Do you still disconnect other drives when installing windows?

Mcnumpty2323 · 15 Oct 2021 at 15:23

smogsy said:
no dont see why you lot take extra steps to disconnect drives. this has not been needed since xp..

1. Have your OS drive be a different total size than all others.

2. when installing windows

you will see:
drive 0: 250GB
drive 1: 1TB
drive 2: 1TB

just use your eyes job done... not exactly rocket science

It's mainly done to avoid boot record issues
Example 1 drive fails and your pc wont boot because it's looking for that drive
Had that happen plenty times as can't simply
Turn off nvme drives as mentioned
Not because of formatting the wrong drive during setup
Though no doubt there's been people do that too

Mcnumpty2323 · 15 Oct 2021 at 15:26

this_is_gav said:
You only format the wrong drive once (in the DOS days for me).

But yes, on my motherboard at least you can disable individual ports, so I just do that these days, not that I reinstall Windows often anymore anyway.

Individual nvme m2 ports?
Sata ports usually you can but not had a motherboard
I can do nvme m2 ports
If yours allows those that would be useful

andy_mk3 · 15 Oct 2021 at 15:28

I used to up until around W7. Don't bother any more, just triple check which drive I format

this_is_gav · 15 Oct 2021 at 15:33

Mcnumpty2323 said:
Individual nvme m2 ports?
Sata ports usually you can but not had a motherboard
I can do nvme m2 ports
If yours allows those that would be useful

I only have one M2 port. I can't comment on other boards obviously.

smogsy · 15 Oct 2021 at 20:13

Mcnumpty2323 said:
It's mainly done to avoid boot record issues
Example 1 drive fails and your pc wont boot because it's looking for that drive
Had that happen plenty times as can't simply
Turn off nvme drives as mentioned
Not because of formatting the wrong drive during setup
Though no doubt there's been people do that too

Boot record issues was fixed like 5 years ago.
It was an issue in windows 7 but never an issue with W10.

as long remove all the partitions so only 1 item for
Drive 0:

Remains then boot record will be created on the right drive.. drive 0.
If you don't clear up the extra partitions before install/reinstall then it will use other drives for boot records

So as an ex MVP this feature is working as intended, just seems no one understands how it works..

Either way you do not need to disconnect drives anymore.

Mcnumpty2323 · 15 Oct 2021 at 20:27

smogsy said:
Boot record issues was fixed like 5 years ago.
It was an issue in windows 7 but never an issue with W10.

as long remove all the partitions so only 1 item for
Drive 0:

Remains then boot record will be created on the right drive.. drive 0.
If you don't clear up the extra partitions before install/reinstall then it will use other drives for boot records

So as an ex MVP this feature is working as intended, just seems no one understands how it works..

Either way you do not need to disconnect drives anymore.

Not sure if it's because I have multiple drives with windows installed
Not just 1 and the others as data/storage
But still seems to be an issue for me

malachi · 17 Oct 2021 at 08:53

I disable the drives in the bios, Windows can still have a werid habit putting the bootloader which isn't the primary drive.

Terminal_Boy · 17 Oct 2021 at 08:58

Trig said:
Windows' fault you formatted the wrong drive?

No, my fault in not triple checking which drive it was going to format.

Drizmod · 17 Oct 2021 at 12:20

Ever since I got the TLDR missing error after a secondary drive failure I always have installed with just the install drive. I know its not required any more but you built habits.

lsg1r · 23 Oct 2021 at 01:15

Yes, still do due to the way I have my drives setup, user folders/documents etc are on a different drive to the OS/programs.
Once windows is installed I just 'reattach' the relevant user folders to the other drive.

Might be a little different when I upgrade and get nvme etc but for now with good old sata based drives I'm sticking with what works lol

Blackjack Davy · 23 Oct 2021 at 01:54

malachi said:
I disable the drives in the bios, Windows can still have a werid habit putting the bootloader which isn't the primary drive.

I unplug them its a simple click the release on the SATA cable. Removes any possibility of anything going wrong and sometimes the installers options can be confusing. Backup drives data is too important to risk!

Mcnumpty2323 · 23 Oct 2021 at 08:28

So yeah my memory wasn't wrong for a change
Even with windows 10 or 11
It's still possible to make your boot record wonky
If don't disconnect drives

Just to make it clear I have multiple drives with windows installed
Not just one and the rest are storage

Did it to myself yesterday
Installed Windows 11 new preview
Totally cleared the partitions as mentioned earlier on target drive
Ended up missing 1 drive/operating system
Luckily it was simple enough to add the entry
Using easybcd
So maybe I am doing it wrong or maybe not
But it's definitely a possibility it can happen

smogsy · 24 Oct 2021 at 08:54

most people dont have multiple windows targets on 1 pc

to fix that you would have the remove partitions from both disks then reinstall the bot manager separately on both drives so they are locked to their target partitions

Mcnumpty2323 · 24 Oct 2021 at 10:50

Guess I am not most people

that's what they must mean
By I am special :cry:

cee-S-dee · 25 Oct 2021 at 13:43

You could use diskpart to clean the disk you want to use before installing. Disk should then show up as a unpartitioned in the disk selection on the installation wizard.

willhub · 27 Oct 2021 at 09:41

No, I just make sure I format the correct drive.

melmac · 27 Oct 2021 at 11:19

no, never have.