2 SSDs with Windows

MarkMcG · 17 Mar 2018 at 19:48

My current machine has a 250GB SSD used as the main drive, with a couple of HDD for storage.

My old machine, no longer used also has a 250GB SSD in it that had Windows 10 on it.

If I move the SSD from my old machine to my current machine without formatting first, will this cause issues when I go to boot as there would then be 2 copies of Windows on the machine?

Meddling-Monk · 17 Mar 2018 at 20:27

In theory, it shouldn't do.

Your Bios settings should have one set as the primary boot inside it's boot order, so the other one will be ignored anyway. So it should be all good unless you intend to also do a lot of rewiring of the SSDs and also defaulting your Bios settings as well so it doesn't know which one to boot from first.

APM · 17 Mar 2018 at 21:09

You may have to choose which one you want to boot from,F8 or F11 if it won't boot then choose boot order.

mrbazmondo · 17 Mar 2018 at 21:25

You can use diskpart to remove the bootable flag from the windows partition on the old disk so it will never be able to boot it.

Pocah · 17 Mar 2018 at 22:11

I can do, yes. What you have to do is after you install the disk, stop the machine booting up by hitting del and check in the bios which disk it will boot up on. Ensure in the bios that the ONLY option is to boot to the original drive then everything should be fine. Once it is booted, then you can erase the old drive.

MarkMcG · 18 Mar 2018 at 17:27

Thanks for the tips and advice. Drive successfully swapped over. No issues on boot up.