Installing Vista

[jeffthedrunk]

I just bought a new faster hard drive that I want to use for vista and my program files. I want to use my old HD for all my music and video. The thing I want to know is if I clean install vista on my new HD, will I be able to delete vista on my old HD, once I have it on my new one. Or will I have to format my old drive to get rid of vista?

 

[mechBgon]

You should be able to manually delete the old Vista installation and boot files without a problem. Make sure you have the old drive disconnected while you're installing Vista on the new drive. Once you're done, you can connect the old drive again, take ownership of its contents, and remove what isn't needed.

It's possible that when you reconnect the old drive, the motherboard will go "oh cool, a new drive with a bootable OS on it! I'll make THAT the boot drive!" So on the first startup after adding the drive, you might want to go into the motherboard's BIOS menus and ensure that the newer drive is on top of the boot-device priority list. BIOS menus vary, so if you need help with this part, post what motherboard brand & model you have. Hope that helps

 

[jeffthedrunk]

Thanx for your help..and quick reply.

 

[seemingly random]

Assuming that the new drive is larger than the old drive, after the new installation is complete, copy the files from the 'old' drive to the new drive, reformat the old one and then copy the files back. This is a more sure way of erasing the visible and hidden Vista files. It would also inherently defrag the old drive.

 

[mechBgon]

That sounds like a good plan :thumbsup: