Help with dual-drive OS setup!

Yesterday my PC decided to completely flake out on me, so I ended up doing a clean installation of Windows 10.

During the install process, the only drive that would let me put the OS on was my 500 GB Seagate 500. Before this mess, I had a Samsung SSD 250 that used to hold the operating system. For some reason—I honestly have no clue what happened—the partition on that drive just vanished or got wiped out entirely. I managed to use Microsoft Disk Management to create a new partition on that Samsung SSD 250, which worked fine.

So, here’s the plan: I ran the "Clonezilla" option through Microsoft to move the entire operating system from the Seagate 500 over to the C: Drive, marking it as the primary drive. I went into the BIOS, set the boot priority to the C: Drive (where the OS lives now), restarted, and everything seems to be running smoothly.

What I'm wondering is, what should I do with the original 500 GB drive? It's working perfectly fine, but it still has the old operating system files cluttering it up.

Would anything bad happen if I just formatted that drive or deleted the partition? If I wipe the old stuff off the Seagate 500, will I still be able to boot into Windows normally, since the whole OS is now safely sitting on the C: Drive?

Thanks!

just
Try unplugging the hard drive with the (D: partition) and see if you can boot straight from the SSD (C: Drive).
If the OS kicks in from the C: Drive, then you're golden—it means you can wipe the old OS off that D: drive without any drama.
ps: Just a heads up, make sure you're doing all that disconnecting and reconnecting while the PC is completely powered down.

wearymason4, thanks so much! 👍
Man, how did I miss that... 🤦

P.S. It doesn't matter if my BIOS shows disk 2 (the one I'm disabling) on SATA1, while the SSD is sitting on SATA2, right?

It shouldn't be much of an issue, you just have to make sure you set the right boot priority in the BIOS settings.
It feels like ages ago when certain motherboards would insist on having the boot drive plugged into the first SATA port, especially if that specific port had a faster transfer rate, but I don't really see stuff like that mentioned in manuals anymore.

wearymason4, I finally got it sorted!

Unplugged it, and it works perfectly. Plugged it back in, ran a format, and everything is looking good!
Thanks a ton! 👍

dustyviper5 said:wearymason4, thanks so much! 👍
Man, how did I miss that... 🤦

P.S. It doesn't matter if my BIOS shows disk 2 (the one I'm disabling) on SATA1, while the SSD is sitting on SATA2, right?

Just as a little tip for future reference—and I’m definitely guilty of this too—it’s always a smart move to have two drives in a desktop setup, ideally with an OS installed on both. That way, if one starts acting up or just completely dies on you, you can quickly switch over to the other and keep things rolling without missing a beat.

It usually makes more sense to plug your primary drive into the SATA1 port,

Siri: if that SSD is already empty, I’d bet anything it’ll be full again before you know it.

Well, now I’ve run into a whole new headache:
swiftowl7, wearymason4, or honestly anyone else—I could use some help here:

So, a few days ago, I wiped my drive and did a clean install of everything. Since I was down to just one working drive at the time (my Western Digital 500 GB—the partition on my other drive had vanished on me), I installed everything onto that one. My old Samsung SSD 250 GB, which held my Windows setup and all my software, was sitting on SATA1. Once the installation was finished, I moved the entire OS and all my programs over to the SSD, formatted the Western Digital, and called it a day. Everything seemed fine, except now my Western Digital is plugged into SATA1, while the SSD is on SATA2, and the system is booting from the SSD on SATA2.

Is it actually possible to swap them back—move the SSD to SATA1 and put the Western Digital on SATA2—so things go back to how they were originally?

From what I can gather—though I’m probably 99.9% wrong about this—it should just be a matter of swapping the cables connected to the drives. I know I might be totally off base, but I figured I'd ask for some advice before I touch anything.

You can just swap the cables on the motherboard or the drives, whichever is easier for you, I guess.

fadedorca66, I swapped it out—all fixed! 👍