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Reinstalling Win7

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Hey all,

Nub question, but need reassurance before I do this.

I want to reinstall Win7 on my SSD and don't want to lose the data on my 2 other HDDs in the rig (2tb data drive is essential to not lose w/ the reinstall). If I pop the discs in and completely format the OS drive, reinstall, and run.... will the system just recognize the new "old" hdds??? Thanks
 
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Yeah, you'll be ok doing that, but it would be best to unplug the extra drives just to be safe, I've never (ahem) formatted the wrong disk.
 
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K, so unplug while doing the dirty work then after I reinstall it just put them in and power up and voila they'll be there I hope?
 

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Yes, that is correct. Your drives will be recognized, still have their drive letters, and still have all data. If you have any games or other programs installed on those hard drives though, you may have to reinstall those, simply because the registry entries in your new W7 install won't be there.

Before you do it, be sure to disconnect those HDD's. W7 is notorious for doing flaky stuff on install if another drive is attached, such as putting the System Reserved partition there.
 
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K, so unplug while doing the dirty work then after I reinstall it just put them in and power up and voila they'll be there I hope?

Exactly.

Once you've done the install and hooked the old drives back up be sure to set that SSD as the primary boot drive in BIOS.
 
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Thanks guys. Appreciate the reassurance haha
 
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