What would be the best way of switching to a boot drive

[VeroVex]

So i'm planning on buying an m.2 ssd to use as a boot drive, maybe store some frequently used games on it, but I stupidly already used a mechanical drive as my boot drive when i built the pc. Can i just install windows on the boot drive, boot from it, and use the hdd as somone normally would as a storage drive? sorry if i'm using confusing wording, i'm not great with storage

[rowdyjosh02]

2 minutes ago, VeroVex said:

So i'm planning on buying an m.2 ssd to use as a boot drive, maybe store some frequently used games on it, but I stupidly already used a mechanical drive as my boot drive when i built the pc. Can i just install windows on the boot drive, boot from it, and use the hdd as somone normally would as a storage drive? sorry if i'm using confusing wording, i'm not great with storage

All depends, you could just change the boot priority to your ssd but windows would take up a storage thats useless, what i would do is depending on how much stuff is on the hard drive either backup all files other than windows and format it so its not considered a boot drive anymore so its like a new drive and then put the files back on when youve formatted it as a proper storage drive or if your ssd is big enough just clone everything to the ssd including the windows then transfer the files you dont want on your ssd to your newly formated drive. Now only take this as advice im not an expert in storage mediums but i have an understanding.

[VeroVex]

16 minutes ago, rowdyjosh02 said:

All depends, you could just change the boot priority to your ssd but windows would take up a storage thats useless, what i would do is depending on how much stuff is on the hard drive either backup all files other than windows and format it so its not considered a boot drive anymore so its like a new drive and then put the files back on when youve formatted it as a proper storage drive or if your ssd is big enough just clone everything to the ssd including the windows then transfer the files you dont want on your ssd to your newly formated drive. Now only take this as advice im not an expert in storage mediums but i have an understanding.

i have 250 gigs left lol. windows takes up a fair amount on my hdd, but if i just keep the os on the hdd, and then install windows on the sdd, i can just use the sdd as the boot, and there wont be any problems  with having both installations?

 

[rowdyjosh02]

47 minutes ago, VeroVex said:

i have 250 gigs left lol. windows takes up a fair amount on my hdd, but if i just keep the os on the hdd, and then install windows on the sdd, i can just use the sdd as the boot, and there wont be any problems  with having both installations?

 

To my knowledge as long as you set the ssd to be the highest boot priority then theoretically it should be fine. but im not sure about how accessing your old stuff works cause it might consider there to be an account lock, ive had it happen to me because its considered a boot drive but don't quote me on any of this, its just something that i would try