Can I Re-Use Old Hard Drives?

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Justiceinacan

Justiceinacan

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Hello everyone

I have two computer situations, honestly depending on the external forces in my home

1. Restoring an old Alienware because no one would let me buy my own new pc for whatever reason

I believe it's a simple motherboard replacement, but I wanted to know if I could use 2 extra hard drives too, for storing a bunch of stuff. They would be a 150 GB stuck in an older hp desktop, and a 650 GB that's installed in a laptop with a failing processor.

2. Actually being able to build my own desktop and using the 3 hard drives alongside the 250 GB SSD I plan to get in the new build - which would leave me with 1050 GB hard disk space and 250 GB SSD space to hold loads of files.

So here are my questions

1. How do I remove hard drives? What precautions do I need to take, if any, and what kinds of tools do I need?

*none of these computers I plan to be using much anymore really, if you didn't already notice they're all in pretty bad shape

2a. I only need one with an OS right? If so, below...

2. I will need to change them ;
If I put them in the Alienware scenario ;
Alienware's hard drive will likely stay in it's current state. I believe it has the os (Windows 7 Home Premium) and I know it has worked before so I'll keep it that way.

I have a lot of files on the 650 GB one so I would prefer to keep them, and if I can I would just like to delete the OS off it and use it as a secondary and have the 250GB with Windows 7 be the primary

The 150 GB will probably be wiped clean

So basically, how do I clean those up?

If I put them in the build-a-new-system scenario ;
All need to be wiped clean




In a nutshell, what I need is ;

Would any of these drives be incompatible with either scenario? What do I need to check for?

I only need one drive with an operating system, correct?

Also any tips / advice on removal and reinstallation of hard drives would be appreciated.
 
Solution
Boogieman_WD
About the internet connection, it could be a driver issue. Check what's the correct driver for ethernet adapter, download it and install it via a USB flash drive or an external HDD. Basically in most cases you don't even need a specific driver for the ethernet adapter as the Windows generic driver is good enough, so there might be an issue with your LAN card.

If you connect a drive with a different version of Windows to a computer that already has a drive with installed Windows on it, there shouldn't be any issues at all. Just make sure that you're booting from the correct drive. You should be able to access the one with the different OS just as any other secondary storage HDD even though it has an OS on it.
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Boogieman_WD

Boogieman_WD

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Hey there, Justiceinacan.

If those drives are healthy, you shouldn't have any issue with using them in any of those two scenarios. However since they are not new, I'd recommend that you download their respective manufacturer's diagnostic tools and test them for errors and bad sectors, so that you know if they are reliable or not.

As for changing a drive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Al7ofj_nNZk. This video will show you how to connect a new hard drive to a desktop computer. However, you'll need to check the laptop User Manual to see how to remove the HDD from it as it's different for every model. You can watch this video the first 3 minutes, because the instructions afterwards are only for brand new drives as you don't need to initialize already initialized drives.

You won't be able to keep the current OS with the Alienware if you change the motherboard. This requires you to make a fresh install of Windows. The same goes if you move a drive with an already installed OS to a different computer.

Yes, only one of your drives needs to have an OS. I'd recommend that you do a fresh install while having only the drive you are installing Windows to, connected to the motherboard during the installation process. Once you've completed the installation you are free to connect the rest of the drives to the motherboard.

Reformatting the HDDs would be best if you have the option to backup all the important data you might need.

Please let me know if I've missed something or if you have any other questions. Don't hesitate to ask anything comes up.

Hope that helps.
Boogieman_WD
 
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Justiceinacan

Justiceinacan

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I got the alienware working today... I think. I forgot that I sent my brother the monitor I used with it after it first broke. I don't see why any function of it would be impaired, as it was more of an electrical issue that had only a little involvement with the motherboard.

Same motherboard and hard drive still in it, Windows 7 Home Premium. Just need a new monitor adapter so I can use a different one I have. There isn't a need to get a new OS, correct? 7 is fine for me, tbh.

So one of the hard drives currently belongs in a desktop that cannot connect to the internet anymore for whatever reason (like, plugging in ethernet, repeatedly checking connections, doesn't work)

Would it be possible to connect it to the Alienware and run diagnostics there, or did you mean keep it in it's own system? Dumb question but I wanted to check.

As far as reformatting concerns go, the 150GB drive used to be in my father's work computer. Now it's all in the cloud and he hasn't touched it for a few years anyways so that's good, and as for the laptop HDD I'd have to sort that out... is there an issue with keeping the OS or deleting it?
What I mean is, the main drive will have Win 7, but the laptop drive has 10, is there any impaired functionality?
If so, how do I delete it?

