Greetings, 

I am trying to learn a simple way to access different drives on a single PC. I have a SSD 2TB (C:) and a separate SSD 1TB (E:). I am trying to find an easy way to toggle between the two as my level of BIOS knowledge is insufficient and I'm terrified of screwing things up. 

At present, I have MSFS, P3Dv5 and X-plane 11 on a single drive. The goal will be to divide things up with perhaps MSFS and P3D on one drive (C:) with X-Plane 12 on (E:). X-Plane 11 will be a goner. 

Usually, Google and YouTube are my best friends but searches have only resulted in more confusion. Any and all assistance is greatly appreciated. 

 

Assuming you are running Windows, it will assign a new drive letter when you boot up after installing the new drive. Nothing need be done in the bios.

  Or did you want to boot up from the other drive ? What version of Window are you running ?

Edited August 14, 20223 yr by Penzoil3

Windows 10 on both C and E which are both installed. I just want to learn how to easily toggle between the two.

So currently, with BOTH drives installed, you do not get an option to select drive? Is that what you are saying?

How was W10 installed on both drives - did you actually install it or try to  copy it to the second drive.

check this

- press "Windows-R" to open the "Run" tool, type "msconfig" in the box and click "OK." Open the "Boot" tab; both operating systems should now appear here. If they both are there then Select the operating system you wish to be the default (the one that will be selected automatically when you start your computer) and click "Set as Default." To adjust the length of time the operating system selection screen shows, type a new number (in seconds -- the default is 30) in the "Timeout" box.

If they are not BOTH showing - something is wrong - probably easiest to do a repair install on the UNrecognized drive.

There's many different ways to attack this but this should be the easiest.

the only "toggle" is to either boot into drive 1 or drive 2 - once the system is loaded you cannot switch without rebooting.

4 hours ago, vgbaron said:

So currently, with BOTH drives installed, you do not get an option to select drive? Is that what you are saying?

How was W10 installed on both drives - did you actually install it or try to  copy it to the second drive.

check this

- press "Windows-R" to open the "Run" tool, type "msconfig" in the box and click "OK." Open the "Boot" tab; both operating systems should now appear here. If they both are there then Select the operating system you wish to be the default (the one that will be selected automatically when you start your computer) and click "Set as Default." To adjust the length of time the operating system selection screen shows, type a new number (in seconds -- the default is 30) in the "Timeout" box.

If they are not BOTH showing - something is wrong - probably easiest to do a repair install on the UNrecognized drive.

There's many different ways to attack this but this should be the easiest.

the only "toggle" is to either boot into drive 1 or drive 2 - once the system is loaded you cannot switch without rebooting.

I'm embarrased to admit I don't know how to to toggle back and forth between drives; that's what I'm looking for. As far as I know, nothing is wrong except for what is between my ears. 

The two Win10 installations are separate purchases with separate licenses. a few years apart. 

I don't think that you can "toggle back and forth between drives", unless you had a dual boot set up
but I don't think that you can do that with two identical operating systems.
You could manually select the boot drive in your bios from what should be a choice of two boot drives.

Otherwise it would seem to make more sense to disregard one or other of your Windows installations,
the one on the E drive would be the obvious choice, and just run whatever is on disk E from disk C.

 

On 8/14/2022 at 6:57 AM, Les Parson said:

I am trying to learn a simple way to access different drives on a single PC. I have a SSD 2TB (C:) and a separate SSD 1TB (E:). I am trying to find an easy way to toggle between the two as my level of BIOS knowledge is insufficient and I'm terrified of screwing things up. 

At present, I have MSFS, P3Dv5 and X-plane 11 on a single drive. The goal will be to divide things up with perhaps MSFS and P3D on one drive (C:) with X-Plane 12 on (E:). X-Plane 11 will be a goner. 

 

You do not need to "toggle between the two"... You can have different sims on different drives and start them up at will, just using the one Windows install on the C drive.  I have P3D on my F drive and MSFS on my H drive as an example.  Also still have FSX on my D drive, but never run it.