How to move Windows drive for wiping to computer with Windows already?

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A

Alniter

Commendable
Nov 26, 2016
2
0
1,510
Hi all,

My friend gave me his old (but functional) computer for parts if I need them, but what I'd really like is more storage for my own. His computer, of course, has a hard drive, but it has its own operating system on it, which I don't need. I'm assuming I can't completely wipe it on his computer because it has Windows on it, and Windows can't delete itself, can it?

If I take his hard drive out as is and add it to my computer to use as storage, will it cause a boot problem since I now have two drives with Windows on them, or will starting my computer up with both drives in automatically boot from my drive? If that's the case I can wipe my friend's drive then, but I don't want to cause something horrible by my computer booting the wrong system (or trying to log into both!)

Silly question to experts among you, I'm sure, but be kind. Expert I'm not.

Thanks,
Steve in Florida
 
Solution
ChaoticWolf
Nope! I got my old hard drive out of my old computer from 2008 to use as extra storage over my current 160GB hard drive. I plugged it into my computer internally with a sata cable and the power cable off my PSU and it booted right up. Showed up in Windows, and booted like normal. It still had the copy of Windows on it so you saw all the files related to windows, but I was able to use it for adding files into it. So what you do is what I did, plug it into your PC, boot the PC onto your regular hard drive and go into windows and try to format the second hard drive. If you can't, then load up a Windows 7 installation disc or ISO, on a usb or disc, go to the "Where do you want to install Windows?" section, select the target hard drive to...
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ChaoticWolf

ChaoticWolf

Honorable
Feb 2, 2016
639
1
11,365
Nope! I got my old hard drive out of my old computer from 2008 to use as extra storage over my current 160GB hard drive. I plugged it into my computer internally with a sata cable and the power cable off my PSU and it booted right up. Showed up in Windows, and booted like normal. It still had the copy of Windows on it so you saw all the files related to windows, but I was able to use it for adding files into it. So what you do is what I did, plug it into your PC, boot the PC onto your regular hard drive and go into windows and try to format the second hard drive. If you can't, then load up a Windows 7 installation disc or ISO, on a usb or disc, go to the "Where do you want to install Windows?" section, select the target hard drive to format and hit format!
 
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Solution
A

ArtPog

Admirable
Sep 17, 2014
2,951
3
8,965
This really should not be a complicated operation inasmuch as you're not interested in salvaging any data on the HDD in question. That's right, isn't it?

If so, I presume you'll be connecting the HDD internally in your system so that it will serve as a secondary drive. That being the case, all you really have to do is boot your system as normal, access Disk Management and then format the drive, deleting all the data in the process. Then you can use the HDD for whatever purpose you have in mind. The fact that the disk contains an OS is irrelevant in this case.
 
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