Windows 7: Set old hdd system boot/c drive as inactive for new ssd install

Reread the thread trucker, all of your questions have been answered.

I thought I answered your question. Nothing will be detected 'automatically'.

Sorry, I didn't refresh and missed your 1st post. Thanks.

I feel like the easiest way to accomplish what I believe you want is to just configure the pin on your old HDD to "Slave" mode and then leave them both plugged in. This will treat your old HDD as if it were simply a USB drive, where you can access all the files on it through "My Computer" just like you would any other storage device. Assuming that your SSD is configured to "Master" (what HDDs and SSDs are set to by default) it should only pick up the SSD's OS. But as others mentioned, you should make the SSD first in your BIOS boot order just to be safe.

SSD's are SATA which don't use jumper pins for master/slave. But you are correct that the HDD can be used as secondary for data and SSD should be set first to boot in BIOS.

Ah, you are correct, I forgot about that. But I was thinking that you could still use the slave pins on the HDD. But as long as the SSD is in the first SATA port and the HDD is in the second then it should do the same thing, as long as the SSD is set first in the boot menu. My mistake.