Hi Everyone! appy Friday the 13th! I have a question on procedure or protocol. I will be attempting to re-install the OS on a computer. I will be doing it on a clean disk (brand new) and slaving out the other HD. So, is the proper sequence to re-format the existing hard drive to clean it out, shut down the PC, replace the original HD with the new one. Then change the CMOS to boot off the CD... do the install... then add the other HD as a slave? Don't want to screw anything up here... since I'm removing all info I'm not going to destroy anything either... Suggestions? Concerns? Anything??
Thanks
Paul

 

Your procedure sounds good to me. I

would suggest that if you need no information off the old drive Fdisk it then reformat. This is just a precaution in case your old drive has some virus hidden in the boot sector etc. Fdisk would clear the old drive completely.

Good Luck

 

Should I reformat it BEFORE I do the swap? Or post install on the new HD. I don't want any viruses to linger as well...

 

No, do not reformat the existing drive before installing Windows on the new drive. In fact, I would not even connect the old drive until AFTER I had formatted and installed Winsows on the new drive and installed the updates and at least installed my aiti-virus and spy-ware software.

 

I'm with racraft, remove the old drive, install the new, install windows, THEN install the old drive, then use windows to format it to NTFS.

Before you do any of that, make sure you have ALL the drivers you need on a CD, either the original driver CD's, or updated downloads from the manufacturer website.

 

And I wouldnt even reformat the old drive for a few days. There almost always seems to be something you forgot to backup/need.

 

Do not connect the old drive at the same time the new drives is connected until you fdisk the old drive.

As TAE said load the OS on the new drive and keep the old one around. But, if the old drive has a virus on it, connecting it at the same time as the new drive could result in the virus moving to the new drive.

In my business I just went through this with a customer who infected his new drive from a virus on the old one.

If you must connect both drives I would immediately scan the old one for virus and trojans at the first boot.

 

Thanks for all the great information. I successfully rebuilt the new HD and have not slaved out the other as of yet. This will happen in the near future. The computer is running better than it had before. All the crap is now gone. With the new A/V software from McAfee keeping the viruses in check. Thanks Again!