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Hard Drive Replacement

Last response: in Storage
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I believe that my current harddrive is dieing. (WD Caviar Black 640) About a month ago it would start to stall and monitoring it under Performance Monitor it would show 100% activity with <=1 MB transfer rate. I tried a complete reinstall of windows and the problem still persists and has gotten progressively worse. The drive now rattles during stalls and stalls more often. I have ordered a new drive(WD Blue 640) along with a copy of Windows 7. (I was previously running the RC.)

I think I know the answer but to be safe with my data. My question is I have a second drive in this computer with my important files/media and was wondering if I need to do anything to that drive before installing the retail version of Windows 7 on the new drive. Will they be compatible/work together? Can I just replug it in after the fresh install or will I need to off load the data to some third party storage and reformat the second drive?

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The second drive will not be touched by the Windows installer. Only the hard disk/partition that you install Windows to will be touched. But to be sure, just unplug it before installing the OS. After installation, plug it back in.

You should go into your BIOS and enable S.M.A.R.T. You can use a utility like Everest to check the S.M.A.R.T. results. It will give a better idea as to the condition of the drive.
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