do I need to do anything like formatting?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
C

cbrunnem

Distinguished
Dec 19, 2010
3,331
0
20,960


you need to reinstall without the old windows on your old hard drive. you can not have a fresh drive and a windows drive in the computer at the same time and try to install the the new drive. it gets messed up.

just reinstall to the SSD with the other hard drive out of the computer.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
M

maceintn

Honorable
May 23, 2012
7
0
10,510
So I started to reinstall Win7 to the ssd(with hdd unplugged!), choose custum and it asks where to install: 1)disk 0 partition 1:system reserved total size 100.0MB free space 71.0MB type system or 2)diak 0 unallocated space total space 111.7GB free space 111.7GB ? That screen also had a button that leads to "disk options" that has "delete", "extend", "format", and "new" links! Ugggh kicking myself for not doing it right the first time!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
C

cbrunnem

Distinguished
Dec 19, 2010
3,331
0
20,960



you will need to reformat the drive. you can try to delete all the partitions but i dont think it will let you delete the 100mb one. after deleting just reformat it.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
G

Guest

Guest
Get rid of that system reserved! worthless on a SSD.
http://www.mydigitallife.info/hack-to-remove-100-mb-system-reserved-partition-when-installing-windows-7/

On the “Where do you want to install Windows?” partition screen of Windows 7 Setup, click on Drive options (advanced) to delete existing partitions and create a new partition.

Click OK when Install Windows wizard prompts with the following message:
To ensure that all Windows features work correctly, Windows might create additional partitions for system files.
windows-7-additional-partition.JPG

Two partitions should be created, a System Reserved System type partition (Disk 0 Partition 1) with 100.00 MB in size, and originally intended primary type partition (Disk 0 Partition 2) with allocated size now less 100MB.
Delete the Primary Partition created.
delete-primary-partition.JPG

Click OK when prompted that “The partition might contain recovery files, system files, or important software from your computer manufacturer. If you delete this partition, any data stored on it will be lost.”
partition-data-lost.JPG

All disk space inside the partition deleted will now become unallocated space. Now, highlight System Reserved Partition, and click Extend. Assign the available disk space to the partition, and click Apply.
extend-partition.JPG

Click OK when promoted with “Extending a partition is not a reversible action. If you proceed, you will not be able to undo this action later.
extend-partition-non-reversible.JPG

Highlight on the extended System Reserved Partition, and click Format.
Click OK when prompted with “The partition might contain recovery files, system files, or important software from your computer manufacturer. If you format this partition, any data stored on it will be lost.”
format-partition.JPG

After finished formatting, the originally System Reserved Partition will now become normal system partition, ready to install Windows 7. Proceed to install Windows 7 as usual.
windows-7-partition.JPG
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
P

pdxalex

Honorable
Apr 25, 2012
597
0
11,010


Maybe you can share a link from a reputable source to support this claim.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
M

maceintn

Honorable
May 23, 2012
7
0
10,510


I deleted the partition that was there, then clicked on "new" and repartitioned the ssd. Reinstalled win7. etc. reconnected the hdd deleted the stuff that the first instal had put there, reformatted it to e: drive and moved my Users and firefox downloads folders there, installed autocad to the ssd and will put office ther as soon as onthehub allows me to since I wiped out the first install. Now I need to figure out what else to put on the ssd and what to put on the hdd. I'll have to do some more reading.
Anyway, thanks a lot for your help both of you.

Mace
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
M

maceintn

Honorable
May 23, 2012
7
0
10,510



Yes, that's what I did, just like you said. I didn't read your post until after I did it though. Appreciate the confirmation though.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
G

Guest

Guest
glad you got it sorted with your intuition.
btw, you should have enough room for all your programs and move you user files; music, documents, videos and such over to the platter along with the swap file.

if you start to run out of room because of a lot of programs, its not hard to move a few over to the platter and use the MKLINK command to have windows think its still on the SSD.

just google MKLINK and you'll see. have fun! :)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom