I recently bought my friend's old PC, but it doesn't have any storage. I'm wondering, can I just plug in my SSDs – the C drive with Windows and my D drive for games and other stuff – as soon as it arrives, or will I run into any issues?
5 Answers
If you're just asking if you can physically plug in your SSD or NVMe, that shouldn't be a problem at all. Just make sure it’s compatible!
Booting from your current C drive could work, but it's risky due to potential driver conflicts from your old system. It's generally safer to do a clean reinstallation of Windows to avoid issues later on.
If you're using Windows 11, I wouldn't recommend just moving the drive over. It likely won't work properly, and you might run into issues.
Here's what to expect: when you connect your SSDs and power up, go into BIOS to set your boot drive to the SSD with Windows. It'll detect the drive, but you might lose access to desktop files that weren’t saved on that drive. As for the games, your D drive should still have all the files, but Windows might not recognize them as installed. You'll probably need to reinstall your games, but your saves should be fine as long as they're on the same drives.
You can connect your SSDs, but whether it’s advisable depends on the age of the systems. If your drive is from a really old Intel setup and you're switching to a newer AMD system (or vice versa), a clean install is highly recommended for the best performance.
Got it, thanks for the heads up!