That is essentially what you are doing. If you plan on swapping out
your OS drive, you will need to reinstall all software.
If you're simply adding it to your PC, providing that you do not have
any strange partitions (which are evil BTW), your OS should detect the
drive and assign it a letter. This "shouldn't" affect any
installed software.
My preferred PC build has an OS/Software drive (C:\), and a "My
Docs" drive (D:\). I've installed my OS and all software onto C:\
and then made a ghost image onto D:\ drive. I've configured all
software to use D:\ for project folders, image folders, download
directories, my docs, etc... If the OS or other software becomes
corrupt, I re-image the entire drive. Takes about 10 minutes and I'm
off!! Because all data is on D:\, I never lose anything
If you use this method, you only ever have to register software once.
Subsequent re-imaging does not re-start the registration process.
It also means that you can install any program onto your machine safe
in the knowledge that in 10 minutes, you can be back to a fresh clean
load.
I also use this method to test applications on different OS platforms.
Creating an image on D:\ for each OS I want to test. Comes in handy!!
Hope this helps.
Todd
