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Wiping an Old HD to Create Space

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  • 26-09-2008 2:27pm
    #1
    Rabidlamb
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,202 ✭✭✭


    I have an old Dell PC which had a 80GB HD.
    After I got a new PC a few months back I purchased a HD Caddy so I'd have an external HD to do backups.

    There's XP on the old HD & whatever program files I hadn't uninstalled before putting it into the caddy.

    I need to know if it's safe to completely delete/format the old drive so I could use then use full 80GB.
    Do I need to have any program on it so it flashes up as an external drive once I connect it to the main PC.

    Hope this makes sense.


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    #2
    biologikal
    Closed Accounts Posts: 371 ✭✭biologikal


    Rabidlamb wrote: »
    I have an old Dell PC which had a 80GB HD.
    After I got a new PC a few months back I purchased a HD Caddy so I'd have an external HD to do backups.

    There's XP on the old HD & whatever program files I hadn't uninstalled before putting it into the caddy.

    I need to know if it's safe to completely delete/format the old drive so I could use then use full 80GB.
    Do I need to have any program on it so it flashes up as an external drive once I connect it to the main PC.

    Hope this makes sense.

    The hard drive can be completely blank, you don't need any programs or software on the drive to make it work.

    Be careful about booting your PC with it plugged in though in it's present state - if your PC is set up to boot from USB before an installed hard drive (from the BIOS), it will boot the OS on the old hard drive. So best thing is to boot up your PC, plug in the caddy, and format the old hard drive (you could delete the files, but you might run into read-only or system files that your present OS might refuse to delete, so best to just format the old hard drive, as long as you're certain there is no more important data on it).


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    #3
    Rabidlamb
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,202 ✭✭✭Rabidlamb


    That's the answer I was hoping for.

    Luckily there's nothing precious I need to keep so I'm off to start formatting.

    Thanks.


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