Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

Question

How To Install OS On Secondary Hard Drive

Jan 12, 2015 11:03PM PST

Alright, first off I feel like I should just let eveyone know I'm not that computer literate, so if you are going to help me out with my issue by posting, please do so as simply as possible.

I've noticed for the past 6 months or so that my laptop's HDD has been making a crap load of noise and clicks. Even longer than that I had noticed my computer running slower. I'm talking about click through long strings of folders, loading a saved image, and a decrease in the quality video game experience (such as lags due to wonky FPS). I did some surfing and came to realize that I needed a new hard drive. So I decided to get a 5.5 GB SSD. I've already installed it in the secondary hard drive slot, worked through a minor issue once I did, and the SSD is good to go, as far as I can tell. I've already installed a game on it and the game is running much better on the SSD than it was when I had the game installed on the HDD.

Now I need to get the SSD to fully take the place of my dying HDD before it's too late! I want to upgrade my OS to Windows 8.0 from my current OS of Vista. I have a copy of Windows 8 Pro that I was told would upgrade me from Vista and that I could install this on the almost entirely blank SSD. Exactly what I want.

When I put the cd in the laptop it goes through the set up wizard and will eventually begin upgrading my hard drive from Vista to 8.0 without asking me to determine which hard drive I want 8.0 to be installed on. How to I actually get the OS 8.0 Pro install disk to let me determine the destination for the install?

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Answer
Don't do that.
Jan 12, 2015 11:06PM PST

It's bad enough you want to put an OS on a second drive but then, when you move it to the primary drive Windows will test most seasoned folk to get it working again.

The working way to move to a second drive is to clone the first drive to the second, then shut down. Move the new drive to the primary location and boot that.
Bob

- Collapse -
Even easier
Jan 14, 2015 12:01AM PST

Instead of moving the drive after cloning, swap it to become the first drive booted in the BIOS, and that makes it be considered the C drive instead of the other one.

- Collapse -
I've seen that and the trail of tears
Jan 14, 2015 12:08AM PST
- Collapse -
Yes, that can happen
Jan 14, 2015 10:41AM PST

hopefully they'd remember, maybe put a reminder taped on the computer?

- Collapse -
Some back story.
Jan 14, 2015 10:48AM PST

I used to tape recovery CDs, and a tip sheet inside of PCs sold by our stores years ago. For reasons I never discovered almost all were removed by "Idant Know." We tried many systems over the years from packs inside the desktops to fancy packs with big lettering about not losing this and more.

Maybe the tablets have it right with the OS in some non-user assailable area.
Bob

- Collapse -
Answer
Hi keufenpreis ...
Jan 12, 2015 11:13PM PST
- Collapse -
you know better
Jan 13, 2015 3:16AM PST

come on now, you asked why all the user names. There is nothing wrong with different user names in different forums. I have several myself mainly because the user name I wanted to use was already taken, though on one, I wanted something more in line with the subject of the forum.

- Collapse -
That's true.
Jan 13, 2015 5:29AM PST

But this poster is special case. Just browse through all posts in his profile and you'll see why. I'm convinced he only posts to SEO his German webshop in shady drugs mentioned in his profile.

Kees

- Collapse -
has that been removed?
Jan 14, 2015 10:48AM PST

I don't see it.

- Collapse -
(NT) Yes. I see the notification in Area 12.
Jan 14, 2015 10:52AM PST
- Collapse -
Answer
another solution
Jan 13, 2015 3:13AM PST

my way of doing it would be to go ahead and install win8 on the old drive. use clonezilla or some other cloning software and clone the drive, remove the old drive and install the new, then install the clone on the new drive.

I recommend this for two reasons

1. if you are upgrading, the upgrade version of win8 will require an installed and activated version of an operating system justifying the upgrade
2. by installing it on the secondary drive, with the old drive still installed, it would install as a dual boot with the bootloader on the old drive. When you pull the old drive, the new install will not boot because the bootloader was removed. It is a pain to fix that.