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How do I make sure that Windows 11 install will not install on second NVMe drive?

Not_Enough_Rage
Level 11

‎07-24-2022 07:55 AM - last edited on ‎03-06-2024 10:19 PM by Community Admin

I have 2 Samsung 980 Pro NVMe M.2 SSD drives installed and I am ready to install Windows 11 now. I was wondering how to disable one of the NVMe drives, like we did on SATA drives, so that nothing gets installed on the drive we don`t want the OS on?
What is the OS procedure for these new drives?
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7 REPLIES 7

ahfoo
Level 13

‎07-24-2022 08:23 AM

Are you install windows 11 over your existing windows or fresh install. either case windows 11 will always install on the boot drive you select boot drive in your bios.
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Braegnok
Level 14

‎07-24-2022 08:38 AM

Not_Enough_Rage wrote:
I have 2 Samsung 980 Pro NVMe M.2 SSD drives installed and I am ready to install Windows 11 now. I was wondering how to disable one of the NVMe drives, like we did on SATA drives, so that nothing gets installed on the drive we don`t want the OS on?
What is the OS procedure for these new drives?


Just simply pull the second drive.

Only have one drive installed "primary", after you install Windows on your primary drive,.. than add in your storage drives.
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Not_Enough_Rage
Level 11
In response to Braegnok

‎07-24-2022 10:13 AM

Braegnok wrote:
Just simply pull the second drive.

Only have one drive installed "primary", after you install Windows on your primary drive,.. than add in your storage drives.


I can`t do that. This PC is water cooled and the GPU is mounted vertically in front of the drives.
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Saltgrass
Level 13

‎07-24-2022 09:46 AM

Not_Enough_Rage wrote:
I have 2 Samsung 980 Pro NVMe M.2 SSD drives installed and I am ready to install Windows 11 now. I was wondering how to disable one of the NVMe drives, like we did on SATA drives, so that nothing gets installed on the drive we don`t want the OS on?
What is the OS procedure for these new drives?


It does make a difference as to which system you have and how you are running it. S, you might spend some time updating your system specifications.

But, as suggested, removing the second drive is usually best. If you were to have a second drive in addition to a UEFI install, the boot files would go in the original EFI system partition so you would always need it. That would give you a boot menu if that was what you wanted.

With a UEFI system and two clean drives, the install will go on the one you tell it to install on. It is not like a Legacy system where it will always put the Boot files on the drive set as primary drive.
Maximus Z790 Hero,
Intel i9-13900k
Intel BE200
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Not_Enough_Rage
Level 11
In response to Saltgrass

‎07-24-2022 10:11 AM

Saltgrass wrote:
It does make a difference as to which system you have and how you are running it. S, you might spend some time updating your system specifications.

But, as suggested, removing the second drive is usually best. If you were to have a second drive in addition to a UEFI install, the boot files would go in the original EFI system partition so you would always need it. That would give you a boot menu if that was what you wanted.

With a UEFI system and two clean drives, the install will go on the one you tell it to install on. It is not like a Legacy system where it will always put the Boot files on the drive set as primary drive.


Those system specs are from my current PC. I am building a new one and this is a fresh OS install on clean drives. I will update new specs when I finish the new build. Removing the second drive is not possible with my water cooled setup.
So, whatever drive I choose to install the OS on, nothing will go on the second drive, correct? It will not screw up the boot order. I want the second drive to used for storing game files.
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Murph_9000
Level 14
In response to Not_Enough_Rage

‎07-24-2022 10:21 AM

The Windows 10/11 installer lets you pick a drive with either basic/automatic or advanced partitioning. If you are doing a fresh install from a USB memory stick to NVMe, it's extremely fast anyway, so you can afford to just play with the options and reinstall if you don't like how it looks. The defaults should give you the standard GPT triple partition (EFI, system, recovery) setup on the first drive, nothing on the second or other drives, if memory serves (but MS are always changing the process, so just pay attention to what it's saying to you).
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Adrian1983
Level 11

‎07-24-2022 01:12 PM

You can't, You have to remove 1 drive to be perfectly sure tis doesn't happen and even then it probably won't install with more than 1 NVME installed, I had this same issue myself, You can thank Asus and other manufacturers for that one by not having disable options in the BIOS for NVME M.2 drives, It's a crap implementation the fact you can't simply disable a hard drive in the BIOS and has been like this since these drives existed.
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