Dual Hard drive question

[BentValve]

I like to reinstall my OS every 6 months or so to keep my video gaming optimal but I am tired of having to reinstall everything.
How can I use dual hard drives to my advantage? Do I install all my video games/large files on the spare hard drive then have the OS and hardware sofware on the other drive?
Will the defrag tool work on the second drive?

What is the best way to handle this?
Thanks

 

[Mavrick007]

One of the best ways to speed up the process is to use GHOST. I would Ghost your boot drive with all the settings that you would want from a fresh install(include the drivers and installs for programs that you will use) and keep this image on a separate partition. Then when things are getting clunky, reformat the boot drive, reinstall your OS from the image you created and get back to your games

Ghost is very time saving cause it will keep everything the way you had it after a fresh install and it will restore it quickly. You don't even have to remember what you did cause everything will be exactly the same way as before. If you are going to install alot of games, make sure you save your saves and then you can either reinstall them or have them installed just before you ghost and then you don't have to do a reinstall of your games (or apps) as well.

To use the dual hard drives to your advantage, I would keep your OS on one, and then put your games and applications on another drive. You might not even need all of the first drive for the OS so you can make a partition on there to install other apps like MS Office or something and then you will have it available and not waste space. The Defrag tool will work on any drive that you have installed in your machine.

 

[Fun Guy]

What's better, GHOST or Drive Image???

 

[dbwillis]

I just used Ghost for the 1st time the other day, I like it better then Drive Image