Windows 7 - Adding A Second (Used) Hard Drive

mgoblue · 07-23-2011

I'm running a custom built system, but want to add a used hard drive to the system so I can copy all of the old important files off it to the new hard drive. I had them all on an external, but the external failed a day or two after the backup, just my luck.

Is there any risk in me just plugging in the second hard drive to a SATA port? There is a lot of important data on it, so if it auto-formats or anything, that wouldn't be good.

speedgamer01 · 07-23-2011

I can guarantee nothing, but if you haven't tinkered around with the BIOS or with the Windows everything should be ok.
You plug it in, boot up into windows, it may install some drivers after startup, but most likely the drive will just appear in windows explorer as usual.

stormy13 · 07-23-2011

mgoblue, welcome to the Seven Forums.

As long as it doesn't run into any permission issues (which we can sort if it does), it is just a matter of plugging it in and letting Windows detect the new drive and it should be good to go. And no it won't auto format it or anything like that. About the only thing you may have to is go into Disk Management and assign it a driver letter.

P.S. Once it is installed instead of transferring everything over, you can always juts leave the drive in with everything on it and continue to use it as an extra storage drive.

mgoblue · 07-23-2011

Thanks guys, pretty much what I thought, but didn't want to run into any problems..

I would just leave it in, but since it's an old drive (~7 years) and taken its share of abuse, I'm just transferring all the important files, music, pictures and stuff to one more reliable. Then I'll format it to get rid of all the random files I don't need and have an extra drive for non-essential files I don't care about losing.

Windows 7 - Adding A Second (Used) Hard Drive

Adding A Second (Used) Hard Drive problems?