Formatting a Hard Drive for Storage

[Thudnut]

Hi Folks,
I have obtained an old hard drive from a friend who was scrapping their computer.  What I would like to do is use this hard drive purely for storage and back-up.

I have managed to format it, but only by installing windows xp on it.  I do not want an operating system on this second disk, so was wondering if there was any way to make it useable without an operating system.

If it can be done, please explain by using words of one syllable or less!!

Many thanks, in advance for your advice.

Thudders
(Now you understand my picture!)

[RJ_Paton]

Have a look at
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1778&page=9

[Thudnut]

Thank you.

I'll have a go tomorrow and let you know how I get on.

I'm grateful for your help.
Thudders

[downside]

Hi Thudnut

When you say you want to add the old hard drive to your PC - are you adding it as a slave or a master?  If you say you couldn't format it without installing Windows XP it sounds as though you have added it as a master.

In order to add the drive you need to have a ribbon cable that has 2 x 40 pin sockets on it:
1) one for the master hard drive
2) one for the slave hard drive

You need to attach a 4 socket power cable to it.
You then need to set the hard drive so that it is a slave, this usually entails removing the jumper from it.

After you have installed it when you power up the PC the BIOS should report that you have a Master and Slave IDE device loaded.

As Windows is loaded it will probably detect a new IDE device and install a driver for it and ask you to restart the computer.

After the restart click on my computer and you should see the two hard drives.
It you right click on the slave drive you will see an option to format it.

Good luck

downside

[Thudnut]

Falkrin, Downside.

Many thanks for your advice.  As a result of your guidance I have managed to completely format the hard drive and now use it as a slave.

I'm very grateful to you both.
Kind rgegards,
Thudders