HELP! Installled windows on two drives...

[hinch]

Well my new computer arrived a few days ago; shiny.

Anyway, I turned it on and it asked me to insert the boot disk, fine - Windows installed, in goes driver CD etc.

After getting frustrated not being able to activate my second hard drive among a few small things I popped the side off and it turns out the SATA cable had worked its way loose from the 1st hard drive.

I plugged this in - wondering if everything was actually already installed and configured on it anyway - and unplugged the second drive.

So here I am on the 1st drive which is all nicely setup perfectly. My 4 hours installing everything wasted!

I'm thinking I just plug in the second drive and delete EVERYTHING on it but maybe not?

The first hard drive is for software, the second for documents. There's nothing on the second hard drive worth keeping, I think I just want it empty.

[nigelb]

I think a lot of the answer is based on what you want to do with the second drive. If you don't have backups, the second drive would be ideal for that if it has the right capacity. Another use could be to move the page file to the second drive as several sources cite this as desirable. It really depends on your choice. Did the second drive come with the new computer or was it originally installed in another machine?

[hinch]

Sorry I have updated my post to be a little more clear.

The first hard drive is for windows and software, the second just for documents and flight sim.

[SkippyBing]

Hinch,

Just confirm, you essentially now have the OS on both hard drives? I.e. the one that was supposed to be the boot drive set up by the manufacturer but which came unplugged in transit, and the one that you installed the OS on yourself.
Personally I'd plug the second drive back in (the one you installed the OS on) and then confirm which drive the computer is using to boot up etc. it can only do it from one and it'll always choose the same one which is set in the BIOS. After that you can happily delete/reformat the one it's not using and use it as a second drive according to which ever cult you follow.

[hinch]

You're correct..

Drive one had everything pre installed and was unplugged.

Drive two I installed everything on now accidentally which I wish to clear.

[SkippyBing]

In that case you should be fine to plug the second drive back in, double check windows hasn't randomly decided to boot from it and then delete the contents.
To be honest even if the system does then try and boot from the drive you've deleted it's just a case of reassigning the boot order in the BIOS.

[hinch]

all sorted, thanks for your help =)