How to Format Old drive with OS on new PC

garymcwilliams26 · Sep 21, 2018

I bought a new HDD today and got a fresh install of windows 10, however, my old HDD has windows 7 on it and I want to use that as a game drive, How do I go about doing this can I just plug in the old drive making sure the new drive is still the boot? Also there may be a few virus on my old drive will formatting it remove them as I don't want them on my new drive or to slow down my PC.

jojesa · Sep 21, 2018

You could use Windows Disk management to delete the volume and format the hard drive deleting all its content, so no pesky virus is left behind..
Hit the the Windows + R keys on your keyboard and type diskmgmt.msc then hit Enter
Disk Management opens, right click the disk and click Delete volume (make sure to select the appropriate disk). Do that until the total space on the disk is shown as Unallocated.
Now you could right click the disk and format it, selecting NTFS for its file system.
Unchecked "Perform a quick format" option to perform a full format.
Windows will assign the volume label New Volume automatically, but you could be creative and give your own name.
A drive letter will also be assigned.
After the process is done you will have access to a empty disk.

Endre555 · Sep 21, 2018

Yes, it will work fine if you just connect it, but to make sure there are no viruses left DO NOT use fast/quick format. Use regular format which will write all of the data on it to zero. It may take a long time, maybe even like 4-5 hours if it's not a fast drive and it's big.

garymcwilliams26 · Sep 21, 2018

jojesa :

You could use Windows Disk management to delete the volume and format the hard drive deleting all its content, so no pesky virus is left behind..
Hit the the Windows + R keys on your keyboard and type diskmgmt.msc then hit Enter
Disk Management opens, right click the disk and click Delete volume (make sure to select the appropriate disk). Do that until the total space on the disk is shown as Unallocated.
Now you could right click the disk and format it, selecting NTFS for its file system.
Unchecked "Perform a quick format" option to perform a full format.
Windows will assign the volume label New Volume automatically, but you could be creative and give your own name.
A drive letter will also be assigned.
After the process is done you will have access to a empty disk.

do i also delete the 'System Reserved'??

Endre555 · Sep 21, 2018

garymcwilliams26 :

jojesa :

do i also delete the 'System Reserved'??

Delete everything.

jojesa · Sep 21, 2018

Yes delete it, you no longer need that partition, since it that disk is not longer the boot disk.

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How to Format Old drive with OS on new PC

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