So I have a 2 TB HDD, a 3 TB HDD that is being read as 2 TB currently, a 120GB SSD, and a 1 TB SSD. So one of my HDD, i'm not sure which one I have windows installed on and it also has over a TB of data including some steam games, i wish not to lose, the other I have Linux installed on and not much else. The 120GB SSD has steam and some games on it. The 1 TB SSD i just got today, haven't installed it yet. I want to install Windows on the 120GB SSD, steam and games installed on the 1 TB SSD, get the 3 TB recognized as 3 TB and partition it in a 2 TB and 1 TB partition with Linux installed on the 1 TB partition and use the other 2TB as backup for my other HDD. I'm wondering whats the best order to do this in, also if i'm going to experiance any complications, and are there any common mistakes i should be aware of avoiding?
Yikes that is a lot of data juggling.
I would certainly start with freeing up one of the HDDs and backing up any important data you want to keep on it while you juggle on the others
Any issues with reinstalling operating systems? (Windows licenses, etc?)
And when you say you have Steam installed on a SSD, are you referring to SteamOS, like the whole operating system?
EDIT: Also, do you know why your 3TB is only reading as a 2TB? http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/268578-32-hard-drive-showing-control-panel may be a good read.
steam, the drm, not the OS.
Ah, then you should be able to consolidate a backup of everything that you want to keep onto one HDD, then do ground up formatting and installs from scratch on the other drives. When you get the other 3 drives (other than the backup) looking how you want, then you can restore your data off of the backup drive to those drives, verify it, and then reformat your backup drive from the ground up. I'm assuming that the backup drive initially would be the 3TB. If your 3TB recognition issue is a formatting problem your going to have to reformat it from the ground up anyhow.
As far as common mistakes to avoid, the golden rule is your main priority: Never delete anything without a VERIFIED backup on a different drive. And make sure you know exactly which drives you are working with at any given time, which is a bit easier since yours are all unique sizes. I was building a 4 drive RAID 0 all with like drives one time and had to redo the whole thing near the end because I fat fingered a drive letter. Luckily no data was on it yet. I'm now paranoid though and make sure that my backup isn't even IN the same system I'm working on. Thats about the best I've got, I hope it helps and good luck!