The way that I would do what @
mfcnorth suggests is to install the SSD and then boot from a Windows 10 (or 11) USB flash drive created with Microsoft's Media Creation Tool:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/soft...load/windows10
When the first screen appears asking for keyboard and language, press Shift + F10. This will open a command prompt window. Run:
Three drives should appear. Drives 0 and 1 should be the SSD and the HDD. Drive 2 should be the USB flash drive the computer was booted from. After that is verified, continue with:
Code:
select disk 0
clean
convert gpt
select disk 1
clean
convert gpt
exit
exit
Note: this will erase both disk 0 and disk 1 completely! Make sure disk 0 and disk 1 are the SSD and HDD (or HDD and SSD, order does not matter).
Continue with the clean install, after you select the custom install option you will see disk 0 and disk 1 listed as completely unallocated spaces. Highlight the SSD in the list. Click next. Let Windows setup finish. After Windows is installed and you are booted into it, then you can add a partition to the HDD and format it. There is no need to have the HDD disconnected during the install process and then reconnect it later.
NOTE: If after selecting the custom install option, you see small MSR partitions listed on each disk, you can highlight each small partition and click Delete until you get to unallocated space only on both disks.