Bought 2nd SSD for gaming. Clone main drive or seperate install?

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plunger

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I wanted to separate gaming OS and general use OS so I bought a second SSD. Could I clone my current desktop or is it against the terms and I would have to use a separate install/key?

This would be Windows 7 64bit Ult.
 
You can clone the drive and it won't cause any problems with the Windows licensing - you might have to re-activate, but probably not for just a HDD change.

Edit: Wait - if you already have an OS SSD, why would you clone anything to the new one? Aren't you going to keep the current SSD as the OS SSD and then just add the second into your system for games? If so, you wouldn't want to clone anything, just move the files over/re-install the games to the new SSD.
 
I will be unplugging my main SSD when I will be gaming. Keeping Steam, Origin, etc, away from my personal/work files.

128GB Cruical M4 main os
64GB Cruical M4 gaming os
 
Why would you want to do that?

That means you're going to constantly unplug, shutdown, plug, shutdown and replug. Sounds tedious to me....
 
I have a corsair 600t case, it has 2 latches to open and I could do the whole unplugging/rebooting in about a minute.

I don't want punkbuster or whatever they are using these days on my main system. So a second SSD was the price I was willing to pay.
 
That seems paranoid, even for the internet.

I don't think it is even possible to disconnect the OS drive while the system is running - as soon as the system tries to access a system file on the drive you unplugged, you will get a BSOD.
 
BugginOuT said:
Why would you want to do that?

That means you're going to constantly unplug, shutdown, plug, shutdown and replug. Sounds tedious to me....
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Would it be possible for him to install win7 on both drives and have a boot menu come up when he starts the computer to choose from? I know you can dual boot with different OS's but you should also be able to do so for same OS on different drives.

Then there should be a way to hide the other drive in the OS so that say if he gets a virus on his gaming drive that it cant wright anything to his work drive.

Just seems like it would be easier than trying to swap cables all the time.
 
plunger said:
I have a corsair 600t case, it has 2 latches to open and I could do the whole unplugging/rebooting in about a minute.

I don't want punkbuster or whatever they are using these days on my main system. So a second SSD was the price I was willing to pay.
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I have a Cooler Master 620 case and I'm sure I could do the same in under a min. Shutdown, open case, swap cables, close case, boot up. But I think a dual boot solution would be better, one work os on the 128M drive, one game os on the 64M drive.

I hate all the DRM and copy protection they try to implement in PC games. Most of the Pirate groups have them broken before the game is even out and the people that really suffer are people like you and me who buy their games. I've gotten where I only buy games on Steam now. Wish they would just get rid of all the crap DRM and use steam's system.
 
I already bought the second SSD. It's still sitting here while I decide on how to run it.

I didn't want to dual boot it because the data from the other boot still would have been present. A second SSD did add a little to my build but it's worth it for the piece of mind.
 
plunger said:
I already bought the second SSD. It's still sitting here while I decide on how to run it.

I didn't want to dual boot it because the data from the other boot still would have been present. A second SSD did add a little to my build but it's worth it for the piece of mind.
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You know, I don't know if the Windows EULA covers this. It's technically the same computer (motherboard) so I don't see why you couldn't run Windows on different drives using the same key, as long as it's in the same computer.

What you should do is attach the new SSD and unhook your old SSD. Install Windows. Plug the first SSD back in and boot to your primary desktop. On that, install EasyBCD. Set up a boot menu by pointing to the second gaming SSD and name it something accordingly. Done.
 
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