can I remove OS from my hard drive?

[Shephard]

I got my new computer set up and Windows 7 was fresh installed on my new SSD.

Right now I am using my new 1TB western digital I got 3 months ago on the backup computer. I haven't put it in the new computer until I get my video card.

I was wondering if I can remove the OS from this hard drive instead of reformatting. Maybe not because of all the registry files but worth asking.

If I reformat I have to backup some stuff, not too much though because I knew I was getting new computer.

I know I could just plug my HD in but the OS takes up like 80gb.

 

[groberts101]

sure you can. It won't be the cleanest way to use that drive and I would surely defrag it afterwards.. but it won't cause issues at all for a secondary and will give you time to move that data off at a later date.

Just make sure it wasn't plugged in when you installed W7 on the SSD(or the other systems HDD too) or the bootpart might actually be located on the HDD itself. W7 and some bios are funny like that.

 

[Shephard]

I don't mind reformatting, just wondering if this is worth doing.

do I just delete the Windows folder?

Windows 7 is already installed on my SSD. It's on the first SATA 6gb port.

 

[Nothinman]

The registry is just a handful of files, deleting the Documents and Settings and Windows directories will remove the registry just as well as any other files.

You may as well delete all of the system directories (e.g. Program Files, Program Files (x86), Documents and Settings, etc) because installed programs and such won't work without being reinstalled anyway. Just make sure you get everything from the Desktop, Downloads, etc directories in your old profile if you want them.

The big concern would be the boot files groberts101 mentions. If both drives were in the system when you installed Windows it may have placed the boot files on that drive. Disk Management should tell you if the boot files are on that partition, unintuitively it'll say system for the boot files and boot for the system/OS files.

 

[Shephard]

no they were not in the same system. this 1tb hard drive has been in my core2quad since I got it.

I just put the other system together, only ssd.

I think I will just reformat t this sounds like a pain.

 

[Nothinman]

It's not a pain, you just delete the directories like you would any other. It'll take a lot longer than a format, but it's not difficult.

 

[Dstoop]

To be fair, you'd be missing out on some space on the drive (usually about 100MB) used for the system reserved partition unless you did a full format. You can manually repartition the space with most third party partition management software, but its really not worth the hassle.

I'd just back up your stuff and reformat personally.