Thanks for the help

 
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T_larson911

T_larson911

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Whenever I needed a hard drive to store stuff on, I could just grab any drive from my pile or from an old desktop, wipe it and format it with fat or NTFS. I did that with an old 120gb drive to put my music on since I'm limited space with the SSD I'm using.
 
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Boogieman_WD

Boogieman_WD

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About the internet connection, it could be a driver issue. Check what's the correct driver for ethernet adapter, download it and install it via a USB flash drive or an external HDD. Basically in most cases you don't even need a specific driver for the ethernet adapter as the Windows generic driver is good enough, so there might be an issue with your LAN card.

If you connect a drive with a different version of Windows to a computer that already has a drive with installed Windows on it, there shouldn't be any issues at all. Just make sure that you're booting from the correct drive. You should be able to access the one with the different OS just as any other secondary storage HDD even though it has an OS on it.
 
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Solution
Justiceinacan

Justiceinacan

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I don't think the computer has a lan card. I may buy one, though... I dunno, that system is pretty old though and I'm not too interested in restoring it.

I confirmed the alienware dead today, long story short 24 pin looked like it went to a deep fryer and it wreaked havoc on some of those cylinders on the motherboard. That's ok though, It's an old system and a new one would be more worth making anyways.

I think what I'm going to do instead is re-pick the parts in the machine I plan on building and put it in the Alienware's case. My case had no DVD slot - didn't think that was a problem till I realized I'd need DVD for an operating system install. Not to mention, the Alienware has loads of drive bays.

So I have a few extra questions now that I'm making a new PC sometime later on ;
1. How does one fully clear a drive on Windows 10? If they are gonna be healthy and used, the 150 and 650 will be wiped completely, 250 GB I haven't been able to look at since it's system died so I wanna sweep through the files and make sure there's nothing I wanna have before it too gets wiped.

2. I read there's different ways to format a drive. To my understanding, the top two choices for me would be fat32 and NTFS. Which would you recommend?
The 150 GB would probably contain stuff like my music and misc files since it's not very big
The 250 GB would hold game files (SSD is 250 so there may be a few games that won't make it on there) as well as some draft files
And the 650 will hold all of my filming files.

Do SSD's even use the NTFS / fat32 and that kind of formatting? Never had one in a system I have owned so I wanna know.
SSD gonna have the OS and my most frequently used programs / games.

3. I was disassembling the Alienware desktop today and I noticed that one of the cables plugged into the drive came from the cluster of other cables coming out of the PSU. How do I send power to multiple drives? I don't believe I saw multiple power sources for them hanging out...



 
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Boogieman_WD

Boogieman_WD

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You should know that you can install Windows via a USB flash drive as well. It's no longer necessary to have an Optical Drive in order to install it.

1. If you have the drives connected to a computer as secondary storage HDDs (what I mean is that you've already booted to Windows via a different drive and not the ones you wish to wipe), you can simply reformat them by using either Quick Format or Full Format. Both of them should do just fine for what you want to do with the drives. Note that Full Format will take quite a lot of time to complete compared to Quick Format.

2. Your only option is NTFS, since you're going to use Windows. It's not like this File System is actually the only option, but it's the one that you need. The FAT32 File System is obsolete and has a lot of limitations (like a partition with a maximum size of 32GB, it doesn't support files larger than 4GB, etc). You could go with exFAT as well, but NTFS is more stable and I strongly recommend that you go with it.

Think of SSDs as normal drives, which are basically much much faster than HDDs. This is due to the different type of technology they use. However they still use the same file systems as HDDs, so yes, you should format the SSD with the NTFS File System as well.

3. You should have more than one slot for a SATA power cable on your PSU. So basically you connect each drive with an individual slot, or depending on the PSU you could use a single cable with multiple SATA power connections for more than one drive.

Let me know if there's anything else.
 
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Justiceinacan

Justiceinacan

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I was looking for a way to install windows Via USB, I couldn't find it anywhere on a legitimate site though. While suggesting parts for my original build (that time I was trying not to exceed $600) my friend said I gotta go to a site called kinguin and get $20 version on USB, and my father who is also helping here and there suggested that I don't (morals and all) Does microsoft sell legitimate copies of windows 10 for USB?

I think I know what I'll be doing with the hard drives now though, thanks !
 
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Boogieman_WD

Boogieman_WD

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Everything is explained here: http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/1950-windows-10-clean-install.html. If you can install Windows 7, 8 or 8.1, tomorrow (29 July) is the last day of the free Windows 10 upgrade: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-10-upgrade. There's even a counter which counts down the time during which the upgrade's going to be free. Right now you have 1 day and 20 hours

By the way in this community illegal stuff is prohibited so no one will offer an illegitimate source. :)
 
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