"setting up" an OEM drive

marcplante

Senior member
Mar 17, 2005
687
9
91
I'm getting ready to update my computer and have bought

Mobo
CPU
RAM
HD.

Current box is fine, but getting flaky...running Win XP sP2

Are OEM Hard drives formatted?

Is the process as simple as starting up the PC with the new OS disk in the DVD drive?

or should I format it in my current PC using XP, then rebuild the HW and restart with the Win7 disc to install the OS and get it to recognize the new HW? Yes, I realize I'm using an RC, not commercial SW?

Is there a best sequence to set this up?

Thanks,

Marc
 

shabby

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
5,782
45
91
Oem hard drives are not formatted, you'll be asked to format it during the install procedure.
 

marcplante

Senior member
Mar 17, 2005
687
9
91
Strange. This one was formatted. The Win7 disk just copied files and I was done...too easy.

8^ D
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,587
10,225
126
Originally posted by: hclarkjr
same here, when i bought my WD black on newegg it was formated also.

That's bizarre. You got a customer return then.

The only HDs that should come formatted from the factory are USB external drives.
 

RebateMonger

Elite Member
Dec 24, 2005
11,586
0
0
Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
The only HDs that should come formatted from the factory are USB external drives.
Yeah, seems odd. I can't recall ever seeing a factory-formatted OEM hard disk, including recent WD, Hitachi, and Seagate disks. A client recently put a new WD 750 GB disk into a SATA tray (used for backups) without telling me, and backups started failing because the disk wasn't formatted.
 

tomt4535

Golden Member
Jan 4, 2004
1,758
0
76
The Windows setup probably formatted it automatically and you didn't even notice it.