Windows 10: Two W10 drives

I just got a new DELL with a single HDD. I would like to take the system drive from my old HP Pavilion and install it as a second drive in the DELL (The drive is a very nice new WD). When I first boot up, the PC will see two system drives.

• Will this cause a problem?
• How can I make the added 2nd drive non-system?
• If I follow the answer to question 2 above, what changes do I have to make to my boot stuff?

Sorry that my terminology may be off ("boot stuff"), but I don't know the correct words.

Thanks for any plain English answers,*Wink

:)

 

Two drives, two OS (Vista, W10) and one computer?

An SSD is always much faster than a hard drive. If it's the right size then I'd try it instead with a vastly better Clean Install of Windows 10 like the gold standard compiled here: Clean Install Windows 10
Be sure to unplug the other hard drive during the install so it doesn't use that boot manager to configure the Dual Boot which would make the SSD not independently bootable. Afterwards if you still want to run both you can boot your choice via the BIOS Boot
Menu key at startup, or each can come and go as you please. Flight Simulator is no longer supported but might be able to run, including trying it in Compatbility Mode: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/older-programs-compatible-version-windows I
would not personally install Vista on any PC, but if you want to try installing it you can test how it if or how it would run by installing it first on the SSD to check. I hope this helps. Feel free to ask back any questions and let us know how it goes. I'll
keep working with you until this is resolved.

 

Two drives, two OS (Vista, W10) and one computer?

In theory, installing the same license on more than one drive, even on the same computer is not allowed. In practice I have seen it working. Just no guarantee it will continue to work. Switching between one HD drive and the other can confuse the activation
system. Yes, I suspect you will be happiest with Win10 on the SSD. Using the instructions it should be easy to setup a VM that you can run Vista inside of.

 

Press F2 (or F10 or whichever is) when you switch on your computer to enter BIOS. Then look for boot priorities. Since you have two hard disks, there should be a hard disk priority setting. Make sure the new disk is second on the list, so your computer will try to boot from your original disk first.

 

Can I simply reformat the 2nd drive or will that screw things up?

Thanks for your previous help.

 

You can, but you'd have to get it in the machine first; otherwise, obtain a sata to usb adapter and format it from 'outside' the machine.
Best to follow spapakons's suggestion and format it after it's in the machine.