Windows 7 on two hard drives at the same time

[jobot83]

Hello,
im going to install an ssd (and run windows 7 from it) and would like to be able to keep my old hard drive with (exsisting windows 7 installation) for a few days till i sort out what i want to copy.

if i select the ssd as the boot drive then i should be able to look around in the old hard drive?? or am i wrong

 

[Goodeggray]

No

 

[weaselman]

If it does it right, when you install windows 7 onto the ssd drive as intended.
Windows setup should see you have two OS`s, one on the ssd as the new install, and the one of the old HD it was installed too.
It should then give you the option be fore it loads to give you a choice of what Os you wish to boot to, from the ssd drive or the older setup residing on the old HD drive. Or by pressing the F9 key on your keyboard right after the bios post screen before it attempts to load windows.

It will send you into windows boot manager of windows 7 where you can select the drive to boot from, if the Os resides on each drive.

 

[getochkn]

Weasel is right, it will show an option to boot Windows 7 or Windows 7. The first one "should" be your SSD.

Good has no idea what they're talking about, and just saying "no" without even a reason why, is "real" helpful, and wrong.

 

[Goodeggray]

He asked if he was wrong on his idea. So no meant he had the right solution.

 

[CaedenV]

I do this all of the time:
Remove old drive (or simply unplug it)
Install win7 on new SSD
plug old drive back in
go into BIOS and ensure that your SSD is set to the first drive to boot from, and then you will boot from the new SSD while still being able to browse files off your old drive.

More often than not I end up doing this, then moving all the files I want to keep into a single directory on the HDD, and then delete everything else off of the rest of the drive, and then use that HDD as a documents drive. Not as clean or as good as doing a fresh format, but it works if you do not have a 3rd drive to offload files to.

 

[clarkjd]

1 Remove your old HDD.
2. install your SSD.
3. install Windows on your SSD.
4. install your old HDD.
5. make sure that your BIOS is set to boot from your SSD.

At this point, you should be able to access your old HDD. If you make any changes to your old HDD, then you may not be able to boot from it in the future.

EDIT: I have GOT to start refreshing the thread before posting! I Always get beat when I don't!

 

[getochkn]

He asked if he was wrong on his idea. So no meant he had the right solution.

lol. I didn't get that, so see why I thought that with a one word answer.