How should I handle operating system on new hard drive?

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I am planning on buying a replacement hard drive for my machine. But, at first, I want to use this new drive simply for data storage. At some future date I will get rid of the original drive and use this new drive as my primary, and only, hard drive.

How should I handle this?

Should I just format the new drive now and use it for storage? Then re-format it later and fully install the operating system on it?

It would be kind of nice to keep the stuff I put on the new drive when I install the operating system later. Can I just partition it into two drives, keep one as storage space and the other will be my operating system partition? Is this possible? When I install the operating system later will it keep the two partitions and not destroy the existing data?
 
I would pull your old drive and store it somewhere safe. Put the new drive in and install the OS. Once you get everything up and running, put in the old drive and then you have the option of leaving it alone, or moving the data off it, formatting it, and moving your data back to it.
 
But then I will have two drives with an operating system on them. How will the computer know which one to boot from? Initially, I want it to boot from my existing drive.
 
Whichever drive comes first in your BIOS order. If they are ATA drives, it will boot off the master. If they are SATA drives, it will boot off of Port 1.
 
I prefer to have my OS and Programs on the C drive, then have another hard drive for data. That way, my data is on a separate drive. If I need to format and reinstall Windows, my data is still safe on a separate drive. Or, if I get a new computer, I just pull that drive out, and all my data goes with it. And since they are just files, it just plugs in and all the files are right at home in the new computer.

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