Adding an old harddrive to a newly built system

[LazyBonez23]

Hello,
I'm thinking about building a pc from scratch, for the experience and the fun, also i want a fast computer. I have a older pc that i want to use the hard drive from, it is a maxtor diamondmax 21 160GB SATA. My problem is that the old pc wont boot, but as far as i know you have to format the hard drive(and the OS from it) before adding it to the new system, i currently have a notebook, i am wondering if i can format the HDD from the notebook to succesfully run it in the new system.
Do I need to buy a new HDD, Thanks.

 

[alexoiu]

Hi,
You can use the Windows install DVD for formatting the HDD (during the installing process).

 

[hilltopmonk]

If you have a PC with a HDD in it, and your adding an extra drive, you just need to give it power and a SATA connection.

If you are going to use this HDD to install windows on, when you put the disk in it will ask you to create a partition and format it. - you do not need to do this on a seperate machine

 

[costcosaurus]

Just connect the old hard drive to your new PC, and boot from your Windows installation disc. Make sure you buy an SSD to install your new Windows OS on to it, so that once your new OS is installed on your new SSD, you can go ahead and format the old hard drive from there.

 

[cball1311]

If you have the budget, I would go ahead and get a new HDD. Considering this is a 160 GB drive, I would assume the it is SATAI (if not SATAII). If you are doing a new machine, then it would be well worth it to get a motherboard that has SATAIII (6.0Gb/s) ports and a SATAIII HDD. A 1TB SATAIII Western Digital is like $69.99 on newegg or tigerdirect. Also, as costcosaurus mentioned, an SSD drive for your OS (in addition to the 1TB HDD) would be a huge speed improvement. I would get a 120GB SSD though, so you will have some headroom once the OS is installed. Make sure you do some information collection on SSDs if you go this route as they operate differently than spindle drives.

 

[LazyBonez23]

Hi,
You can use the Windows install DVD for formatting the HDD (during the installing process).

Thanks, I was just worried that windows xp was saved on the HDD and the new system would try boot into it.

 

[alexoiu]

No, since you'll set in BIOS the DVD drive as the primary boot device.

 

[LazyBonez23]

No, since you'll set in BIOS the DVD drive as the primary boot device.

Thanks

 

[LazyBonez23]

when i boot the new pc will it go into the bios menu or will i have to press a key to access the bios menu thanks

 

[alexoiu]

Usually it's the DEL key.

 

[LazyBonez23]

i will look out for when to press it but what would happen if i were to miss it? i just dont want it to fry any of the other parts by trying to load the old OS and all the settings from the old hardware

 

[alexoiu]

No big issues. In the worst case, you'll probably get a BSOD. In a good case, the system will boot from it.

 

[costcosaurus]

Try hitting F8 on the BIOS splash screen to bring up the boot priority menu.

 

[LazyBonez23]

If i do get a bsod do i just switch the system off by holding in the power or are there any procedures to take or do i just have to try again?

 

[alexoiu]

Either that or the reset button.

 

[LazyBonez23]

Try hitting F8 on the BIOS splash screen to bring up the boot priority menu.

Thanks man

 

[LazyBonez23]

Either that or the reset button.

Thanks for your help

 

[LazyBonez23]

Best answer selected by lazybonez23.