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View Full Version : Putting an old master drive into new computer as slave


Quill2006
12-12-2007, 09:03 PM
I have a new-ish desktop running Windows XP. I built it myself last year, as a replacement for my old pc, which was built by my brother. My old pc still runs, but not very well, and I don't use it anymore. I'd like to take my old, smaller hard drive, wipe and reformat it, and add it to my new pc as a slave.

In theory, I know how to wipe it (I was recommended DBAN http://dban.sourceforge.net/? Opinions?) and I know how to set it as a slave with the little jumpers, as I've installed a hard drive as a slave before.

What I don't know is how to format the drive once I've wiped it. What do I use? I don't want to put an OS on it, I just want to use it to store pictures and music and such. When I installed a slave drive before, I bought it new and it came with a disk to format it with. But the old drive definitely no longer has such a thing, if it ever had one.

Both hard drives are IDE, and I have plenty of cables and such. My specs:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4600+
2.41 GHz, 1GB RAM
Running XP Home SP2 with a 120 GB hard drive
Radeon X1900 Series Video

My other hard drive is 60GB. Don't know the manufacturer and can't get the information at the moment.

ktkendall
12-12-2007, 09:20 PM
Once you have it slaved on your new PC you can do everything you need to it by just going to windows disk management.

Cricket
12-12-2007, 10:02 PM
How to partition and format a hard disk in Windows XP (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/313348)

How to use Disk Management to configure basic disks in Windows XP (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309000/)

:) Cricket