Installing and formatting a second hard-drive. Q.

Mass2009

August 11, 2009 10:33:04 PM

Hello,

I'm getting ready to reformat my hard-drive for Windows7. There are a few things I want to do, however, and I'm afraid I'm nigh-clueless on how to go about it. So, I come here (again) asking for some advice. I did my best to try to search for my answers, but I just become more confused.

I basically have three hard-drives.

Two internal and one external. I want to install the second internal as a slave, but I don't really know how to go about that. It's also a corrupted hard-drive. More on this in a bit.

My main hard-drive (the one that is currently running Vista, and the one I want to reformat w/Windows 7) is a 500GB Seagate, SATA, Model# ST3500841AS.

The second hard-drive (the one that I want to install and run as just an extra space to store files) is a 500GB Western Digital, IDE, the model is WD2500JB - It's an old hard-drive.

My external hard-drive is some Maxtor thing. It's about 250gb, and I have about 400gb of stuff I want to backup from my Seagate. So, I was wondering if I can install the Western Digital into my machine and have it used as a source of storage similar to my external.

The Western Digital is corrupted; it has a corrupted 'cell block', if my memory is correct. Would this have any issues if I were to insert it into my new machine and try to format it?

How would I go about the formatting process? Would it be okay to run an IDE hard-drive in conjunction with a SATA?

Any and all help would be appreciated. Thank you!

More about : installing formatting hard drive

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4745454b

Windows 7 Expert

Storage Authority

August 12, 2009 12:34:39 AM

Here is a link on how to set the jumpers.

http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/op/jumpI...

As for the corruption, assuming you don't want or need to recover any data, I'd try a zero write on the drive. Download the ultimate boot disk and use one of the utilities on it to do this. I'm not sure what a corrupted cell block is or if this will fix it, but it might work.

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geofelt

Windows 7 Expert

August 12, 2009 12:36:28 AM

You should have nothing special to do to add a IDE drive. You might want to go to the WD web site, and download a program called "data lifeguard" It is a diagnostic and repair tool for WD hard drives.

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Mass2009

August 12, 2009 3:22:14 PM

Thank you 4745454b (interesting name!) and Geofelt for your assistance. I'll definitely look into the two programs you mentioned, although I might try the WD 'data lifeguard' first since it is native to the WD hard-drives.

However, it is SAFE to assume that even though my WD hard-drive is corrupted, it won't affect my Seagate, especially when booting up?

That's the main thing I am worried about - the bootup process after installing the IDE drive.

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4745454b

Windows 7 Expert

Storage Authority

August 12, 2009 4:03:07 PM

You might have an issue. Once the IDE drive is in, enter the bios and double check the boot sequence. Make sure your SATA drive is still the one that the bios will hand off to. If its the IDE drive, you won't be able to boot.

Physically adding the IDE drive won't effect the SATA drive. Unless of course that cell error was caused by a virus that you didn't get cleaned...

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Mass2009

August 12, 2009 7:51:42 PM

4745454b said:

Unless of course that cell error was caused by a virus that you didn't get cleaned...

I don't think it was a virus, or at least I hope not (naturally). I believe the hard-drive was corrupted after a rather bad electrical outage due to a storm.

Thank you for the help. I'll be sure to check out the bios and make sure the boot sequence is nice and proper. You've been a great help!

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