Change default drive to HDD

[Lenneth]

Hello, I recently bought this desktop and quickly realized that the 256 GB SSD is the default drive aka the C drive and the 1 TB HDD is the D drive. I don't understand why it came like this, but I digress. How can I completely switch the two drives as the installation of Windows and etc.?

[old_geekster]

@Lenneth , welcome to the forum.

The SSD is setup as the boot drive because it is much faster than the HDD.  The performance boost is increased considerably.  If you are concerned about having enough space on the SSD, I suggest that you install all of your apps and games on the HDD.  There are a few apps that want to be installed on C:, but the majority of them will allow you to change the path to D:.  I install any apps that I use to monitor my computer on my M.2, SSD because I want them on the drive with Operating System and any others I install on my 860 EVO (your HDD) storage drive.  I will never have another computer without a SSD boot drive.

If you want to change it, however, you can install a cloning software (FREE version) on the SSD and run it.  It will ask for the target drive and that will be the HDD.  Once the SSD has been cloned to the HDD, you can go into the BIOS/UEFI and change the Boot Order of the drives and boot.  The HDD should be the boot drive.  If you have problems, simply remove the SSD and boot.  Sometimes there is confusion with two OS'es on the computer.

Please click the Thumbs up + button if I have helped you and click Accept as Solution if your problem is solved.

[Prométhée]

Hello
Maybe I didn't quite understand your solution @old_geekster 
But if it's okay to use the hard drive as the primary drive instead of the SSD, that's not the best thing to do.
In any case, this will have a bad impact on performance, the ssd being much faster.

You can try what is stated in my answer here, it will move most of the data automatically

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Gaming-Desktops/So-my-PC-came-with-a-1TB-hard-drive-how-do-I-find-wher...

@Lenneth  By following the advice of putting some software on the HDD, you can save a lot of space, that's what I also did

[old_geekster]

@Prométhée, the OP didn't like the fact that HP had installed the SSD as the boot drive because it is the smaller drive.  He wanted to know how to change the HDD to the boot drive.  As you can see, I explained that the HDD would decrease system performance.

[Prométhée]

Yes,
I understood it correctly, but I think the user is not sure what this is about.
I have exactly the same configuration, windows must imperatively be on the SSD, otherwise there is a very big loss of performance indeed.
It can, however, move some large programs as you indicated, and most of the folders that don't need to be on the SSD.
This is exactly what I did and have for the SSD currently
150go free on 237go
(using ccleaner for unnecessary files)
Prevention is better than cure 😉