[daveefarr]

Hi everyone! I need a little advice. I have a spare harddrive in my house which was from a defunct PC which still has Win2000 loaded on it. I want to wipe the harddrive and use it on my current pc which is running Win XP.

Can I just "Delete" everything from the old harddrive (including the Windows folders) or is there a proper and neater way I should be doing this?

Any and all advice is greatly appreciated!

Dave :0)

[Dave Hybrid]

Plug it into your current machine as a slave drive and format it.

[daveefarr]

hi! Thanks for the quick reply, this may sound daft but what is the best way to reformat it? I assume once the drive is installed I'll be able to Right Click on it and then select "Format Drive"? Or is there another, better way? Sorry to sound so ignorant! Still learning with no training! :0(

[Dave Hybrid]

Correct, open My Computer, right click, format.

[serverguy]

If its an IDE connected drive (big ribbon cable), then you need to make sure its jumpered right.

If it goes on the end of another IDE cable, after another device, then it needs to be set as slave. This is a bit confusing, as it doesn't actually matter whether it is first in the line of the IDE cable, or last, just one device needs to be set as slave, and one as master.

If it goes on a separate channel, ie another connector on the motherboard, and is the only device on the line, then it needs to be set as a master, and be on the end plug.

You may also need to go into the BIOS and press an auto detect button or similar to get it picked up if it doesn't work straight away.