Formatting old OS Drive to secondary storage

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
S

Ste1337

Honorable
May 29, 2014
23
0
10,510
Hi i have just purchased a new PC and i am booting up Windows 10 from my SSD now. I wanted to use my old hard drive as a storage drive but i cant seem to format it. Is this because it has a windows install on it?

When i open up disk management it is showing the drive but it when i right click to format the drive it is grey'd out. I do not want to use it as a bootable drive any longer, just a secondary drive to store files, games etc.

Thanks in advance for any advice :)
 
Solution
SuperSoph_WD
Hey there again, Ste1337!

I'm glad that you've resolved the issue! :)
I'd still recommend you to check up on the health of the HDD using its manufacturer's diagnostic tool from their website. In case you cannot find it, you can refer to this thread about some third-party suggestions: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/282651-32-best-diagnostic-testing-utility
It will help you determine the health and S.M.A.R.T. status of the drive. The 'healthy' status in Disk Management is not a reliable source about the overall state of your HDD. Better be safe than sorry, these tools really give some peace of mind when you're concerned about your storage.

Best of luck with your upgraded system! :)
SuperSoph_WD
Sort by date Sort by votes
Lee-m

Lee-m

Distinguished
Jan 27, 2009
866
0
19,210
If you installed win 10 with both drives in, windows has a habit of putting the boot loader on the 2nd drive and is thus needed for boot. As a result you are unsable to remove that partition or do anything with it. Annoying.

Always install windows with no other drives attached.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
S

Ste1337

Honorable
May 29, 2014
23
0
10,510
I have already installed windows some weeks ago but i just linked up the old drive today and i cant seem to format it. I have done some reading and it seems DBAN can do this, however it is quite technical to use so i was wondering if there is a simpler option beforehand
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
SuperSoph_WD

SuperSoph_WD

Glorious
Jul 30, 2014
6,758
3
45,960
Hey there, Ste1337!

What @Lee-m meant is that when you have both drives plugged in during the installation of Windows OS, most of the time you'd encounter an OS confusion. You cannot format the (now) secondary HDD because without the information there, you'd not be able to boot into your computer.
You'd need to re-install Windows on the SSD but this time, make sure you've unplugged the HDD from the SATA ports on the motherboard. Once the installation is completed onto the SSD and you plug back the HDD, you should be able to re-format it either through Disk Management or using Diskpart.
Here's a guide that explains the commands you should use for Diskpart, in order to format your HDD: http://www.windowsnetworking.com/kbase/WindowsTips/Windows7/AdminTips/Miscellaneous/HowtowipeaharddriveusingDiskpartandFormat.html

Hope it helps. Keep us posted! :)
SuperSoph_WD
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
S

Ste1337

Honorable
May 29, 2014
23
0
10,510
I appear to have sorted it. I managed to install DBAN as a bootable USB drive, disconnected my current SSD.

Then ran DBAN with these settings:
Mersenne Twister
RCMP
Verify Last Pass
2 Rounds

It said it was going to take 29 hours to complete so after about 5 minutes i grew tired and reconnected my SSD and rebooted my PC...seems to have fixed it and made the drive accessible in the Disk Management screen. I set it as a dynamic drive and then formatted it...rebooted my PC once again and now it is showing as a "clean" drive with 7.7/924gb storage taken.

Hope this helps as a quick fix to anybody who is having similar problems :)

If anybody can point out any issues with this method that would be great as it did seem a little unorthodox, but it seems to have worked so far and is showing as healthy on Disk Management
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
SuperSoph_WD

SuperSoph_WD

Glorious
Jul 30, 2014
6,758
3
45,960
Hey there again, Ste1337!

I'm glad that you've resolved the issue! :)
I'd still recommend you to check up on the health of the HDD using its manufacturer's diagnostic tool from their website. In case you cannot find it, you can refer to this thread about some third-party suggestions: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/282651-32-best-diagnostic-testing-utility
It will help you determine the health and S.M.A.R.T. status of the drive. The 'healthy' status in Disk Management is not a reliable source about the overall state of your HDD. Better be safe than sorry, these tools really give some peace of mind when you're concerned about your storage.

Best of luck with your upgraded system! :)
SuperSoph_WD
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom