Reformat Windows Drive Without Affecting Second Storage Drive

[sru02]

I have 2 hard drives in my computer - an SSD for my windows boot drive and a WD 1TB as my storage drive (music/movies...) and I am planning on doing a clean reinstall of Windows 7 (on the SSD). Will this have any affect on my second storage drive? Basically what I am asking is that once I have Windows reinstalled will I be able to see my second storage drive as if nothing changed?

 

[Pauly]

Reinstalling windows will have no effect on the second drive and yes everything on there will be accessible after the install but it is always wise to unplug all drives except the target drive when performing an install which will make sure all the boot files are correctly placed on the SSD and not on the 2nd drive, your SSD should be in the lowest numbered sata port on the motherboard
Heres a guide to installing windows which will help you get and keep a perfect install have a read through it
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/219487-clean-reinstall-factory-oem-windows-7-a.html

 

[sru02]

Thanks! Is there a way I can check which number SATA port the SSD is on? Is this in Disk Management somewhere?

 

[Pauly]

Yes in disk management your SSD should be the top drive - Disk 0 and should have an active flag and no other disk should be marked active unless they are bootable volumes

 

[sru02]

So SSD should be 0 / Second HDD as 1 and Optical as 3?

 

[whs]

A word of warning - disk management does not always map the ports correctly. It is best to check on the mobo. But if you unplug all drives other than the SSD during the installation, there is no danger of the bootmgr landing on the wrong drive. And if it does, you can do this:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/209885-bootmgr-move-c-easybcd.html

 

[sru02]

Thanks for all of your quick replies - I will be working on this later tonite after work. I just wanted to ensure that Windows would not force me to reformat the second drive on the first boot of the new OS.