Installed new SSD - how to wipe old HD

[jeffs1717]

Hi all,

I have just recently installed a new Samsung 830 256GB SDD. I have already installed windows and my games/other things I want on the SDD. I have recovered all of my important files/documents from my old 512GB HD but now I would like to wipe it completely clean. I want to take the OS off the old drive and all the programs/files/everything so I theoretically have 512GB of free space on it.

Is it possible to wipe my old drive clean to the point where it is like brand new? Any help or advice on this is appreciated.

Thanks!
Jeff

 

[inzone]

You can do that in disk management, go to the start menue and right click on computer and select manage. Then in the next window select disk management when the next window opens you will see all of the drives that are connected to your computer. You right click on the drive you want to erase and delete the partition the you make a new partition and format it. The new partition will be the full size of the disk unless you want to make several partitions.

 

[Hawkeye22]

Before you format the drive or delete the partition, remove power from the hard drive and see if you can boot. Sometimes windows will put the boot loader on a different drive than the OS and you don't normally find out until you remove the drive and can no longer boot.

 

[jeffs1717]

Will this happen even if I had disconnected the HD sata cable when I installed the new SSD? My case does not have much space and I just removed the SATA cable from the HD and left the power plugged into it so it would be easier after I installed windows on my SSD. I can check either way but just curious.

 

[Hawkeye22]

Great! If you disconnected all drives but the one you installed the OS to, then you are fine as this forces windows to put the OS and boot loader onto the only available drive - the one you are installing to.

 

[jeffs1717]

Okay thank you. One last question - I used magician to update the firmware on my Samsung 830 and it said the firmware was up to date.

Do I still need to get the latest Intel RST driver? Does this have to be installed prior to putting windows on? If so, does it really make that much of a difference that it would be worth it to reinstall everything?

If I'm not even asking the right question let me know - most of this is very new to me. Thanks!

 

[inzone]

You may not need the latest RST driver but it wouldn't hurt to update the driver anyway and you will have to install Windows to update the driver so you can wait to do that untill after the Windows install.
You have to remember that drivers are for Windows and the only way to use the drivers is to have Windows installed so that the drivers can be loaded into Windows.