I'm planning on formatting my HD, replacing another HD and while I'm at it, completely strip down my pc and put it back together. Daft question, one of my HDs has about 150Gb of photographs split with my backup partition. if i unplug all my sata drives and put them back in a different order on my mobo will the HD and its data still be recognised as it was before after the reinstall of windows etc or will there be a chance of corruption and loss of my data?
Strip down and rebuild
- Thread starter Derek W
- Start date
As long as the drive itself is not faulty in some way the data will stay unchanged regardless of where you plug/unplug it. Assuming you boot from the correct drive (one with windows on it) any others plugged in will simply be recognized in windows as usual. If everything is in order, you don't really risk losing stuff when you move the hard drive. I transport my drives all the time between countries and computers, they are fine. If you don't format your important stuff by mistake and you plug everything in a different order, the only thing that would change is the drive letter in windows. 
The specific partitioning is intrinsic to the drive itself and has no ties to windows, it will stay intact on the fresh install.
- Ordokai
The specific partitioning is intrinsic to the drive itself and has no ties to windows, it will stay intact on the fresh install.- Ordokai
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I thought I'd make sure just in case. Good thing is my important stuff is on my 1Tb drive (labelled with a pen) whilst the other 2 x 250Gb have windows and now spare drive which can both be formatted with no real disaster. One of them is going to be replaced with a 500Gb drive for storage so I'll label the other one as windows so i know in the future.
Thanks.
Thanks.