Setup OS on a different drive

YasinKondakci · 02 Nov 2015

Hello everyone,

I just joined the forum, have a nice day for all of u

The question is, im gonna buy a new hdd actuall ssd and i do not want to format my pc or take a backup.So, i want to setup win 7 on the ssd. But i have already C and D partitions. I dont know whats the next partition name when i setup the new ssd. Lets call it X. i want to setup win 7 on X drive without formatting my pc or changing other drives names (C and D wont change). People says its possible and i saw that one time but there is no tutorial or video for that. At least i didnt see.

AddRAM · 02 Nov 2015

Quite confusing, are you removing the hard drive ?

You always unplug/remove other drives when installing windows. You do not have to format them.

If so then C and D won`t be there anymore.

If you install windows on the ssd it will be C

Then, when you plug the hard drive back in, those partitions will become other letters. (this is normal)

There is no avoiding this and you should not try to.

When you`re all done with windows on the new ssd and happy, then you format the old C partition on the hard drive, unless you really don`t want to, but it will never be called C again unless you boot into it again.

The only way to keep the drive letters as they are and to call the ssd X (for example) is to install windows on the ssd from within windows on the hard drive, meaning you boot into windows on the hard drive, then you start the install on the ssd.

Not recommended at all.

YasinKondakci · 03 Nov 2015

Uhm, i guess i messed up a bit about my question

i have 2 slot for hdd and 1 is already taken (and there re 2 partitions on it C and D). I'll buy an ssd and plug it in the empty slot and install OS on it. But drive letters shouldnt change when i open the pc with using ssd OS. So the new drive will have the letter X (for example) and others will have their normal C and D letters.

P.s if u ask why u want something redicilious things like that dude.. Because of my lots of development/programming libraries on C and their path is defined like that (C:/libs/... for example) and there re couple thousands of them sadly.. there is no way to change them manually one by one that takes like a month. So thats the reason, hope i can find the way to do this.

Thanks for your reply :)

AddRAM · 03 Nov 2015

Yes they will, the ssd will now show up as C when you boot into it.

If you install windows on the ssd and keep the other hard drive installed you will end up with 2 Windows 7 installs. What we call a dual boot.

Do you have another key to activate windows 7 ?

When you boot into the ssd it will be C and the partition on the other drive will not show up as C. It can`t because C is already being used by the ssd.

The only way to keep the hard drive partition named C is to install windows on the ssd as I described earlier.

Maybe this thread will help.

Is it possible to install windows on something other than C:\?

Night Hawk · 03 Nov 2015

With any dual boot the particular installation you are booted into will see itself as "C:" while looking at everything else assigning a different drive letter. \

For reassigning drive letters to change the D generally seen with the optical drive to E, F, G, or some other letter like the two storage drives here S and T with G set for the second OS drive to keep the two dvd drives at D and E a disk has to be placed in each drive so the drive itself will appear in the Disk Management tool where you simply right click on the volume or drive you want to see changed from one letter to another except to C due to that being reserved for the OS you are already booted in at the time.

When first setting up a clean install on a system with multiple hard drives D will likely be assigned to the opposing hard drive shifting the optical drive to E as seen with second partitions also seeing the D letter as you have there with the optical bumped to E. To see the optical drive set to D you first have to change the drive letter for the second partition while booting from that drive's Windows installation.

When seeing 7 set up on the new SSD you can then use the former drive's two partitions assigned to E or F, G or H, I or J, or even separate them further seeing the second partition become J or K while the previous C becomes F or G G preferred while the optical is assigned D and that will leave F, H, I open for usb drives and devices.

For booting up into any Windows installation provided a different letter from C as it sees itself is often a mess as most softwares including MS updates and other things automatically default to the C drive letter. Legacy versions could see that type of set up much easier as seen here when having set up 95 with 98SE even on the same primary partition(Ill Advised!) when able to change the Windows folder name by one letter to install side by side.

During that test only a few dos apps would actually work since no Windows programs could be installed or would run correctly. Newer versions past XP are now too complex to work things and still see a working OS. You are far better off as many buy SSDs for in the first place to use that as the OS drive and custom designate program folders to the other two partitions on the first drive which be seeing other drive letters.